YAHYA SOBH-E AZAL, MIRZA

born 1831, Tehran died April 29, 1912, Famagusta, Cyprus half brother of Baha' Ullah (the founder of the Baha'i faith) and leader of his own Babist movement in the mid-19th century Ottoman Empire. Yahya was the designated successor of Sayyid Ali Muhammad, a Shi'i sectarian leader known as the Bab (Arabic: gate, referring to one who has access to the hidden imam). The Bab was executed in 1850, and by the following year his followers regarded Yahya Mirza as the Bab, in spite of his youth. To avoid persecution by orthodox Shi'ite authorities, he fled Iran in 1853 to Turkish Baghdad where he remained for a decade along with his followers, called Azalis or Babis. In 1866, in Edirne, a schism erupted between Yahya and Baha' Ullah, who now claimed to be divine. In order to stop the sectarian strife which erupted among the followers of each, the Ottoman authorities exiled both, sending Yahya to Cyprus in 1868. When Cyprus came under British rule in 1878 he became a pensioner of the crown and lived out his days in obscurity. Although reviled by the followers of Baha' Ullah, some, particularly in Iran, still regard Yahya as the true spiritual leader.