Jináb-i-Quddús ()(c.1820–1849), is the title of Mullá Muḥammad ʻAlí-i-Bárfurúshi, who was the most prominent disciple of the Báb. He was the eighteenth and final Letter of the Living.
Background
Quddús was born some time between years 1815–1822, the variance being due to different sources. The latter date is specified by Nabil in The Dawn-breakers. Amanat [1987] reasons that the most likely date is 1819–1820 as it is in line with other sources.
Quddús was born to a family of rice cultivators in the outskirts of Bárfurúsh. He spent part of his childhood as a house servant of the local Shaykhí leader Mullá Muhammad-Hamza Sharíʻat-madár.
Education
He was sent to the town of Sárí for a madrassa education. Sometime in the mid-1830s he met Mullá Husayn (the first Letter of the Living) and other future Bábís after he joined a small group of students in Mashhad.
When he was eighteen, Quddús left for Karbala and spent four years as a student in Sayyid Kázim's circle. He returned to Bárfurúsh circa 1843.
He was described as a charismatic mullá (religious leader) with "affability, combined with dignity and bearing" and he became a notable person within his hometown. Mírzá Músá, who met him in 1846, said: "whoever was intimately associated with him was seized with an insatiable admiration for the charm of the youth".
As a Bábí
He met the Báb in Shiraz and traveled with him as his companion on pilgrimage to Mecca, leaving Búshihr on the 19th of Ramadán (October, 1844), and arriving in Mecca on the first of Dhi'l-Hájjih (December 12, 1844). During this visit the Báb made his first public declaration, openly challenging Mírzá Muhít-i-Kirmání, one of the most outstanding exponents of the Shaykhí school, and sending a letter conveyed by Quddús to the Sharif of Mecca.
Back in Búshihr (February–March, 1845), the Báb indicated to Quddús that they would never meet again:
"Yours will be the ineffable joy of quaffing the cup of martyrdom for His sake. I, too, shall tread the path of sacrifice, and will join you in the realm of eternity." (quoted in The Dawn-Breakers, pg 143)
In Shiraz Quddús experienced his first persecution as a Bábí, when he and Mullá Sádiq had their beards burned, then their noses pierced, and threaded with halters; "then, having been led through the streets in this disgraceful condition, they were expelled from the city." (See God Passes By, pg 11) This incident also made the newspapers eventually echoing in the UK starting November 1, 1845, followed by the US, Australia, and New Zealand. Following his expulsion he travelled across Persia teaching of the new religion, and was one of three major figures in the Conference of Badasht (June–July 1848). One of the most important Babi leaders and regarded by his contemporaries as the exponent of the less radical, more conservative element within the Babi movement, Quddús ostensibly distanced himself from Tahirih's radicalism and break from Islam. However, this was in fact part of what Shoghi Effendi described as "a pre-conceived plan designed to mitigate the alarm and consternation which such a conference was sure to arouse" and, to the dismay of some Babi's and the appreciation of others, Quddús wholeheartedly embraced Tahirih's radicalism and the two departed Badasht together on the same camel.
According to Moojan Momen and Todd Lawson, the writings of Quddús,"display a close similarity to that of the Báb in both form and content"
Battle of Fort Tabarsi
From October 10, 1848 to May 10, 1849, the first major military confrontation took place between the Bábís and the local military, instigated by the Islamic clergy. A group of over 200 Bábís were initially attacked by mobs in Bárfurúsh, and fled to the nearby shrine of Shaykh Tabarsi, where they built a defensive fort and received escalating attacks, initially local raids, but later organized imperial regiments. Although the initial clash involved Mullá Husayn, Quddús became the commander of the Bábís upon his arrival at the fort.