JEWS, BABIS AND BAHA'IS

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Hamadan

HAKĪM MASĪḤ

    The Babi-Baha'i approach to Hamadani Jews began around 1280./1863-4 with the mercantile and teaching activities of the Naraqi brothers Muhammad Jawad and Muhammad Baqir. In 1294 / 1877-8 the Jewish physician, Dr. Hakim Aqa Jan, attended the sick wife of Muhammad Baqir-i Naraqi and was treated respectfully, not as one "unclean" (najis). Muhammad Baqir was a Baha'i who showed knowledge of and a positive attitude towards the Torah and the Injil and informed Hakim Masih of the new religion and of the fulfillment of the prophecies of the Hebrew Bible. As a result both Hakim Aqa Jan and his cousin, Mirza Abd al-Rahim Hafiz as well subsequently as many others of his relatives were converted.  Aqa Muhammad Baqir-i Naraqi was a successful Baha'i teacher of the Hamadani Jews.

        A significant event relative to 19th century Jewish conversions to the Babi-Baha'i religions was the fact that Hakim Masih, a one time court physician to Muhammad Shah (with whom he traveled on pilgrimage to Karbila, Iraq) stopped at Baghdad where he was deeply attracted to the Babi Cause by the stunning knowledge, eloquence, and religiosity of Fatima Baraghani, known as Qurrat al-`Ayn or Tahirah. a major disciple, `Letter of the Living'  of the Bab. Hakim Masih heard Tahirih debating with Shi`i clerics in Baghdad, at the house of Shaykh Muhammad Shibl. As a result of this experience he subsequently made enquiries in Baghdad and elsewhere until, a decade or so later, he came to attend 'Ali Muhammad, Ibn-i Asdaq (d. Tihran 1928), the young child of Ism-Allah al-Asdaq (d.1889), who, in 1278 A.H. (1861-2 C.E.),

 

    Hakim Masih had one son named Hakim Sulayman whose youngest son was Lutf-Allah al-Hakim [=Lotfu'llah Hakim] (1888-1968)  who became a member of the first elected international Baha'i authority, the  Universal House of Justice (1963>).