Bab's Opium Trade in Bushehr and Collaboration with Sasoons

Sayyid Ali Muhammad Shirazi

 

Sayyid Ali Muhammad Shirazi the founder of the deviant cult of Babism was born in the lunar month of Muharram, 1235 Hijra in Shiraz. His father’s name was Rida and his mother was Fatima Begam or Khadijih Begam. He started learning to read and write regularly in Shiraz. He missed his father when he was just a kid; so, he went to Bushehr port and was under the guardianship of his maternal uncle; He learned in one of Shaykhiyyih cult’s followers school for a period of time. When he became mature worked in Sasoon company which belonged to a Jewish capitalist in Baghdad with his maternal uncle. That company was merchandising opium in Bushehr and Mumbai ports. At the beginning of this cooperation, it was Siyyed Ali Muhammad’s duty to rub the opium; that is he must put the raw opium which was kept in big jars in the form of liquid on a special board rub it for hours in order for the liquid to change into hard and compressed bullets. Then he changed them into 20-gram roll in order to be sent to the office of  “Sasoon Commercial Firm” in Mumbai and to be distributed among the native people of southern Asia specially China with a low price according to the colonial policy of England. The famous Namazi family in Shiraz was distributing the opium in China and earning a great deal of money through receiving free opium from the Jewish people and distributing in the region.

Many experts believe that at least 10 hours working under the blazing sun of Bushehr port had med Sayyid Ali Muhammad Shirazi’s common sense and he had suffered from melancholia because he was claiming for dominance on the moon and stars. These note has been written in "The Russian Ambassador's Memoirs".

Seyyid Ali Muhammad Bab’s familiarity with the Jewish capitalist family

Sasoon company had important impressions on him and made him familiar with the great Jewish centers. According to some historians, the main bases of his claims for being the gate of Imam Mehdi or according to Shaykhiyyih belief his claim for the forth pillar were formed since these days and because of his relationship with these centers.

Seyyid Ali Mohammad Shirazi (Bab) was trained in his rudimentary education in Bushehr by a teacher called Shaikh Aabid who was a hardcore Shaykhi Cultist and was one of Shaikh Ahmad Ahsaee’s (the great leader and the founder of this cult) followers.