143Absolute Light by losing itself in its universality." In itself non-existent, but existent in the eternal Friend: how wonderful that it is and is not at the same time. " But is the spirit free to choose its course? Hadi criticises the Rationalists for their setting up man as an independent creator of evil, and accuses them of what he calls "veiled dualism". He holds that every object has two sides bright " side, and "dark" side. Things are combinations of light and darkness. All good flows from the side of light; ,evil proceeds from darkness. Man, therefore, is both free and determined.
But all the various lines of Persian thought once more find a synthesis in that great religious movement of Modern Persia - Babism or Bahaism, which began as a Shi`ah sect, with Mirza `Ali Muhammad Bab of Shiraz (b. 1820), and became less and less Islamic in character with the progress of orthodox persecutions. The origin of the philosophy of this wonderful sect must be sought in the Shi`ah sect of the Shaikhis, the founder of which, Shaikh Ahmad, was an enthusiastic student of Mulla Sadra's Philosophy, on which he had written several commentaries. This sect differed from the ordinary Shi`ahs in holding that belief in an ever present Medium between the absent Imam (the 12th Head of the Church, whose manifestation is anxiously expected by the Shi`ahs), and the Church is a fundamental principle of the Shi'ah religion. Shaikh Ahmad claimed to be such a Medium; and when, after the death of the second