Fatimih-Sultan Khanum

Fatimih-Sultan Khanum (c. 1832 - ????) was a half sister of Bahá’u’lláh. She ultimately became a supporter of Mírzá Yaḥyá.

Biography

Fatimih was likely born in Tehran in approximately 1832. She was a daughter of Mírzá Buzurg and Kulthum Khanum. She married Mírzá Mahmud, the son of Mirza Muhammad-‘Ali who was son of Bahá’u’lláh's mother Khadíjih Khánum by her first husband. They were both initially close to Bahá’u’lláh, and became Bábí's in the 1840's.

Fatimih and Mahmud had five children, three daughters who were Fakhriyyih, Zamzam, and Hamidih, and two sons who were Mirza Muhammad Khan and Ibrahim Khan. Hamidih became a steadfast Bahá’í and married Mírzá Fadlu'llah the son of Mírzá Muḥammad-Ḥasan. Fakhriyyih married Mirza Muhammad Hadi, the eldest son of Mírzá Yaḥyá, and Muhammad Khan married Maryam who was a daughter of Mírzá Yaḥyá.

Fatimih's husband was imprisoned in 1852 when the Bábí community faced intense persecution following an assassination attempt on the Shah of Iran by individual Bábí's acting alone. After Bahá’u’lláh was exiled to Baghdad Fatimih and her husband became influenced by supporters of Mírzá Yaḥyá, particularly her sister Shah-Sultan Khanum, and they followed Yaḥyá when he openly rejected Bahá’u’lláh and attempted to establish himself as an independent leader of the Bábí's in the 1860's.

The date of Fatimih's passing is not known but she passed in Tehran and was buried in the Imamzadih Ma'sim alongside her sister Shah-Sultan and other family members.