Shaykhi

followers of a Muslim Shiite sect established in the late 18th century by Sheikh Ahmad al-Ahsai (born 1744; died 1827 or 1828), who preached in Iran and Iraq. The first tenet of the sect was belief in the inevitability of the coming of the Mahdi, who would destroy the injustice that the Shaykhi thought had spread throughout the land. The second tenet was belief in the appearance of a man whom the Shaykhi called the Gate (bab), who would be an intermediary between the Mahdi and the people. The foundations of the sect’s teachings were developed by the Bab (seeBABISM). In the 1840’s the sect essentially disintegrated.