a destination for pilgrimage by his followers, known as Bahá’ís, who now reside in 236 countries and territories and number between 5 and 8 million. Baháʼís regard Baháʼu'lláh as a messenger or manifestation of God in succession to Buddha, Jesus, or Muhammad. Name, title, and pronunciation Baháʼu'lláh (, ) is a title meaning "Glory of God". He was born Ḥusayn-ʻAlí, and as the son of a nobleman in the province of Núr, he was known as Mírzá Ḥusayn-ʻAlí Núrí (Persian: میرزا حسین‌علی نوری‎). In 1848, at the Conference of Badasht, he took the title Baháʼ (بهاء), Arabic for "glory" or "splendour". Many symbols and phrases of the Baháʼí Faith derive their significance from the word Baháʼ. For example, a nine-pointed star or nine-sided temples are references to the numerical value of Baháʼ according to a system of numerology (b=2, h=5, á=1, ʼ=1), the word Baháʼí indicates a follower of Baháʼ, and his son ʻAbdu'l-Bahá (Servant of Baháʼ) chose his title to demonstrate servitude toward Baháʼu'lláh. In the 1930s, Baháʼís adopted a standardized system of transliterating Arabic that renders Arabic faithfully into Roman script. The vowels without diacritical marks are short, and those with diacritical marks are long. His name is pronounced in four syllables: Ba, as in bat; há, as in hard; the apostrophe-like mark after "Bahá" is for the Arabic letter hamza which represents the glottal stop; u'l as in old (the apostrophe represents a contraction and is not pronounced); and láh as in law. Common transliterations of the name, with or without diacritical marks, include Baha'u'llah, Bahaullah, and Baháʼ Alláh. Early life in Iran Baháʼu'lláh was born in Tehran, Iran on 12 November 1817. Baháʼí authors trace his ancestry to Abraham through both his wives Keturah and Sarah, to the prophet Zoroaster, to King David's father Jesse, and to Yazdigird III, the last king of the Sassanian Empire. His mother was Khadíjih Khánum, his father Mírzá ʻAbbás-i-Núrí, known as Mírzá Buzurg, served as vizier to Imám-Virdi Mírzá, the twelfth son of Fath-ʻAli Shah Qajar. Baháʼu'lláh married Ásíyih Khánum, the daughter of a nobleman, in Tehran in 1835 when he was 18 and she was 15. In his early twenties Baháʼu'lláh declined the life of privilege offered by his aristocratic lineage, instead devoting his time and resources to a range of charitable works that earned him renown as "the Father of the Poor". Acknowledgment of the Báb In May