Baháʼí Faith

• 1. Introduction

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  The Baháʼí Faith has faced persecution in Iran, the land where it began, since its earliest days. Baháʼu'lláh established this religion in the 19th century, and its followers, called Baháʼís, now live in most of the world's countries and territories. Iran, however, remains the place where they have suffered most.

  The story raises several questions. Who were the three central figures of the faith, and what did each of them endure? How does a religion with no clergy govern itself and keep its unity? And why does the number nine appear again and again in its symbols?

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• 2. The Báb

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  On the evening of the 22nd of May 1844, a merchant named Siyyid ʻAlí-Muhammad of Shiraz gained his first convert. He took the title the Báb, which pointed to his later claim to the status of Mahdi of Shia Islam. His followers became known as Bábís. Islamic clergy saw his teachings as blasphemous, and the Bábís faced growing persecution and torture. In several places the conflict escalated into military sieges by the army of Shah Naser al-Din Shah Qajar. The Báb himself was imprisoned. In 1850 he was publicly executed in Tabriz for the crime of heresy.

  A movement called the Shaykhi had come immediately before him, and Baháʼís trace their beginnings through it. The Báb taught that God would soon send a new messenger. His writings introduced the phrase "He whom God shall make manifest". Baháʼís believe this messianic figure was announced in the scriptures of all the world's great religions. Baháʼu'lláh claimed to be that figure.

  Three Baháʼí holy days belong to the Báb: his birth, his death and his declaration. Baháʼís count him among their three central figures. His writings are inspired scripture, though the laws and teachings of Baháʼu'lláh superseded them. He is estimated to have written 135 works, and extracts translated into English were compiled in Selections from the Writings of the Báb in 1976. A historical account of the Bábí movement, The Dawn-Breakers, is one of three books every Baháʼí is urged to "master" and read "over and over again".

  His tomb stands on Mount Carmel in Haifa, Israel, and is an important place of pilgrimage. His remains were brought secretly from Iran to the Holy Land. They were eventually placed in a tomb built on a spot that Baháʼu'lláh himself had designated. That man, Mírzá Husayn ʻAlí Núrí, was an early follower of the Báb, and his own ordeal began in 1852.

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• 3. Exile and Prison

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  In August 1852, a few Bábís made a failed attempt to assassinate the shah, Naser al-Din Shah Qajar. The shah answered by ordering the killing, and in some cases the torture, of about fifty Bábís in Tehran. Bloodshed spread across the country. Newspapers of the period reported hundreds killed by October, and the toll reached tens of thousands by the end of December.

  Mírzá Husayn ʻAlí Núrí had no part in the plot. He was nonetheless imprisoned in the Síyáh-Chál dungeon of Tehran. After four months, the intervention of the Russian ambassador won his release. Expelled from Iran, he traveled to Baghdad, then part of the Ottoman Empire, and joined other exiled Bábís there. He later took the title Baháʼu'lláh.

  In Baghdad, his leadership revived the persecuted followers of the Báb back in Iran. Iranian authorities asked for his removal, and the Ottoman sultan summoned him to Constantinople, now Istanbul. In 1863, at the time of his removal from Baghdad, Baháʼu'lláh first told his family and followers that he was the promised prophet. He said the revelation had come to him years earlier, in the Síyáh-Chál dungeon.

  A rival loyalty complicated matters. Subh-i-Azal, the appointed leader of the Bábís, did not recognize Baháʼu'lláh's claim, and tension between the two grew from the first exile from Iran. Over the rest of his life, almost all Bábís gave their allegiance to Baháʼu'lláh and came to be known as Baháʼís. A remnant became known as Azalis, and modern Baháʼís regard them as apostates.

  He spent less than four months in Constantinople. A campaign of defamation by the Persian ambassador turned the Ottoman authorities against him. The sultan's government decreed a further exile to Adrianople, now Edirne, and he answered with a letter voicing severe chastisement. In Adrianople he was placed under house arrest for four years. During those years he began declaring his mission in letters to the world's religious and secular rulers, including Pope Pius IX, Napoleon III and Queen Victoria. In 1868 a royal decree banished all Bábís to either Cyprus or ʻAkká.

  Baháʼu'lláh spent the remainder of his life in or near the Ottoman penal colony of ʻAkká, now Acre in Israel. His confinement was at first strict and harsh. Later he was allowed to live in a home near the town, though he officially remained a prisoner of the city. He died there in 1892. Baháʼís regard his resting place at Bahjí as the Qiblih, the place toward which they turn in prayer each day.

  He produced over 18,000 works in Arabic and Persian, and only 8% of them have been translated into English. At the time of his death, he had followers in 13 countries of Asia and Africa.

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• 4. Servant and Guardian

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  ʻAbbás Effendi, the eldest son of Baháʼu'lláh, chose for himself the title ʻAbdu'l-Bahá, which means Servant of Bahá. His father's will appointed him leader of the community. He had shared the long exile and imprisonment, and his own confinement ended only with the Young Turk Revolution in 1908. After his release he lived a life of travel, speaking, teaching and correspondence with communities and individuals. Baháʼís consider him the perfect exemplar of their teachings.

  As of 2020, more than 38,000 documents containing his words survive, and they vary widely in length. Only a fraction have been translated into English. Well-known titles include The Secret of Divine Civilization, Some Answered Questions, the Tablet to Auguste-Henri Forel, the Tablets of the Divine Plan and the Tablet to The Hague. Notes taken at his talks during his journeys to the West were published in volumes such as Paris Talks.

  Under his leadership, the religion gained a footing in Europe and America and was consolidated in Iran. He died in Haifa in 1921. Baháʼís mark that year as the end of what they call the heroic age of the religion, which began in 1844.

  His will named his eldest grandson, Shoghi Effendi, as the first Guardian of the Baháʼí Faith. Shoghi Effendi served for 36 years as head of the religion. He translated Baháʼí texts, developed the Baháʼí World Centre and kept up a voluminous correspondence with communities and individuals around the world. He also built the administrative structure of the religion.

  In 1937, he launched a seven-year plan for the Baháʼís of North America, followed by another in 1946. In 1953 came the first international plan, the Ten Year Crusade. Its goals were extremely ambitious. They included expanding Baháʼí communities and institutions, translating texts into several new languages and sending pioneers into nations not yet reached.

  Shoghi Effendi died unexpectedly after a brief illness on the 4th of November 1957 in London, England. The circumstances did not allow a successor to be appointed. He is buried in New Southgate Cemetery in Barnet, London. In letters during the Crusade, he had announced that further plans would follow under an institution that had not yet been elected.

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• 5. Governing Without Clergy

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  Every five years, the members of all National Spiritual Assemblies elect the nine people who sit on the Universal House of Justice. The body is located in Haifa, Israel, near the Shrine of the Báb. Baháʼu'lláh established the institution, and ʻAbdu'l-Bahá clarified its relationship to the appointed, hereditary Guardianship. It was first elected in 1963 and has headed the religion ever since.

  Its duties are defined in the writings of Baháʼu'lláh and clarified by ʻAbdu'l-Bahá and Shoghi Effendi. They include teaching and education, implementing Baháʼí laws, addressing social issues and caring for the weak and the poor. Any male Baháʼí aged 21 or older is eligible for election to it. All other positions are open to male and female Baháʼís.

  At local, regional and national levels, Baháʼís elect nine-person Spiritual Assemblies that run the affairs of the religion. Appointed individuals also work at various levels to spread the teachings and protect the community. They are not clergy, because the Baháʼí Faith has none. On the 21st of April each year, the House sends a Ridván message to the worldwide community, with news of developments and guidance for the year ahead.

  The Nine-Year Plan began in 1964 and was the first in a series of multi-year international plans. Leaders wanted to keep expanding the religion, but also to consolidate new members, meaning to deepen their knowledge of the teachings. In the 1970s, Baháʼís in Colombia founded the Ruhi Institute to offer short courses, ranging from a weekend to nine days. The associated Ruhi Foundation was registered in 1992. Since the late 1990s, these courses have been the dominant way of deepening in the faith around the world. By 2013 there were over 300 training institutes and 100,000 people taking courses. The courses train communities to organize their own classes for the spiritual education of children and youth.

  Baháʼu'lláh also set rules for holding the community together, known as the Covenant. No individual follower may propose an inspired or authoritative interpretation of scripture. Each follower agrees to support the line of authority established in the scriptures, and the Universal House of Justice is the final authority on disagreements. The community has stayed free of serious fracturing. The few attempts at schism have either died out or remained tiny, numbering a few hundred adherents collectively. Followers of such splinter groups are called Covenant-breakers and are shunned.

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• 6. Beliefs and Scripture

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  Three principles anchor the teachings of Baháʼu'lláh: the unity of God, the unity of religion and the unity of humanity. Baháʼí writings describe a single, personal, almighty God who created all things. This God is inaccessible to direct knowledge. He is an "unknowable essence", known through divine qualities seen in creation and in the Manifestations of God. Baháʼís often use titles such as the All-Powerful or the All-Loving. They say these titles translate Godliness into human terms rather than describe God directly. The human purpose, in this view, is to know and love God through prayer, reflection and service to others.

  In Baháʼí belief, a single God reveals religion in an orderly and progressive way through the Manifestations of God. The Buddha, Jesus and Muhammad are named as the most recent before the Báb and Baháʼu'lláh. Each brings a somewhat broader revelation suited to its time and place. Specific social teachings, such as the direction of prayer or dietary restrictions, may be revoked by a later Manifestation. General principles such as neighbourliness and charity stay constant. The process is not expected to end, but Baháʼís do not expect a new Manifestation within 1000 years of Baháʼu'lláh's revelation.

  Baháʼís insist that theirs is a distinct tradition with its own scriptures and laws, not a sect of another religion. Most religious specialists now agree. They compare its Shiʻa Islamic background to the Jewish setting in which Christianity was established. The faith is also described as part of the family of Abrahamic religions, because it is monotheistic and recognizes its descent from Abraham.

  Baháʼí writings give every human a "rational soul". After death, the soul separates permanently from the body and continues in the next world, where it is judged by the person's actions. Heaven and Hell are taught as spiritual states of nearness to or distance from God, not physical places of reward or punishment.

  In 1911-1912, ʻAbdu'l-Bahá traveled to Europe and America and gave public talks that laid out the basic principles of the faith. He preached the equality of men and women, race unity and the need for world peace, ideas considered progressive in the early 20th century. The oneness of humanity, which Baháʼís view as an ancient truth, is the starting point. The equality of races and the end of extremes of wealth and poverty follow from it. So does the call for a united world federation. Practical steps include a universal language, a standard economy and system of measurement, universal compulsory education and an international court of arbitration to settle disputes between nations. Nationalism should give way to allegiance to the whole of humankind. Science, in this view, is in harmony with true religion. Shoghi Effendi described the equality of men and women as "the two wings on which the bird of human kind is able to soar".

  The Baháʼí canon gathers the writings of the Báb, Baháʼu'lláh, ʻAbdu'l-Bahá, Shoghi Effendi and the Universal House of Justice, along with the authenticated talks of ʻAbdu'l-Bahá. The writings of the Báb and Baháʼu'lláh are divine revelation. Those of ʻAbdu'l-Bahá and Shoghi Effendi are authoritative interpretation, and those of the House of Justice are authoritative legislation.

  Among the most important books of Baháʼu'lláh is the Kitáb-i-Aqdas, the "Most Holy Book", which defines many laws and practices for individuals and society. The Kitáb-i-Íqán, the "Book of Certitude", became the foundation of much Baháʼí belief. Some foundational texts are described as mystical, including the Seven Valleys and the Four Valleys. The Seven Valleys was written to a follower of Sufism, in the style of the Persian Muslim poet ʻAttar. It sets out the stages of the soul's journey toward God. First translated into English in 1906, it was one of the earliest books of Baháʼu'lláh available to the West. The Hidden Words holds 153 short passages in which Baháʼu'lláh says he distilled the basic essence of certain spiritual truths.

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• 7. Nine and Nineteen

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  The Arabic word Baháʼ, meaning glory or splendor, has a numerical value of nine. That link to the name of Baháʼu'lláh, together with nine being the highest single digit and a sign of completeness, explains the nine-pointed star. It is the most common symbol of the religion, and it is often set on Baháʼí gravestones. The ringstone symbol combines two five-pointed stars with a stylized Baháʼ. The Greatest Name is a calligraphic rendering of Yá Baháʼu'l-Abhá, "O Glory of the Most Glorious!", and it hangs in temples and homes.

  Baháʼí Houses of Worship follow the same logic. Each has nine sides, nine pathways leading outward and nine gardens around it. They are also called Mashriqu'l-Adhkár, Arabic for "Dawning-place of the remembrance of God". Both Baháʼís and non-Baháʼís may pray there. Only the scriptures of the Baháʼí Faith and other religions are read or chanted inside. Choirs may sing, but no instruments are played, no sermons are delivered and no ritual ceremonies are practiced. Eight "continental" Houses of Worship exist today, along with some national and local ones. Most communities still meet in homes or Baháʼí centres.

  The calendar devised by the Báb has 19 months of 19 days each, with four or five extra days to complete the solar year. Each month is named for an attribute of God, among them Baháʼ (Splendour), ʻIlm (Knowledge) and Jamál (Beauty). The new year, Naw Rúz, falls on the vernal equinox near the 21st of March, at the end of the month of fasting. Once in every month, the community gathers for the Nineteen Day Feast. It has three parts: prayer and scripture, consultation on community matters, and a social period. Baháʼís observe 11 holy days a year and suspend work on 9 of them.

  Baháʼís over the age of 15 recite an obligatory daily prayer in fixed words and form. They are also encouraged to offer devotional prayer, to meditate and to study scripture. Adults keep a Nineteen-Day Fast during daylight hours in March, with certain exemptions. Baháʼu'lláh asked for a voluntary payment of 19% on any wealth beyond what is needed to live comfortably, after debts are paid. The money goes to the Universal House of Justice. Burial has specific requirements, including a prescribed prayer, and embalming and cremation are strongly discouraged.

  Backbiting and gossip are denounced. Drinking and selling alcohol are forbidden, as are partisan politics and begging as a profession. Monasticism and an ascetic lifestyle are also prohibited. Baháʼu'lláh wrote that work done in the spirit of service to humanity has a rank equal to prayer and worship in the sight of God. Prayer and fasting are the responsibility of the individual. A Baháʼí who publicly disregards the laws or commits gross immorality may be administratively expelled by the National Spiritual Assembly, but expulsion does not involve shunning.

  Marriage exists mainly to foster spiritual harmony between a man and a woman and to give children a stable and loving home. Baháʼu'lláh praised marriage, discouraged divorce and required chastity outside it. Parents should not choose partners for their children. Once two people decide to marry, however, they must receive the consent of all living biological parents, whether or not those parents are Baháʼí. The ceremony is simple. The only compulsory part is that bride and groom each read, before two witnesses, the vow prescribed by Baháʼu'lláh: "We will all, verily, abide by the Will of God."

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• 8. Growth and Persecution

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  From roughly 200,000 adherents in 1950, the Baháʼí Faith grew to over 4 million by the late 1980s. Until the 1950s the vast majority of Baháʼís lived in Iran, and converts elsewhere were mostly in India and the Western world. Much of the late 20th century growth was seeded out of North America through the planned migration of individuals. In 2001, the sociologist David B. Barrett nonetheless called it "A world religion with no racial or national focus". Two demographers wrote in 2013 that it was the fastest-growing religion between 1910 and 2010, growing at least twice as fast as the population of almost every United Nations region.

  Sub-Saharan Africa holds 29.9% of Baháʼís and South Asia 26.8%, followed by Southeast Asia with 12.7% and Latin America with 12.2%. In 2015 the faith was the second largest religion in Iran, Panama, Belize, Bolivia, Zambia and Papua New Guinea, and the third largest in Chad and Kenya. About 110,000 followers lived in Iran as of 2008. Counting is difficult, because Baháʼís are a tiny fraction of most national populations and are often under-reported. Baháʼí sources claimed "more than five million" in 1991-92. Since around 2001, the Universal House of Justice has prioritized statistics on levels of activity over the number of avowed adherents.

  Malietoa Tanumafili II of Samoa, who became a Baháʼí in 1968 and died in 2007, was the first serving head of state to embrace the faith. Baháʼís consider Queen Marie of Romania the first crowned head to accept and promote the teachings of Baháʼu'lláh.

  Growth has not been even. From the late 1920s to the late 1980s, the religion was banned and its adherents harassed in the Soviet-led Eastern Bloc. The same happened across some countries of sub-Saharan Africa from the 1970s into the 1990s, after the faith had "hugely increased" there. In 1989, the Universal House of Justice named Bolivia, Bangladesh, Haiti, India, Liberia, Peru, the Philippines and Taiwan as places where growth had been notable in earlier decades.

  A message from the Universal House of Justice dated the 20th of October 1983 urged Baháʼís to seek ways to take part in the social and economic development of their communities. The count of Baháʼí-inspired development projects rose from 129 in 1979 to 1,482 in 1987. By 2017, the Baháʼí Office of Social and Economic Development estimated 40,000 small-scale projects, 1,400 projects with long-term sustained activity and 135 Baháʼí-inspired organizations. Schools, agricultural co-ops and clinics were part of this work from early on, along with a priority on female education.

  Baháʼu'lláh wrote of the need for world government, so the Baháʼí International Community supports the League of Nations and the United Nations, with some reservations about the present structure of the latter. It has offices at the United Nations in New York and Geneva. It also holds consultative status with bodies including UNICEF, ECOSOC, the UN Environment Programme and the World Health Organization. At the 2000 Millennium Forum, a Baháʼí was invited as one of the few non-governmental speakers.

  Persecution has run alongside this growth. More than 200 Baháʼís were executed in Iran between 1978 and 1998. Leaders in some majority-Islamic countries treat the faith as apostasy from Islam rather than as an independent religion. Rights have been restricted in Egypt, Afghanistan, Indonesia, Iraq, Morocco, Yemen and several countries in sub-Saharan Africa.

  In Iran, clergy declared the Báb's followers enemies of God, and the directive led to mob attacks and public executions. In Yazd in 1903, more than 100 Baháʼís were killed. The Tarbiyat schools in Tehran were closed in the 1930s and 1940s. A coordinated campaign began in 1955, with propaganda on national radio and in official newspapers. During it, the Baháʼí center in Tehran was demolished on the orders of General Teymur Bakhtiar. In the late 1970s, revolutionary propaganda falsely portrayed Baháʼís as economic threats and as supporters of Israel and the West.

  Since the Islamic Revolution of 1979, Iranian Baháʼís have had homes ransacked and have been banned from universities and government jobs. Several hundred have received prison sentences, most recently for joining study circles. Cemeteries have been desecrated. The House of the Báb in Shiraz has been destroyed twice. In May 2018 and March 2018, students were expelled from universities in Isfahan, Zanjan and Gilan because they were Baháʼí. On the 14th of May 2008, members of an informal body known as the Friends, which oversaw the community's needs, were arrested and taken to Evin prison. Seven leaders were eventually sentenced to 20 years each. The sentences were reduced to ten, then restored to 20 in March 2011. Some scholars, watchdog agencies and human rights organizations consider the opposition in Iran an attempted genocide.

  The Iranian government claims the faith is a political organization, not a religion. It has never produced convincing evidence for this. In 2019, national identity card applications dropped the "other religions" option, which effectively cut Baháʼís off from official government services.

  Egypt made Baháʼí institutions and community activities illegal in 1960 and confiscated all community properties. When identity documents were computerized in the 1990s, only Muslim, Christian or Jewish could be listed as religion. Baháʼís without papers could not work, attend school, be treated in hospitals, travel abroad or vote, unless they lied about their faith. After a protracted legal process, the interior minister issued a decree on the 14th of April 2009 allowing a dash in place of the religion. The first identity cards under the decree were issued to two Baháʼís on the 8th of August 2009.

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