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History. Bahaism as a religion had as its background two earlier and much different movements in nineteenth-century Shiʿite Shaikhism (followingShaikh Aḥmad Aḥsāʾī) and Babism. Shaikhism centered on theosophical doctrines and believed that a perfect Shiʿite existed on earth at all times, and many Shaikhis (as well as other Shiʿites) expected the return of the hidden Twelfth Imam in 1260/1844. Shaikhis in particular joined the messianic Babi movement of the 1840s, which shook Iran as Sayyed ʿAlī-Moḥammad Šīrāzī proclaimed himself, first thebāb or “gate” of the Twelfth Imam, and then the return of the imam himself. As the new creed spread, violence broke out between Shiʿites and Babis, ending when Qajar government troops intervened to besiege and massacre the Babis. The government executed the Bāb in 1850. Some Babi leaders in Tehran plotted, in revenge, the death of Nāṣer-al-Dīn Shah, but the assassination failed and large numbers of suspected Babis were tortured and killed.

An Iranian notable and important Babi figure, Mīrzā Ḥosayn-ʿAlī Nūrī, “Bahāʾ-Allāh” was imprisoned but found innocent after the attempted assassination. He was exiled to Iraq, in the Ottoman empire, then to Istanbul and Edirne in Turkey. He was accompanied by his younger half-brother, Mīrzā Yaḥyā Ṣobḥ-e Azal, whom the Bāb appears to have pointed to in 1850 as leader of the Babi community. The Bāb had also spoken of the advent of another messianic figure, “he whom God shall make manifest (man yoẓheroh Allāh),” and in 1863 in the garden of Necip Paşa in Baghdad Bahāʾ-Allāh informed a handful of close followers that he was the messianic figure promised by the Bāb (Ostād Moḥammad-ʿAlī Salmānī,Ḵāṭerāt, ms., International Bahāʾi Archives, Haifa; Eng tr. M. Gail,My Memories of Bahāδu’llāh, Los Angeles, 1982, p. 22). While in Edirne (1863-68) Bahāʾ-Allāh wrote letters to Babi followers in Iran openly proclaiming himself to be the spiritual “return” (rajʿa) of the Bāb. During the Edirne period relations between Bahāʾ-Allāh and Ṣobḥ-e Azal became increasingly strained, and in 1867 Bahāʾ-Allāh sent his younger brother a missive demanding his obedience to the new revelation, which Azal rejected. Babis in Iran were then forced to choose between Bahāʾ-Allāh and Azal. The vast majority accepted the assertions in Bahāʾ-Allāh’s writings that he was a manifestation of God (maẓhar-e elāhī) bearing a new revelation, rejecting Azal’s form of Babism. Although the Bahais date the inception of their religion from Bahāʾ-Allāh’s 1863 private declaration in Baghdad, the Bahai community only gradually came into being in the late 1860s, and most Babis did not become Bahais in earnest until after 1867, though many may have been partisans of Bahāʾ-Allāh earlier (Bahāʾ-Allāh, “Sūrat damm,”Āṯār-e qalam-e aʿlā IV, Tehran, 125Badīʿ/1968, pp. 1-15; “Lawḥ-e Naṣīr,”Majmūʿa-ye maṭbūʿa-ye alwāḥ, Cairo, 1920, pp. 166-202; Salmānī,Ḵāṭerāt, tr. pp. 42-48, 93-105).

In 1868 Bahāʾ-Allāh and some close followers were exiled to ʿAkkā, in Palestine, by the Ottomans, and Azal and his partisans were sent to Cyprus. The vast majority of Babis lived in Iran, and Bahāʾ-Allāh found ways to continue to send epistles and tablets (sing.lawḥ) to them. In 1873, while under house arrest in the old city of ʿAkkā, Bahāʾ-Allāh, in response to requests by the Bahai community in Iran for a new book of laws to accompany his new revelation, set down theAqdas (al-Ketāb al-aqdas,Ketāb-e aqdas “Most holy Book” [q.v.]), meant to supersede the Koran and the Bāb’s book of laws, theBayān.

One of the problems facing the Babis in the 1850s and 1860s was that of religious authority. With the execution of the Bāb and the massacre of many prominent Babi disciples, the original leadership of the religion was mown down. Regional sects developed within Babism, with local claimants to high station competing for allegiance. Azal, who followed a policy of keeping himself incognito, provided little effective leadership. Bahāʾ-Allāh won out partially because he solved these problems of legitimacy and organization. TheAqdas prescribes that in every locality a Bahai steering committee (termedbayt al-ʿadl “house of justice”) should be set up to administer the affairs of the religion. In addition, Bahāʾ-Allāh provided active leadership through his letters from exile, and through his close companions (calledmoballeḡīn “teachers”) who were sent back to Iran to implement his policies (al-Ketāb al-aqdas, Bombay, n.d., pp. 30-31; ʿAbd-al-Bahāʾ,Taḏkerat al-wafāʾ, Haifa, 1924; Kāẓem Samandarī,Tārīḵ-eSamandar wa molḥaqāt, Tehran, 131Badīʿ/1974; Mīrzā Ḥaydar-ʿAlī Eṣfahānī,Baḥjat al-ṣodūr, Bombay, 1913).

After 1873 the Bahais in Iran began to organize themselves in accordance with theAqdas and gradually began to follow its laws. For example, because of that book’s emphasis on the education of children of both sexes, informal Bahai schools were set up. The Christian missionary Bruce noted in 1874 in Isfahan the rapid increase in Bahais (letter of Reverend Bruce, 19 November 1874, in M. Momen, ed.,The Bábí and Bahá’í Religions,1844-1944: Some Contemporary Western Accounts, Oxford, 1981, p. 244). J. D. Rees of the Indian civil service found in 1885 evidence of substantial Bahai followings among the merchant class in Qazvīn, and among townsmen in Hamadān, Ābāda, and Mašhad (J. Rees, “The Bab and Babism,”Nineteenth Century 40, 1896, pp. 56-66, quoted in Momen,Bābí and Bahá’í Religions, p. 245). The government and the Shiʿiteʿolamāʾ carried out periodic persecution of the new religion, as in Isfahan in 1874 and 1880, in Tehran in 1882-83, and Yazd in 1891 (see missionary and consular reports in Momen,Bábí and Bahá’í Religions, pp. 251-305). Bahaism spread in this period, not only among Iranian Shiʿites but also among the Zoroastrians in Yazd and Jews in Kāšān and Hamadān (see the letters to the Zoroastrians by MīrzāAbu’l-Fażl Golpāyegānī in hisRasāʾel wa raqāʾem, ed. R. Mehrābḵānī, Tehran, 1978, pp. 463-511). Internationally, Bahaism spread from the late 1860s to 1892 in Iraq, Turkey, Ottoman Syria, Egypt, Sudan, the Caucasus, Turkish Central Asia, India, and Burma.

Bahāʾ-Allāh appointed his eldest sonʿAbbās Effendi ʿAbd-al-Bahāʾ to head up Bahaism after him. ʿAbd-al-Bahāʾ assumed the leadership of the religion in 1892 upon his father’s death, and was accepted by almost all Bahais as the perfect exemplar of his father’s teachings. Some of his younger half-brothers, led by Moḥammad-ʿAlī, joined a handful of Bahai “teachers” in opposing ʿAbd-al-Bahāʾ’s authority, but this small group eventually died out. From 1892 to 1921, under ʿAbd-al-Bahāʾ’s leadership, Bahaism spread to Tunisia, Arabia, North America, Europe, China, Japan, South Africa, Brazil, and Australia, as well as making further progress in countries where it had earlier been established, such as India. The well-organized Bahai community of the United States was particularly active in spreading the religion, and was encouraged to do so by ʿAbd-al-Bahāʾ in such of his writings as theAlwāḥ-e tablīḡī-e Amrīkā (in ʿAbd-al-Bahāʾ,Makātīb III, Cairo, 1921; tr.,Unveiling the Divine Plan, New York, 1919). In Iran Bahais continued to be active, and to spread their religion. They faced several waves of major persecutions. The 1896 assassination of Nāṣer-al-Dīn Shah by Mīrzā Reżā Kermānī (q.v.), a follower of SayyedJamāl-al-Dīn “Afḡānī”, was widely blamed on Babis or Bahais at first. Pogroms against Bahais were undertaken in 1903 in Rašt, Isfahan, and especially Yazd (Moḥammad-Ṭāher Malmīrī,Tārīḵ-ešohadāʾ-e Yazd, Cairo, 1926; diplomatic correspondence in Momen,Bábí and Bahá’í Religions, pp. 373-404). They were caught in the middle of the Constitutional Revolution of 1905-11. Despite the support for constitutionalism in Bahāʾ-Allāh’s writings, Bahai leaders were careful not to take sides too openly, primarily, it seems, in order to avoid provoking their opponents in the opposing camps thus endangering their vulnerable community, but probably also out of concern that their very identification with the cause might undermine it in Iran. Nevertheless, ʿAbd-al-Bahāʾ around 1906 urged Bahais to attempt to elect twoayādī-e amr Allāh “Hands of the cause of God” to parliament (copies of ms. letters in the author’s possession). He later became disillusioned with the Majles and urged Bahais to dissociate themselves from politics (ʿAbd-al-Bahāʾ,Resāla-ye sīāsīya, Tehran, 1913), a policy which gradually became frozen into a Bahai principle. Anti-Bahai attacks increased again at times of political unrest, and the early 1920s prelude to Reżā Khan’s coup also saw numerous pogroms (diplomatic correspondence in Momen,Bábí and Bahá’í Religions, pp. 405-52).

ʿAbd-al-Bahāʾ further refined the Bahai administrative apparatus, calling for elections of local Houses of Justice or Spiritual Assemblies (maḥfel-e rūḥānī-e maḥallī) by majority vote, and preparing for the election of national Spiritual Assemblies (maḥfel-e mellī) and of an international House of Justice (bayt al-ʿadl-e bayn al-melalī). Also in his will and testament (Alwāḥ-e waṣāyā, in ʿAbd-al-Ḥamīd Ešrāq Ḵāvarī, ed.,Resāla-ye ayyām-e tesʿa, Tehran, 103Badīʿ/1947, repr. 129Badīʿ/1973, pp. 456-84; tr. Shoghi Effendi,Will and Testament of ʿAbdu’l-Baha, New York, 1925) he appointed his grandsonShoghi (Šawqī) Effendi Rabbānī leader of Bahaism after him aswalī-e amr Allāh (Guardian of the cause of god). He stipulated that Shoghi Effendi should appoint the next guardian from among his children or close cousins. Some Bahais, like Ruth White, refused to accept Shoghi Effendi, others, like Aḥmad Sohrāb thought him too authoritarian. Only a miniscule number of Bahais, however, followed them, and Shoghi Effendi’s vigorous leadership and administrative abilities led to a great expansion in the number of Bahais world-wide. In his first decade of leadership he presided over the election of Bahai national Spiritual Assemblies in the British Isles (1923), Germany (1923), India (1923), Egypt (1924), the United States of America (1925), and Iraq (1931) (Shoghi Effendi,God Passes By, Wilmette, Ill., 1944, 1970, pp. 323-401; Ruḥíyyih [Mary Maxwell] Rabbānī,The Priceless Pearl, London, 1969).

After 1925 many Iranian Bahais began refusing to be identified by their family’s ancestral religion on their passports and other official papers, and Bahai institutions began issuing marriage certificates in accordance with the laws of theAqdas. In 1927 Bahais convened their first national conference of delegates from the nine provinces of Iran, and planned to begin annual national conventions like those held in the United States. Bahais organized for the establishment of primary schools, the improvement of the status of women, and the propagation of their religion. The secularism of the Reżā Shah government in the late 1920s at first helped the Bahais, who built a Bahai center (ḥaẓīrat al-qods) in Tehran, and began holding public meetings. There, eighty-four of the ninety-five delegates to the national convention gathered to elect the first national Spiritual Assembly in 1934 in accordance with the by-laws translated from those of the national Spiritual Assembly of the United States. Walī-Allāh Khan Warqā was elected chairman, ʿAlī-Akbar Forūtan became secretary. National committees were set up for children’s education, women’s progress, and the establishment of a Bahai house of worship (mašreq al-aḏkār) on a tract of land near Tehran (“Report Prepared by the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahāʾīs of Iran,”The Baháʾí World: A Biennial International Record 6, Wilmette, Ill., 1937, repr. 1980, pp. 94-108; “Bahāʾī Administrative Divisions in Iran,”Baháʾí World 7, Wilmette, Ill., 1939, pp. 571-75).

From 1934, however, the Reżā Shah period was not a particularly happy one for the Iranian Bahai community, though violence against them occurred much less frequently because of better security and less influence over affairs by the Shiʿiteʿolamāʾ. Reżā Shah’s autocratic rule meant he brooked no independence and uncontrolled activity from any social or religious institutions, including Bahaism. The rise of the Bahai administrative order was perceived as a challenge to this central policy, and therefore all schools belonging to the Bahai community were closed (seebahai schools) throughout Iran. Moreover, his government refused to recognize the validity of Bahai marriage certificates, banned the printing and circulation of Bahai literature, closed some local Bahai centers, confiscated Bahai ballot boxes at district conventions in some localities, forbade Bahais to communicate with their coreligionists outside Iran, dismissed some Bahai government employees, and demoted some Bahais in the military. Elections of the national Spiritual Assembly had to be held by mail (Knatchbull-Hugessen to Simon, no. 554, 15 December 1934, FO 371/17917, quoted in Momen,Bábí and Báhá’í Religions, pp. 477-78, sec also pp. 462-81; National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahais of Iran, “Annual Report,”Baháʾí World 7, Wilmette, Ill., 1939, pp. 133-45).

The installation of Moḥammad Reżā Pahlavī as shah in the 1940s signaled no change in the legal status of Bahaism. Looser government authority in that decade allowed an increase in major mob attacks on Bahais, such as those at Ābāda in May of 1944, and at Šāhrūd in July-August of 1944. In 1946-50 the national Spiritual Assembly of the Bahais of Iran adopted a six-point plan for spreading Bahaism and for improving the status of women. For the first time, women were elected to Bahai assemblies in Iran (they had served on them in the West much before), and women’s adult education and literacy classes were set up (Shiraz Diary, no. 91, 15-31 May 1944, FO 371/40162 in Momen,The Bábí and Bahá’í Religions, pp. 479-80; “Report from Persia,” ed. and tr. M. Gail,Baháʾí World 10, Wilmette, Ill., 1949, pp. 35-48; Horace Holley, “International Survey of Current Bahāʾī Activities,”Baháʾí World 11, Wilmette, Ill., 1951, pp. 34-36).

In 1955, in a move which seems to have done as much for the appeasement ofʿolamāʾ as to divert the attention of the general populace from unpopular policies, including the forging of a US-British-sponsored military alliance (theBaghdad Pact), the shah’s military destroyed the dome of the Bahai center in Tehran,Ayatollah Behbahānī (a pro-court clergyman) sent congratulatory telegrams to the shah and to Ayatollah Borūjerdī the chief Shiʿite clergyman in Qom. Theʿolamāʾ and pro-clerical deputies in the docile parliament took the opportunity to voice support for the complete outlawing of the Bahai faith, the jailing of all avowed Bahais, and the sequestration of all Bahai property. During this campaign some Bahai shops and farms were damaged by mob attacks, and a number of Bahais were assaulted. The government ultimately gave up the move, but the campaign did strengthen the hand of theʿolamāʾ with the government until the late 1950s (S. Akhavi,Religion and Politics in Contemporary Iran, Albany, N.Y., 1980, pp. 76-87).

In the 1950s Shoghi Effendi appointed a large number of Hands of the Cause, and constituted some of them as an International Bahai Council, in preparation for the election of the Universal House of Justice. In 1953 he launched a global campaign of peaceful proselytizing for Bahaism, the “Ten-year World Crusade (jehād),” which sought with some success to spread the religion even to remote areas and islands. Shoghi Effendi did not live to see the end of the project, dying in London in 1957. Because he died childless, and the actions of his eligible relatives had forced him to excommunicate them, he had found it impossible to appoint a Guardian to succeed him. In 1963 the International Bahai Council convened in London a global congress and the first Universal House of Justice was elected. It included five American members, two from Britain, and two Iranians. Almost all Bahais accepted its authority, though a small number followed Hand of the Cause Mason Remey, who declared himself the Guardian despite ʿAbd-al-Bahāʾ’s stipulation of descent from Bahāʾ-Allāh. The Remey movement remained tiny. The Universal House of Justice was thereafter elected every five years by members of the world’s national Spiritual Assemblies. Its seat, like that of ʿAbd-al-Bahāʾ and Shoghi Effendi Rabbānī, is in Haifa, now Israel, near the shrines of the Bāb and Bahāʾ-Allāh. After 1957 Bahaism became a mass movement in some parts of the Third World, in Africa, South Asia, and South America. Some of the first mass conversions occurred in Uganda, India, and Bolivia (P. Haney, “The Institution of the Hands of the Cause;” letters issued by the Hands of the Cause 1957-63; and M. Hofman, “International Survey of Current Bahāʾī Activities,” inBaháʾí World 13, Haifa, 1970, pp. 245-309, 333-94; B. Ashton, “The Most Great Jubilee” and “The Universal House of Justice,”Baháʾí World 14, Haifa, 1974, pp. 57-80, 425-43; Universal House of Justice,Wellspring of Guidance, Wilmette, Ill., 1969; V. Johnson, “An Historical Analysis of Critical Transformations in the Evolution of the Bahāʾī World Faith,” Ph.D. dissertation, Baylor University, 1974, pp. 330-90).

In the 1960s and early 1970s the lot of Bahais in Iran improved somewhat, though they still continued to labor under many legal and latent social disabilities. In 1964 Iran had 530 local Spiritual Assemblies. In 1975 Bahais feared for their safety when Moḥammad-Reżā Shah insisted that all Iranians join hisRastāḵīz party. The national Spiritual Assembly of the Bahais of Iran informed the shah that although Bahais were law-abiding citizens, they could not join his party, given the non-political nature of Bahaism. In the 1970s Bahais were often watched and harassed by the shah’s security apparatus, SAVAK, and the Bahai Publishing Trust in Tehran was forced to offset rather than print books and to limit the number of books it circulated in order to avoid sanctions.

A number of Bahais, such as Ḥabīb Ṯābet, Hožabr Yazdānī, and ʿAbd-al-Karīm Ayādī, grew extremely rich and powerful under the Pahlavīs, and helped form a general public impression of Bahais as a bourgeois group supportive of the unpopular policies of the regime and close to the shah or the royal family. This rekindled dormant prejudices and provoked anger and resentment towards the Bahai community as a whole but the Babi and Bahai religions were mass movements, encompassing villagers and peasants, artisans and tradesman, and working class people in the large cities, who formed the vast majority of the country’s three to four hundred thousand Bahais (P. Smith, “A Note on Bābī and Bahāʾī Numbers in Iran,”Iranian Studies 15, 2-3, 1984, pp. 295-301) and who had no desire for or interest in siding with unpopular policies and alienating the majority. That these ordinary Bahais were forbidden by their national Spiritual Assembly from joining any political party, and even from voting (unlike their coreligionists in the West, who may vote if they can do so without joining a party) made their political preferences a private matter which, in normal circumstances, should have been viewed as irrelevant to the political process.

Since its inception in 1979, the Islamic Republic of Iran has, despite denials and explanations, demonstrated every intention of destroying the Bahai community altogether. It has gradually and systematically confiscated all Bahai properties and investment companies, fired Bahai civil servants, dissolved all Bahai national and local Spiritual Assemblies, and executed nearly two hundred of the country’s most active and prominent Bahais. It has harassed, detained, and persecuted many others on various pretexts, ranging from violation of Islamic laws, to conspiracy with and spying for international Zionism and imperialism. Since the Islamic Republic considers the performance of Bahai marriage ceremonies heretical and illegitimate, local Spiritual Assembly members who performed them have been tried on charges of promoting prostitution. Bahais who went on visitation to shrines in Israel or sent monetary contributions to the Bahai world center in Haifa came under suspicion of supporting Zionism or spying for it, even though the establishment of ʿAkkā and Haifa as Bahai centers dated from the nineteenth century, long before the founding of Israel. Hundreds of recantations have appeared in newspapers, the circumstances of their procurement being highly suspicious. The parliament has made it illegal for parents to pass Bahaism on to their children, has refused admittance of Bahai children to schools, and denies Bahais ration cards. The government’s confiscation of membership records at the National Bahai Center in Tehran allows it to identify Bahais throughout the country (Human Rights Commission of the Federation of Protestant Churches in Switzerland, “Declaration on the State of Religious Minorities in Iran,”World Order 13, no. 4, 1979, pp. 15-20; Amnesty International U.S.A., “Under Penalty of Death: In Iran a Campaign of Terror against Bahāʾis,”Matchbox, October, 1983, p. 11).

Administrative apparatus. Bahai administration evolved gradually, but this overview will discuss current practice. Bahaism possesses no clergy formally trained to administer rituals. Rather, the administration both of religious observances and of community affairs rests with elected officials. At the level of villages, towns, cities, or counties, these officials constitute the local Spiritual Assembly, consisting of nine members elected annually on the eve of April 21 by universal adult suffrage and by secret ballot. Women as well as men serve on the local and national Spiritual Assemblies (Aqdas, pp. 30-31; ʿAbd-al-Bahāʾ in ʿA. Ešrāq Ḵāvarī, ed.,Ganjīna-ye ḥodūd wa aḥkām, New Delhi, 1980, pp. 57-67; Shoghi Effendi,Baháʾí Administration, Wilmette, Ill., 1986, pp. 20-24; “The Local Spiritual Assembly,”Baháʾí World 14, pp. 511-30).

In addition to their own, usually closed administrative meetings, every nineteen days local Spiritual Assemblies sponsor the Bahai feast (żīāfat) for the entire community, consisting of three parts. In the first part local lay believers read from Bahai writings first, and then often from scriptures of other religions, as well. In the second part community affairs are discussed. Committees of the local Spiritual Assembly and its officers give reports on their activities. Suggestions may be made from the floor for the local Spiritual Assembly to consider at its next meeting. The third part consists of friendly conversation over refreshments. Because the feast partially has the character of a community business meeting, only registered members of Bahaism may attend (Bahāʾ-Allāh,Aqdas, pp. 30-31, 61; ʿAbd-al-Bahāʾ, quoted in Ešrāq Ḵāvarī, ed.,Ganjīna, pp. 156-58; National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahāʾis of the British Isles, comp.,Principles of Baháʾí Administration, London, 1950, pp. 51-53).

Bahai communities are also apportioned among larger districts for the purpose of electing delegates to an annual national convention. The district conventions, held in the autumn, elect a number of delegates, based on the size of the local Bahai population, and send with them local concerns they want raised at the national convention. The national convention takes place again in April and elects nine members to the national Spiritual Assembly. Campaigning is not allowed at these elections, though discussion of issues is encouraged (Shoghi Effendi,Baháʾí Administration, pp. 65, 79, 89, 91). The national Spiritual Assembly, an institution created by ʿAbd-al-Bahāʾ (Bahāʾ-Allāh had spoken only of the local Houses of Justice and of the Universal House of Justice), has the responsibility of administering the affairs of the national Bahai community and of propagating the religion in its country (Shoghi Effendi,Baháʾí Administration, passim).

Every five years members of all the Bahai national Spiritual Assemblies in the world send their ballots to or gather at an international convention to elect nine persons to the Universal House of Justice. Of this body Bahāʾ-Allāh wrote, “It is incumbent upon the Trustees of the House of Justice to take counsel together regarding those things which have not outwardly been revealed in the Book, and to enforce that which is agreeable to them” (“Kalemāt-e ferdowsīya,”Majmūʿa-ī az alwāḥ ka baʿd az Ketāb-e aqdas nāzel šodand, Hofheim-Langenhain, 1980, p. 37; tr., p. 68; cf. “Ešrāqāt,”Majmūʿa-ī az alwāḥ, pp. 75-76; tr. pp. 128-29). All these elected institutions make their decisions by majority vote, though unanimity is preferred, after long discussions called consultation (mašwerat), in which members are urged not to become attached to their own suggestions, but to consider each motion dispassionately.

This administrative structure is complemented by appointed institutions of the “learned” (ʿolamāʾfi’l-Bahāʾ) (Bahāʾ-Allāh,Aqdas, pp. 170-71). The first body of the learned were the Hands of the Cause of God appointed by Bahāʾ-Allāh and by Shoghi Effendi. Since only the Guardian could appoint Hands of the Cause, according to ʿAbd-al-Bahāʾ, the lapsing of the institution of the guardianship after 1957 meant that the institution of the Hands also lapsed. The Universal House of Justice has attempted to compensate by creating a new institution of counselors (mošāwerīn) who are appointed to five-year terms. They have the functions of protecting Bahaism from internal threats to its integrity such as schism, and of spreading the religion. The counselors appoint, with the consent of the Universal House of Justice, auxiliary board members with either of the specific functions of protection and propagation. The auxiliary board members appoint assistants, again with approval from their superiors. Members of these appointed institutions of the learned have no executive power, and can only advise the elected institutions (“The Institution of the Hands of the Cause,”Baháʾí World 14, 459-74; Universal House of Justice,Wellspring of Guidance). Since no Bahai seminaries or full-time clerical offices exist, the institutions of the learned are filled by active laymen, often teachers, librarians, or other intellectuals.

Theology. Bahai theology posits several metaphysical levels of reality. The highest of these is the divine realm of unicity (aḥadīya), wherein only God’s essence and his essential attributes exist. In this station (maqām), God’s knowledge is his essence and his essence is his knowledge; God is unmanifest and alone, and completely inconceivable. In the second station God manifests himself by his essence to his essence, bringing into existence the Word of God (kalemat Allāh) or divine manifestation (ẓohūr-e elāhī). This primal manifestation of God then dawns forth on the world of contingency (emkān) with all the names and attributes of God, causing the new creation to come into being. Each being can reflect an attribute of God, but only human beings can spiritually advance to the point where they can reflect all the attributes of God. They can do so only with the help of prophets and messengers, called generally manifestations of God (maẓhar-e elāhī), who perfectly show forth the names and attributes of God in the human realm. Unlike similar Sufi schemas, in the Bahai system metaphysical realms are absolutely separate; Bahai thought rejects the Sufi theory ofwaḥdat al-wojūd or existential monism (ʿAbd-al-Bahāʾ, “Tafsīr-e konto kanzan maḵfīan,”Makāteb-e ʿAbd-al-Bahāʾ II, Cairo, 1330/1911-12, pp. 2-55; Bahāʾ-Allāh,Majmūʿa-ye maṭbūʿa, pp. 339, 346).

Bahai psychology accepts a basically Aristotelian view of the various types of soul or spirit, positing a vegetative spirit with its faculty of spatial growth, the animal spirit with its sensitive and locomotive faculties, and the immortal human spirit or rational soul (nafs-e nāṭeqa), with its faculty of intellectual investigation. But two further spirits are posited. The spirit of faith is a moral and ethical faculty whereby the human soul acquires the perfections of God. Finally, the holy spirit (rūḥ al-qods) pertains only to the prophets and messengers, or manifestations of God. Prophets possess all of these spirits, from the bodily ones through the rational soul, and including the holy spirit (ʿAbd-al-Bahāʾ,al-Nūr al-abhā fī mofāważāt ʿAbd-al-Bahāʾ: goft-o-gū bar sar-e nāhār, Leiden, 1908, pp. 108-10, 114-17, 154).

The universal intellect (ʿaql-e koll) or word of God (kalemat Allāh), the first, preexistent emanation of God, perceives the universe directly and intuitively. It emanates this knowledge upon the prophets, allowing them to found systems of religious law which are appropriate to the conditions of society. They know the necessary connections that relate all entities in the world, and their laws are aimed at regulating and balancing this world-system. God has been sending manifestations of God, whether prophets or messengers, since the inception of the human race, and will continue to do so in the future. Bahāʾ-Allāh’s writings recognized all the Judaic prophets, Zoroaster, Jesus Christ, Moḥammad, the Bāb, and Bahāʾ-Allāh himself as historical manifestations of God, and ʿAbd-al-Bahāʾ recognized such South Asian figures as Krishna and Buddha, as well. The Bahai conception of progressive revelation, which sees successive manifestations of God as having brought increasingly sophisticated religious teachings over time, allows Bahais to incorporate local religious traditions throughout the world into their schema. An essential Bahai teaching is the ultimate unity of all the great prophets and founders of the world religions. Indeed, despite their individuality and differences in station, each manifestation of God can be seen as a “return” (rajʿa) of his predecessors, not in the sense of reincarnation but in that of the return of spiritual attributes (Bahāʾ-Allāh, “Jawāher al-asrār,”Āṯār-e qalam-e aʿlā III, Tehran, 129Badīʿ/1972-73, pp. 33-37; Bahāʾ-Allāh,Ketāb-e īqān, Cairo, 1900, pp. 127-29, 147-48; ʿAbd-al-Bahāʾ,Mofāważāt, pp. 119-20, 123-24, 164-66).

Bahai anthropology sees human beings as burdened with the passions of an animal nature, which can be overcome only through special training and effort. The teacher in this enterprise of spiritual education is the manifestation of God. ʿAbd-al-Bahāʾ spoke of three kinds of education. The first is education for the welfare of the body. The second is education for the welfare of human society, including policy, administration, commerce, industry, sciences, and arts. This is an education for civilization and progress. The third is education for a sound character and the acquisition of divine perfections. The educator is perfect in all respects and by his teachings organizes the world, brings nations and religions together, and delivers man from vices (ʿAbd-al-Bahāʾ,Mofāważāt, pp. 6-7).

In the Bahai interpretation, human history has been dominated by spiritual cycles (sing.dawr) initiated by the periodic advent of a new prophet. Bahāʾ-Allāh interprets Koranic references to the resurrection day (qīāma) and the attainment of the presence of God (leqāʾ Allāh; see Koran 29:33, 18:110, 13:2, 2:46, 2:49) as symbolic allusions to the advent of a new manifestation of God (Bahāʾ-Allāh,Ketāb-e īqān, pp. 115-19). ʿAbd-al-Bahāʾ taught that a great cycle in human religious history is characterized by three periods. The first is a series of manifestations of God which prepare for a universal theophany. The second period starts when the universal manifestation of God arrives and begins his dispensation. The third period within the great cycle is that of manifestations of God that succeed the universal manifestation. Although they can reveal new laws and abrogate his ordinances, they remain under his spiritual shadow. Adam (whom Bahais do not consider the first man) began the current cycle, in which the first, preparatory period extended from his time until the Bāb. Bahāʾ-Allāh was the universal manifestation for this cycle. After no less than a thousand years, further manifestations of God may arise, but their spiritual themes will start from Bahāʾ-Allāh’s principles of the political and religious unification of the earth for human welfare (ʿAbd-al-Bahāʾ,Mofāważāt, pp. 120-22; Bahāʾ-Allāh,Aqdas, pp. 38-39).

Social principles. Bahaism sees itself as primarily preaching the unity of mankind, and criticizes nationalist chauvinism and jingoism as productive of war. Bahāʾ-Allāh wrote, “The earth is but one country (waṭan), and mankind its citizens (ahl-e ān)” (“Lawḥ-e maqṣūd,” inMajmūʿa-ī az alwāḥ, p. 101; tr. p. 167). To unite the world Bahais advocate the adoption of a universal language, to be chosen by the leaders of the world (“Bešārāt,” no. 3, “Kalemāt-e ferdowsīya,” no. 8,Majmūʿa-ī az alwāḥ, pp. 11, 37-38). Bahāʾ-Allāh charged the Universal House of Justice with promoting peace among the secular powers to avert exorbitant defense expenditures (“Lawḥ-e donyā” inMajmūʿa-ī az alwāḥ, p. 50; tr. p. 89). He urged the establishment of a world assembly of rulers to discuss peace and to prevent wars through collective security (“Lawḥ-e maqṣūd,” inMajmūʿa-ī az alwāḥ, p. 99, tr. p. 165). Bahāʾ-Allāh apparently did not mean this internationalism to detract from loyalty to national governments, since he commanded obedience to government and attempted to make the Babi community less radical (“Bešārāt,” nos. 4, 5 inMajmūʿa-ī az alwāḥ, pp. 11-12). Bahāʾ-Allāh did not, however, simply approve of the governments in power; despite both Ottoman and Qajar opposition to the principle, he advocated constitutional monarchy on the British model as a means of restraining tyranny (“Bešārāt,” no. 15, pp. 13-14).

ʿAbd-al-Bahāʾ in his journeys to Europe and North America 1910-13 often listed the basic principles of Bahaism. A typical listing is (1) the independent investigation of reality (taḥarrī-e ḥaqīqat, the opposite oftaqlīd or blind imitation), (2) the unity of mankind, (3) religion must be a source of unity and harmony, otherwise a lack of religion would be preferable, (4) religion and science complement one another, (5) religious, racial, political, and nationalist prejudices are destructive of human society, (6) equal rights for all human beings, (7) greater equality of income distribution (taʿdīl-e maʿīšat) so that none would be needy, (8) world peace through the foundation of an international court of arbitration that would settle disputes, (9) the separation of religion from politics, (10) education and advancement for women, (11) the inculcation of spiritual virtues and ethics to complement material civilization (ʿAbd-al-Bahāʾ,Ḵeṭābāt ḥażrat ʿAbd-al-Bahāʾ fī Awrobbā wa Amrīkā I, Cairo, 1921, repr. Karachi, 1980, pp. 30-32). Shoghi Effendi elaborated at length on the Bahai conception of world government in his letters of the 1930s, published asWorld Order of Bahāʾuʾllāh (2nd, rev. ed., Wilmette, Ill., 1974).

Laws and ethics. The basic book of laws in Bahaism is the Arabical-Ketāb al-aqdas, though it is supplemented by a number of other works. Laws of ritual pollution are abolished, and peoples of other religions are decreed ritually pure, unlike the case in Twelver Shiʿism (Aqdas, pp. 79-81). Believers are commanded to consort with the followers of all religions with amity and concord (p. 144). If someone shows anger to a Bahai and torments him, the Bahai must respond with kindness and lack of opposition (p. 152). Believers are forbidden to carry arms except when necessary (p. 157). TheAqdas makes it incumbent on believers to engage in productive work, interdicting begging (pp. 32-33). It insists on meticulous cleanliness and polite manners (laṭāfa; pp. 50-51 ). Slander and backbiting are forbidden (pp. 22). It is mandatory for parents to arrange for the education of both male and female children (pp. 52-53). Repentance for misdeeds is commended, but only in private and not before a clergyman (p. 53; Bahāʾ-Allāh, “Bešārāt,” inMajmūʿa-ī az alwāḥ, p. 12). Listening to music is allowed, and is recommended as a means of spiritual advance (Aqdas, pp. 53-54). Holy war (jehād) is forbidden (“Bešārāt,” p. 10).

TheAqdas forbids the imbibing of intoxicants and use of opium, as well as gambling (pp. 120, 153-54). It prohibits murder and adultery (p. 22). It prescribes banishment and imprisonment for theft, and the tattooing of an identifying mark on the forehead of third-time offenders (pp. 48-49). Wounding or striking another person is punishable by a set of fines, depending on the severity of the injury (p. 60). There is also a fine (dīa) to be paid to the victim’s family for manslaughter (p. 185). The minimum penalty for arson and first-degree murder is life imprisonment; the maximum for arson is to be burned, the maximum for murder is execution (pp. 64-65). Slavery is forbidden (p. 75). All believers must leave a will (p. 111).

Marriage is enjoined; theAqdas permits two wives, but recommends only one and ʿAbd-al-Bahāʾ later interpreted this verse to allow only one wife. The consent of both individuals and the permission of all four parents is required, as is the payment of a limited dowry by the man (pp. 64-67). It is permitted to marry non-Bahais (Bahāʾ-Allāh,Resāla-ye soʾāl o jawāb, Iran National Bahai Archives, no. 63, Tehran, n.d., p. 36). Adultery is punishable by a fine which doubles with each offense, payable to the house of justice (Aqdas, p. 53). Divorce is allowed but only after a year of patience is waited out during which no conjugal relations take place. Remarriage is permitted (pp. 70-73). It is forbidden to marry one’s father’s widow, and homosexuality is prohibited (pp. 110-11).

Believers are to pay a nineteen-percent religious tax on gold and on profits beyond expenses, called theḥoqūq Allāh (the right of God; pp. 100-101). In addition,zakāt, another religious tax, is to be paid, in accordance with the laws of the Koran (p. 145).

Religious rituals and observances. Like Bahai administration, Bahai religious observances have evolved over time. For the sake of brevity, these will be discussed in terms of twentieth-century practice, and only widely practiced or central rituals will be surveyed. There are four basic sorts of daily ritual. TheAqdas prescribes the private recitation by individuals of verses revealed by Bahāʾ-Allāh every morning and evening (p. 149;Soʾāl o jawāb, p. 30). In addition, believers are to go to a central place of worship (mašreq al-aḏkār) between dawn and two hours after sunrise to recite and listen to prayers (monājāt;Aqdas, p. 116;Soʾāl o jawāb, pp. 7-8). Aside from these supplicatory prayers, believers are to pray an obligatory prayer (ṣalāt,namāz) after ablutions (wożūʾ). Bahāʾ-Allāh set down three different obligatory prayers, a long one with prostrations to be said once in twenty-four hours, a middle prayer to be said three times a day, and a short prayer to be said once a day. Believers may choose any one of these to say individually. Congregationalṣalāt is forbidden, as are pulpits (sing.menbar). The believer must face theqebla (point of adoration) while performing the obligatory prayer, which is fixed as Bahāʾ-Allāh’s resting place. It is not necessary to face theqebla when saying other sorts of prayer (Aqdas, pp. 152-53,Soʾāl o jawāb, pp. 29-30; Ešrāq Ḵāvarī, ed.,Ganjīna, pp. 11-33). Finally, once a day believers should seat themselves facing theqebla and repeat the greatest name of God,Allāho abhā, ninety-five times (Aqdas, pp. 21-22). Another important ritual prayer is theṣalāt for the dead, which is the only sort ofṣalāt Bahāʾ-Allāh permitted to be said in congregation; it is almost identical with that set down by the Bāb in theBayān (wāḥed 5,bāb 11) (Ešrāq Ḵāvarī, ed.,Ganjīna, pp. 136-41).

The Bahai calendar (Badīʿ), originating with the Bāb, consists of nineteen months of nineteen days each, in addition to a short intercalary period. At the beginning of each Bahai month, Bahais are to gather in the nineteen day feast (żīāfat-e nūzdah rūza), discussed above under administration, where the only approximation to a ritual is the reading by lay believers of passages from scripture. TheAqdas instructed that the intercalary days be placed just before the last month, the month of fasting (ʿAlāʾ). Bahais are to fast (ṣīām) from the age of maturity (15), from sunrise to sunset for nineteen days. Since the Bahai calendar is a solar one, the fasting month always falls just before the vernal equinox. The intercalary days (ayyām-e hā) are set aside as a time of gift giving and feasting. The fast usually ends on 20 March, and the vernal equinox (Nowrūz) starts the new year (pp. 18-21, 126). Nowrūz is one of nine Bahai holy days on which work must be suspended. Bahais hold festive gatherings on these days. They include the anniversaries of the birth of the Bāb and of Bahāʾ-Allāh (celebrated on 1 and 2 Moḥarram in the Middle East, and on 20 October and 12 November in the rest of the world), and the first, ninth, and twelfth days of Reżwān, the twelve-day (April 21-May 2) festival celebrating Bahāʾ-Allāh’s declaration of his mission in Baghdad (pp. 112-15;Soʾāl o jawāb, pp. 12). The other holy days are the declaration of the Bāb, the martyrdom of the Bāb, and the “ascension” (ṣoʿūd) of Bahāʾ-Allāh (texts relating to these holy days have been collected by Ešrāq Ḵāvarī inResāla-ye ayyām-e tesʿa).

Pilgrimage (hajj) is required of financially able male believers once in a lifetime either to the house of the Bāb in Shiraz or the house of Bahāʾ-Allāh in Baghdad (Aqdas, p. 32;Soʾāl o jawāb, p. 15; Ešrāq Ḵāvarī, ed.,Ganjīna, pp. 67-71). Even before setting down theAqdas, Bahāʾ-Allāh wrote out tablets containing instructions for the performance of the pilgrimage, and had Moḥammad “Nabīl” Zarandī perform the rites at the house of the Bāb. These include the paring of nails, ablutions, the recitation of special verses, and circumambulation. But problems of security prevented subsequent performance of the rites. At present, the pilgrimage is not undertaken, given the persecution of Bahais in Iraq and the destruction of the house of the Bāb by the revolutionary government in Iran in 1979. Visitation (zīārat) often psychologically took its place, many believers simply visiting the house of the Bāb in Shiraz, the house of Bahāʾ-Allāh in Baghdad, or the Bahai properties in Edirne, Turkey, and Haifa and ʿAkkā (now in Israel). A nine-day visitation to the Bahai shrines in Haifa and ʿAkkā has become common among Bahais who can afford it.

BAHAISM ii. Bahai Calendar and Festivals

The notion of renewal of time, implicit in most religious dispensations, is made explicit in the writings of theBāb andBahāʾ-Allāh. To give this spiritual metaphor a concrete frame and to signalize the importance of the dispensation which he came to herald, the Bāb inaugurated a new calendar. In a significant break with the Islamic system, he abandoned the lunar month and adopted the solar year, commencing with the astronomically fixed vernal equinox (March 21), the ancient Persian new year festival of Now Rūz (q.v.; PersianBayān 6:14). Bahāʾ-Allāh confirmed this calendar inal-Ketāb al-aqdas (40:258-60; seeaqdas), andʿAbd-al-Bahāʾ set the final number of Bahai holy days, i.e., festivals and commemorative days on which work is suspended, at nine per year. The Bahai year (seebadīʿ) consists of 19 months of 19 days each, i.e., 361 days, with the addition of four intercalary days (five in leap years) between the 18th and the 19th months in order to adjust the calendar to the solar year. The Bāb named the months after the attributes of God. The original Arabic names and their accepted English equivalents and correspondence dates to the Gregorian calendar are shown in Chart 4.

Chart 4. Bahai Calendar and FestivalsView full image in a new tab

The intercalary days are February 26 to March 1 inclusive. The 19th month is designated as the month of fasting. The nine holy days are: (1) festival of Now Rūz (New Year), March 21; (2) 1st day of the festival of Reżwān (Declaration of Bahāʾ-Allāh) April 21; (3) 9th day of the festival of Reżwān, April 29; (4) 12th day of the festival of Reżwān, May 2; (5) declaration of the Bāb, May 23; (6) ascension of Bahāʾ-Allāh, May 29; (7) martyrdom of the Bāb, July 9; (8) birth of the Bāb, October 20; (9) birth of Bahāʾ-Allāh, November 12.

BAHAISM iii. Bahai and Babi Schisms

Although it never developed much beyond the stage of a sectarian movement within Shiʿite Islam, Babism experienced a number of minor but interesting divisions, particularly in its early phase. The first of these involved the defection of three of the earliest converts of the Bāb, led by Mollā Javād Valīānī, who transferred their allegiance to Mollā Moḥammad Karīm Khan Kermānī (q.v.) as the authentic head of the Shaikhi school (q.v.). Although the scale of this defection was small, it did have repercussions on the Babi community at Karbalāʾ, whose leader, Fāṭema Baraḡānī (Qorrat-al-ʿAyn; q.v.), a maternal cousin of Valīānī, wrote a refutation of his allegations against the Bāb. Valīānī’s concern centered on what he perceived as the Bāb’s break with the more conservative wing of Shaikhism. By thus distancing themselves from the Bāb’s claims, he and those who supported him helped sharpen the growing sense of division within the Shaikhi ranks and encouraged the Bāb and his followers to demonstrate a clearer identity for themselves. (See MacEoin, “From Shaykhism,” pp. 199-203.)

A more serious split occurred soon after this at Karbalāʾ itself, where Qorrat-al-ʿAyn and a probable majority of the Babis of the region came into conflict with Mollā Aḥmad Ḵorāsānī and his supporters. The issues involved in this dispute were complex (and are dealt with in contemporary materials written by the chief participants), but the central point of contention appears to have been the status accorded Qorrat-al-ʿAyn and other Letters of the Living (ḥorūf al-ḥayy; seebabism). As with Valīānī, Ḵorāsānī’s principal worry was that the Bāb and his chief followers were claiming (or, in the case of the former, having claimed for him) a quasi-divine status out of keeping with a more conservative Shiʿite interpretation. This quarrel appears not to have been fully resolved before Qorrat-al-ʿAyn was forced to leave Karbalāʾ for Baghdad and, eventually, Iran. (See MacEoin, “From Shaykhism,” pp. 203-7.)

Apart from her dispute with Ḵorāsānī, Qorrat-al-ʿAyn came into conflict with other Babis over her radical interpretations of doctrine, in particular her tendency to push for the abolition of the Islamic religious Law (šarīʿa). Something of this division seems to have surfaced during the famous Babi conclave held at Badašt in Māzandarān in the summer of 1847, when Qorrat-al-ʿAyn led an abolitionist party in opposition to a poorly-defined group who resisted such a radical development. There are indications that a wider split occurred between the radicals at Badašt and the followers ofMollā Ḥosayn Bošrūʾī at Shaikh Ṭabarsī (seeNoqṭat al-kāf, pp. 153-54, 155).

After the Bāb’s death in 1850 and the death or dispersal of most of the Babi leadership, divisions of a more complex nature occurred within the surviving community. In Iran and in Baghdad, where a core of sect members took up residence under the leadership of Mīrzā Yaḥyā Nūrī Ṣobḥ-e Azal (q.v.), over twenty individuals made separate claims to some form of divine inspiration, usually based on the ability to compose verses (āyāt). Most notable among these was the Azerbaijan-based Mīrzā Asad-Allāh Ḵoʾī Dayyān, whose followers became known as Dayyānīs. His movement was short-lived, however, ending after his assassination in 1856. The divisions of this period culminated in the increasingly bitter dispute between Ṣobḥ-e Azal and his half-brother MīrzāḤosayn-ʿAlī Bahāʾ-Allāh. From about 1866, this leadership quarrel hardened into a permanent division between Azalī and Bahai Babis. (See MacEoin, “Divisions and Authority Claims.”)

The history of Bahaism as a distinct movement is punctuated by divisions of varying severity, usually occurring as responses to the death of one of the religion’s leaders. It has become an article of faith in modern Bahai circles that the religion is protected from schism by the Covenant system of authoritative succession (see below). This has led to a strong emphasis on orthodoxy, with a tendency to play down or even ignore present or past divisions. Thus, “There are no Baháʾí sects. There never can be” (Hofman,Renewal, p. 110). At the same time, it should be stressed that there is a high degree of cohesion within the movement and that the authority of the mainstream Bahai leadership is seldom challenged.

Following the death of Bahāʾ-Allāh in Palestine in 1892, a serious clash took place between his two oldest sons, ʿAbbās (seeʿabd-al-bahāʾ) and Mīrzā Moḥammad-ʿAlī. It was accepted that, in his will, Bahāʾ-Allāh had appointed ʿAbbās his successor and interpreter of the holy text, in keeping with traditional Shiʿite notions of vicegerency (weṣāya). But Moḥammad-ʿAlī and his partisans accused ʿAbd-al-Bahāʾ of making excessive claims for himself. Since ʿAbd-al-Bahāʾ’s real claims seem to have been quite limited, it is likely that his opponents were really objecting to his somewhat radical interpretations of Bahai doctrine, particularly his social and political theories. Moḥammad-ʿAlī and his supporters (who included most of Bahāʾ-Allāh’s family) termed themselves Ahl al-tawḥīd or Mowaḥḥedūn and were dominant for some time in Syria. ʿAbd-al-Bahāʾ drew his support chiefly from Bahais in Iran and, increasingly from the late 1890s, from the growing community in the United States, where a cult based on his personality was developed. His eventual success is attributed by Berger to his ability to sustain charismatic appeal within the new movement (“Motif messianique,” p. 102; conflicting versions of the quarrel may be found in Browne,Materials, pp. 72-112 and Balyuzi,ʿAbdu’l-Bahā, pp. 50-61 ).

The split did, however, extend into America eventually, following the defection to Moḥammad-ʿAlī of Ibrahim George Kheiralla, the first Bahai missionary to that country. By 1899, the American Bahai community was divided into two factions: a majority of those loyal to ʿAbd-al-Bahāʾ and a minority of “Behaists.” In 1900, Kheiralla founded a Society of Behaists, with himself as its Chief Spiritual Guide and with Churches of the Manifestation in Chicago and Kenosha. The Behaist faction was later reorganized as the National Association of the Universal Religion, but the number of its adherents dwindled rapidly, particularly after the successful visits to North America made by ʿAbd-al-Bahāʾ between 1911 and 1913. In Palestine, the followers of Moḥammad-ʿAlī continued as a small group of families opposed to the Bahai leadership in Haifa; they have now been almost wholly re-assimilated into Muslim society (see Cohen, “Baháʾí Community of Acre”).

Mainstream Bahaism, as represented by ʿAbd-al-Bahāʾ and his followers, responded to the challenge of factionalism by emphasizing the doctrinal ideal of a Covenant (ʿahd,mīṯāq) designating a single individual head of the faith (markaz al-mīṯāq “Center of the Covenant”), to whom all believers were to render unquestioning obedience. The centrality of the Covenant system first became apparent in 1917-18 in the course of the Chicago Reading Room Affair, during which a group of dissenting Bahais in Chicago were expelled from the main body. (See Smith, “American Bahaʾi Community,” pp. 189-94.)

Under the leadership ofShoghi Effendi (1921-1957), the Bahai movement underwent radical structural changes with the creation of a tightly-controlled administrative organization modeled on modern Western management systems. Challenges to Shoghi Effendi’s authority or that of the bodies under him were in numerous cases met by the excommunication of groups or individuals as Covenant-Breakers (nāqeżu ’l-mīṯāq). The only significant breakaway groups to emerge during this period, however, were the New History Society based in New York around the anti-organization views of Ahmad Sohrab and Julie Chanler (see Johnson, “Historical Analysis,” pp. 311-18), and the German Bahai World Union which re-emerged after World War II as the World Union for Universal Religion and Universal Peace and the Free Bahais of Stuttgart. In the East, dissent tended to be even more individual, taking the form of personal defections from the movement rather than organized groupings. Faeg’s Scientific Society founded in Egypt about 1923 was atypical. Since all of the schismatic groups of this period found their raison d’être in the rejection of religious organization, it was inevitable that they should be short-lived and restricted in their influence.

The death of Shoghi Effendi in 1957 presented the movement with a potential crisis of major proportions, but also allowed the administrative system established by him to demonstrate its widespread acceptance within the community at large. Between 1957 and 1963 (when a universal House of Justice,bayt al-ʿadl-e aʿẓam [q.v.], was elected), the religion had no leader. Shoghi had had no children, had excommunicated his entire family, and had failed to designate any other successor. From about 1958, Charles Mason Remey, President of the International Bahaʾi Council, began to oppose the notion that there could be no successor to the Bahai Guardianship (welāya), and in 1960 he declared himself to be the second Guardian of the Bahai Faith. Under Remey’s leadership, a minority group organized themselves successively as the Bahais under the Guardianship, Bahais under the Hereditary Guardianship, and the Orthodox Abha World Faith, with its headquarters in Santa Fe (see Johnson, pp. 342-80). Remey died in 1974, having appointed a third Guardian, but the number of adherents to the Orthodox faction remains extremely small. Although successful in Pakistan, the Remeyites seem to have attracted no followers in Iran. Other small groups have broken away from the main body from time to time, but none of these has attracted a sizeable following.

BAHAISM iv. The Bahai Communities

The development of the Bahai faith has been accompanied by a massive transformation of the religion’s social base. From being a religion predominantly composed of those of Iranian Shiʿite background, it has become a worldwide movement comprising people of a multitude of religious and national backgrounds. Of the contemporary Bahai population, probably fewer than one in ten are Iranians.

Overall pattern of Bahai expansion. A distinctive Bahai community may be said to have come into being during the 1860s and 1870s following the open rupture between the leaders of the Babi movement. Mīrzā Ḥosayn-ʿAlī Nūrī Bahāʾ-Allāh (1817-92) had already begun to successfully reanimate and coordinate the various Babi communities in Iran and Iraq. When he laid claim to be the promised one of Babism (1866), his message was widely accepted. Most Babis became Bahais, only a minority siding with Bahāʾ-Allāh’s half brother, Ṣobḥ-e Azal (seeazali babism). Well coordinated, the emerging Iranian Bahai community possessed considerable dynamism. Successful missionary activity was soon undertaken, not only amongst Iran’s Shiʿite majority, but also amongst the Jewish and Zoroastrian minorities (from the 1880s). Further afield, small Bahai communities were established in Turkey, Syria, Egypt, India, and Asiatic Russia, mostly amongst expatriate Iranians.

Bahai expansion beyond the Middle East and the Iranian diaspora only began after the passing of Bahāʾ-Allāh (1892) and the succession of his son, ʿAbd-al-Bahāʾ (1844-1921), as leader. In the 1890s, an active community developed in North America, Americans in turn establishing Bahai groups in England, France, Germany, Hawaii, and Japan. Groups were also later established in Australia and New Zealand. Western Bahais also traveled widely in the Middle East, India, and Latin America, significantly contributing to the sense of the world community among the Bahais.

Plans for a systematic global expansion of the Bahai religion had been outlined by ʿAbd-al-Bahāʾ, most clearly in his Tablets of the Divine Plan (1916-17). However, it was only under the leadership of his grandson, Shoghi Effendi Rabbānī (1897-1957), that such plans were actually implemented on any large scale. Devoting the early years of his ministry to consolidating and standardizing the system of Bahai administration (1922-early 1930s), Shoghi Effendi then employed this administration as a means of securing systematic expansion, at first only in selected countries, through a series of national and regional Bahai plans (1937-53), and then globally in an international Ten Year Crusade (1953-63). This approach has been continued since Shoghi Effendi’s death (1957), with a series of Nine, Five, Seven, and Six Year Plans (1964-73; 1974-79; 1979-86; 1986-92). The resultant expansion has led to Bahai communities being established in most countries of the world.

Expansion and distribution. Some indication of the extent of Bahai expansion can be gained from the statistics in Table 13. These figures indicate a slow rate of expansion during the 1928-52 period, rapid growth only occurring after 1952 and the introduction of international teaching plans. Other indices of expansion include the growth in the number of languages in which Bahai literature is produced, from 8 or so in 1928, to 70 in 1953, and 757 in 1986, and in the number of tribal and ethnic groups represented in the community, from 42 in 1952 to over 2,100 in 1986 (seeBaháʾí World II, pp. 193-210; XII, pp. 775-827); Shoghi Effendi,The Bahaʾi Faith, 1844-1952; and Universal House of Justice, Department of Statistics,The Seven Year Plan, Statistical Report,Riḍván 1986).

Table 13. Selected Bahai Statistics, 1928-1986View full image in a new tab

In terms of total numbers, the official Bahai estimate in April, 1985, was that there were in the region of 4.7 million Bahais worldwide. In terms of distribution, fifty-nine percent of the Bahai world total live in Asia, twenty percent in Africa, eighteen percent in the Americas, 1.6 percent in Australasia and 0.5 percent in Europe. There are relatively few Bahais in the Communist world where little organized activity is permitted. (See Table 14.)

Table 14. Selected Bahai Statistics, April 1986View full image in a new tab

The areas of Bahai expansion can be divided into three separate “worlds”: the Islamic heartland in which the religion first developed (the Middle East, North Africa, and Asiatic Russia); the West (North America, Western Europe, Australia, and New Zealand); and the Bahai “Third World” (including the Far East; Smith,Bábí and Baháʾí Religions, pp. 162-71). In these terms, there has been a marked change in the distribution of Bahais during the present century. Taking the distribution of local Bahai Spiritual Assemblies as a measure of change, in 1945, out of a total of 505 Assemblies, the majority, sixty-one percent, were in the Islamic heartland (mostly in Iran), twenty-nine percent were in the West (mostly in the U.S.A.), and only ten percent were in the Bahai Third World (mostly in India and Latin America). By 1983, however, out of a total of 24,714 Assemblies, the figures were respectively two, eleven, and seventy-eight percent (calculated fromBaháʾí World X, pp. 551-82; and Universal House of Justice, Department of Statistics,The Seven Year Plan, 1979-1986, Statistical Report 1983). Although the Assembly distribution figures underrepresent the larger local Bahai communities (such as those in Iran), the overall trend is clear. As a consequence of the international teaching plans of the last thirty years, the Bahai Faith has become a predominantly non-Islamic Third World religion.

The Bahai communities of the Islamic heartland: 1.Iran. During the years of their initial expansion, the Babis had succeeded in establishing a widespread network of groups in most Iranian cities and in rural areas in several different regions, but after the Bāb’s execution (1850), the Babi groups and network had become fragmented. Bahāʾ-Allāh’s recoordination of these groups during the late 1850s and the 1860s provided the basis for the emergence of the Bahai religion as a social entity. Utilizing itinerant Bahai couriers and teachers, Bahāʾ-Allāh and ʿAbd-al-Bahāʾ (acting increasingly as chief organizer for his father) created a viable Iranian Bahai community, whilst the efficient and widespread distribution of Bahāʾ-Allāh’s major writings provided the basis for doctrinal unity.

Commitment to missionary expansion was strong. Bahai groups were established in areas such as Gīlān and the Persian Gulf coast which the Babis had not reached. New converts were gained among the Shiʿite population, including men of considerable ability and prominence such as MīrzāAbu’l-Fażl Golpāyegānī, converted in 1876. Contacts were established with members of the Jewish and Zoroastrian minorities, and significant numbers of conversions made from the 1880s onwards, particularly in Hamadān and Yazd. Of major population groups, only the nomadic tribes and the Sunni and Christian minorities remained effectively beyond the reach of Bahai missions.

In terms of social class, both the existing “Babi” membership and the new converts represented a wide-ranging diversity. European observers noted the particular success which the Bahai missionaries enjoyed among the educated classes, but craftsmen, urban workers, and peasants were also well-represented. In contrast to Babism, relatively few clerics were converted: Theʿolamāʾ now had a well-defined and negative image of the Babi-Bahai movement, and were thus more resistant to its message. Correspondingly, Bahai merchants assumed greater prominence in the leadership of the movement within Iran; Bahaiʿolamāʾ, however, remained important. Bahai women also assumed importance within the community, the successful “familialization” of the religion providing a major basis for its social consolidation.

Reflecting the activity of the Bahai community, there was a recrudescence of persecution. Thus, throughout the Qajar period, there were sporadic attacks on the Bahais, a number being killed, and many more being despoiled of their property. Religious animosity towards the Bahais as unbelievers was an important motivation here, particularly for the clerics who led most of the attacks. Other factors were also involved, however. Thus, whilst increasing numbers of the Qajar elite perceived that the universalistic and pacific policies of Bahāʾ-Allāh contrasted sharply with the militancy of the Babis, there was an understandable tendency to confuse the two movements, and hence to regard the Bahais as potentially seditious. (For an indication of changing attitudes amongst later Qajar officials, see Amīn-al-Solṭān’s statement in Momen,Bábí and Baháʾí Religions, pp. 358-59.) Again, certain local clerical and civil leaders readily used persecution of Bahais to secure their own financial or political advantage. The execution in 1879 of two Bahai merchants who were creditors to Mīr Moḥammad-Ḥosayn, Imam Jomʿa of Isfahan, assumed particular notoriety in this regard (Momen, ibid., pp. 274-77). Persecutions increased as popular agitation against the Qajar regime mounted, a widespread series of attacks occurring in 1903 (ibid., pp. 373-404).

Bahai expansion within Iran appears to have reached its peak in the early decades of the present century. Thereafter, it has had to rely increasingly on natural increase, so that whilst the number of Bahais in Iran has recently been in the region of 300-350,000, this represents less than one percent of the total population. At the beginning of the century, by contrast, the percentage may have been as high as 2.5 (Smith, “Bábí and Bahaʾí Numbers in Iran,” pp. 296-98). Lack of research precludes a proper analysis of this decline.

Overt persecution of the Bahais during the Pahlavi period (1925-79) was limited, outbreaks occurring in 1926, 1944, and 1955, in this later case with the government’s active support. At the same time, Bahais were denied full civil rights. They were unable to contract legal marriage, freely publish literature, or publicly defend themselves against the well-organized propaganda campaign which their opponents mounted against them. The Bahai schools, as the schools of other religious minorities, were closed in 1934.

Under the Islamic Republic (from 1979), the Bahai situation has markedly worsened. Regarding the Bahais as heretics, Zionist agents, and anti-revolutionary subversives, the regime has actively pursued persecution of the Bahais. Over 200 have been killed; hundreds have been imprisoned; thousands have been purged from government employment. Bahai students and school children have been expelled from educational institutions. Community and individual properties and assets have been seized. All Bahai organizations have been disbanded. And all Bahai activities have been forbidden. The situation is bleak. (For sources on the current wave of persecution see the bibliography.)

2.Turkestan and Caucasia. The consolidation of Russian rule in Turkestan (Transcaspia) and its consequent economic development encouraged Iranian immigration during the 1880s. Bahais were amongst these immigrants, and by 1890, there were about one thousand of them in the new provincial capital of Ashkhabad (Lee, “Baháʾí Community of ʿIshqábád,” pp. 1-13). In 1889, Shiʿite militants murdered a prominent Bahai. The Russian authorities’ trial and imprisonment of the assailants was hailed by the Bahais as the first occasion on which judicial punishment had been meted out to their persecutors. Henceforth the Bahai community in Turkestan flourished, Ashkhabad providing a convenient refuge from persecution in Iran. Increasingly prosperous, the Bahais were able to establish their own meeting hall, kindergartens, elementary schools, clinic, libraries, and public reading rooms. A magazine,Ḵᵛoršīd-e ḵāvar (Sun of the East), and printing presses were also established, and, in 1902, work began on a Bahai house of worship, the Mašreq al-Aḏkār, the first ever to be built. As in Iran, Spiritual Assemblies were established to coordinate the affairs of the local Bahai communities, the central Assembly in Ashkhabad exercising authority over the Bahais in the various other cities of Turkestan. Bahai immigrants were also amongst those Iranians who moved to Caucasia, particularly Russian Azerbaijan, and a second Bahai community developed there, centered in Baku.

The Russian Revolutions of 1917 initially created very favorable conditions for the Bahais, who came to enjoy even greater freedom of expression and organization. Teaching activity was extended to ethnic Russians, a number of whom joined the community. Indeed, for a time, the Bahai youth organization was able to provide serious competition for recruits to the Communist Komsomol (Kolarz,Religion in the Soviet Union, p. 471). However, the situation rapidly deteriorated from 1928 onwards, with a build-up of anti-Bahai activity, including the arrest and exile of leading Bahais and the closure or expropriation of Bahai institutions, including the Mašreq al-Aḏkār. There was a further wave of mass arrests, exiles and deportations (mainly to Iran) in 1938, and the Bahai communities of Asiatic Russia were all but destroyed. Following earthquake damage, the Mašreq al-Aḏkār was later demolished.

3.Syria, Palestine, and Israel. Bahāʾ-Allāh was exiled ʿAkkā in Ottoman Syria in 1868. With him were some seventy or so of his family and disciples. These formed the core of a Bahai colony which grew, mostly through immigration from Iran, as the conditions of confinement were eased. Groups of Bahais also moved to Beirut and Haifa, and to the Galilee, where a Bahai agricultural settlement was established.

ʿAkkā, and after 1909, the neighboring town of Haifa, served as the administrative and spiritual headquarters of the Bahai religion, the burial places of Bahāʾ-Allāh, the Bāb, and ʿAbd-al-Bahāʾ becoming its major places of pilgrimage. To avoid any threat to this status, the Bahai leaders discouraged or even prohibited any proselytism amongst the local population, a policy which was continued from the Ottoman period through to the present day, both under the British Palestine Mandate and the State of Israel. During the 1940s, Shoghi Effendi drastically reduced the size of the local Bahai community, instructing all Bahais who were not involved in the tasks of the “Bahai World Center” to leave Palestine. This policy still obtains, so that only Bahais involved in the faith’s international administration or the maintenance of its shrines and other properties are allowed to reside in the Holy Land.

4.Egypt and other Arab countries. Next to Iran, the most important Middle Eastern Bahai community has been Egypt. Founded in the 1960s by expatriate Iranians, the community came to include native Sunni Muslim and Christian converts. The distinguished Bahai scholar, Mīrzā Abu’l-Fażl Golpāyegānī, provided the community with intellectual leadership during the 1890s and 1900s, and taught for a while at al-Azhar. Bahai Assemblies were also formed, translations of Bahai writings into Arabic were made, and books and pamphlets were printed. Though limited in scale, Bahai activities naturally provoked the opposition of many orthodox Muslims. There were several local disturbances against the Bahais, but more significant were a series of declarations by the religious courts (from 1925) that Bahais were not Muslims and that Muslim converts were apostates. Nevertheless, Bahais attained a degree of official recognition, and were able to continue their activities until 1960, when all Bahai activities were banned by Presidential decree, and a number of Bahais were arrested (Baháʾí World XVII, p. 78).

Elsewhere in the Arab world, the longest established Bahai community is that of Iraq, which effectively dates from the time of Bahāʾ-Allāh’s exile there in the 1850s. Though subject to sporadic attacks by Shiʿite militants, the community was gradually able to expand its activities and even to elect a Bahai national Spiritual Assembly in 1934. As in Egypt, in recent years, all Bahai activities have been banned (from 1970). Indeed, in general, the position of the Bahais in the Middle East has become more difficult in the post-war years, the growth of modern Arab nationalism and the location of the Bahai headquarters in what has become the State of Israel leading to the Bahais coming to be regarded as a suspect minority, and not just as a heretical sect. Apart from Iran, all Bahai communities in the Middle East are very small.

The Bahai communities in the West: 1.North America. The Bahai teachings were first introduced to the West by a Syrian Christian convert, Ibrahim George Kheiralla. Establishing himself in Chicago, he gained his first converts in 1894. With a circle of enthusiastic followers, Bahai groups were soon established in other centers, notably New York City. In 1898-99, Kheiralla visited ʿAbd-al-Bahāʾ in ʿAkkā, and, after disagreeing with him over matters of doctrine, eventually became a partisan of ʿAbd-al-Bahāʾ’s half brother, Mīrzā Moḥammad-ʿAlī. Most of the American Bahais, however, tended to side with ʿAbd-al-Bahāʾ, and an energetic campaign of activities was soon resumed. American Bahai teachers traveled to various parts of the United States, Canada, and Europe. There was an extensive publication of Bahai literature, including several translations of scripture, pilgrims’ accounts of visits to ʿAbd-al-Bahāʾ, and a number of expositions of Bahai teachings by Westerners. Local and national organizations were established—although not without controversy, many American Bahais were plainly antipathetic to organized religion. Plans were made for the construction of a Bahai Mašreq al-Aḏkār near Chicago (actually completed in 1953). And contacts were established with the Bahais of Iran and the East, several Americans visiting Iran in connection with medical and education projects. By the time of ʿAbd-al-Bahāʾ’s tour of the United States and Canada (April-December, 1912) there were several thousand American Bahais, and these were already beginning to have a considerable impact on the overall development of the religion.

In the 1920s Shoghi Effendi initiated his policy of standardizing and strengthening the system of Bahai administration. He received enthusiastic support from the North American National Spiritual Assembly, particularly from its long-time secretary, Horace Holley. In prosecuting their plans, the American Assembly encountered considerable initial resistance from those Bahais who were suspicious of religious organization. Two distinct opposition movements emerged, headed respectively by Ruth White and Ahmad Sohrab, but the majority of the Bahais were gradually persuaded of the need for centralized organization. By the late 1920s, the new administrative system was consolidated, and from 1937 onwards a definite series of expansion plans was undertaken. Success was modest in terms of total numbers, and by the early 1960s there were still only eleven thousand Bahais in North America. A policy of widespread diffusion was very successful, however, and through pioneer moves, the Bahais established themselves in all American states and Canadian provinces. The achievement of separate National Assembly status for Canada (1948) and Alaska (1957), provided a major spur to expansion in those territories.

The Bahai situation in North America changed dramatically in the late 1960s and early 1970s. In common with most other Western countries and as part of a significant general change in attitudes towards religion, the community experienced a great boom of youth conversions. A second wave of conversions followed as the American Bahais successfully made contact with rural Afro-Americans in the southern states. The combined impact of these two developments was considerable. In terms of total numbers, the Bahai population was greatly increased, so that now there are in the region of one hundred thousand Bahais in the USA. In terms of social composition, there was also a major change. The community had always been ethnically diverse, but had tended towards a predominantly urban and middle class membership. The new and very large southern constituency, by contrast, was often poor, or poorly educated. Again, the influx of youth had a major impact on the range of cultural styles within the community, young Bahais often taking a leading role in the further propagation and administration of the religion.

2.Europe. The first groups of Bahais in Europe were formed as a result of contacts with American Bahais: Britain and France from 1899 and Germany from 1905. The British and French groups remained particularly small, with fewer than a hundred members in each until the 1930s. The German community was more dynamic, but nowhere in Europe was there a response comparable to that in the United States. ʿAbd-al-Bahāʾ visited the European Bahais twice (August-December, 1911; December, 1912-June, 1913), but was unable to engender much more than generalized sympathy for the Bahai cause.

After the First World War (1914-18), there was an increasing pace of activity, particularly in Germany, where many new Bahai groups were established, and there was extensive publishing activity, including a German Bahai magazine (Sonne der Wahrheit). There was also extensive contact with the Esperanto movement. Administrative development proceeded more slowly than in America, but National Assemblies were formed in both Britain and Germany in 1923. In 1937, all Bahai activities and institutions in Germany were banned by order of the Gestapo because of the religion’s “international and pacifist” teachings. A number of Bahais were later imprisoned, and after the outbreak of the war (1939), Bahai activities came to an end throughout occupied Europe. The British Bahais, by contrast, became increasingly active, their community remaining the largest in Europe until the present.

In the aftermath of the Second World War, the American Bahais undertook a major teaching campaign in much of Western Europe, local Bahai communities being established in all of the countries outside the communist block. As in America, the European Bahais gained a lot of youthful converts from the late 1960s onwards. Even so, there are still only in the region of 22,000 Bahais in Europe, the lowest concentration in relationship to the general population in any world region outside of the communist block (Universal House of Justice, Department of Statistics,The Seven Year Plan, Statistical Report, Riḍván 1986, Haifa: Baháʾí World Centre, 1986, pp. 48-49). There is a Mašreq al-Aḏkār near Frankfurt.

3.The “Anglo-Pacific.” A Bahai group was established in Hawaii in 1902. Communities were established in Australia and New Zealand during the 1920s. Growth remained limited in these areas until after the Second World War, despite the formation of a joint National Bahai Assembly for Australia and New Zealand in 1934. Growth has been far more marked in recent years. A Mašreq al-Aḏkār was dedicated in Sydney in 1961.

The Bahai “Third World”: 1.Latin America and the Caribbean. Bahai teachers from the United States visited Latin America even before the First World War, but sustained activity only began in the inter-war period, particularly after the start of the first American Seven Year Plan (1937-44), which aimed to establish Bahai Local Assemblies in all the mainland republics. Regional National Assemblies, one each for Central and South America, were established in 1951. Initially, the Latin American communities drew much of their membership from amongst the urban middle classes, but from the 1950s onwards, increasing contacts were made with the Amerindians, particularly in the Andean countries. Poorer social groups now predominate in most of the region, and many of the Bahai communities have become increasingly involved in fostering educational and development programs. A Mašreq al-Aḏkār was dedicated in Panama in 1972.

2.Africa. Apart from the Arab Bahai communities of North Africa, there were very few Bahais in the continent until the 1950s. Development thereafter was rapid, particularly in East Africa. There are now reported to be some 969,000 Bahais in the whole continent (Universal House of Justice, Department of Statistics,Statistical Report, Riḍván 1986, p. 48). There is a Mašreq al-Aḏkār in Kampala.

3.Southern Asia. The Bahai community of the Indian subcontinent dates back to the 1870s, the Bahai teacher, Jamal Effendi, undertaking an extensive tour at Bahāʾ-Allāh’s direction (1872-78). Most of the early Bahais were either of Iranian extraction or were Persianized Indians. Little contact was made with the Hindu masses. Nevertheless, the Bahai community embarked on an energetic campaign to propagate the Bahai teachings, and an extensive Bahai literature in the main Indian languages was developed.

By concentrating their efforts on the urban lecture-going population, the Bahais greatly limited their chances of success, and even as late as 1961, there were still less than nine hundred Bahais in the whole of India (Baháʾí World III, p. 299). The decisive breakthrough was the determined attempt to present the Bahai teachings to the rural masses. When this was done (from 1961), the whole character of the community was changed, and large numbers of people became Bahais, most of them Hindu by background. By 1973, there were close to 400,000 Bahais in India (Garlington, “The Baha’i Faith in Malwa,” p. 104), and there are now said to be approaching two million. A Mašreq al-Aḏkār has recently been dedicated in New Delhi (1986). Active and expanding Bahai communities have also developed in the other countries of the subcontinent. There are many educational and development projects.

4.The Far East, Southeast Asia and the Pacific. There were Iranian Bahai traders in China at an early date, but the earliest indigenous Bahai group to be established in the Far East was in Japan (1914). This community has remained small, however, and Bahai teachers have experienced more success in Korea.

In Southeast Asia, the earliest community was in Burma, as an outgrowth of activities in India (from 1870s). Elsewhere, a few Bahai groups were established during the inter-war period, but large-scale expansion only began in the 1950s. Until its reunification and the disbanding of the Bahai administration under the new communist government, the largest and most prominent Southeast Asian community was in South Vietnam. Bahai activities are also restricted in Indonesia, but there are active communities in most other countries of the region.

The development of Bahai groups in the Pacific region has occurred mostly since the Second World War. Although small in numbers, several of these communities, because of the small population base, now have some of the highest concentrations of Bahais in the world. A Mašreq al-Aḏkār was recently opened in Western Samoa (1984).

The role of Iranians in the present-day Bahai community. Although Iranians now constitute fewer than one-tenth of the total Bahai population, they remain a significant presence within the Bahai world community. In many Asian countries, Iranian Bahais were the original “pioneer-teachers” whose missionary endeavors did much to establish the first Bahai groups. Iranian pioneers were also an important element in the establishment of Bahai communities in several African countries, and there are small groups of Iranian Bahais in many other countries.

In general, the number of expatriate Iranian Bahais has greatly increased since the Islamic revolution. It is not yet possible to quantify this diaspora, but it is clear that many thousands of Bahais have left Iran, the majority eventually emigrating to North America or Europe. Given the relatively small size of the indigenous Bahai communities in Europe, this Iranian influx has had a major impact on their demographic composition, several European Bahai communities now including a very large proportion of Iranians (certainly in several cases, well over a third). A similar situation has developed in some parts of North America (e.g., southern California).

Iranian Bahais also remain a significant presence in the international administration of the Bahai Faith. At the present time, two of the members of the Universal House of Justice (the supreme Bahai ruling body) are of Iranian background, as are 20 out of 72 Continental Counselors. There are also Iranian members on many Bahai national Spiritual Assemblies.

BAHAISM v. The Bahai Community in Iran

Origins. With the Declaration of the Bāb in 1260/1844, followed by his being accepted as the promised Qāʾem (the Hidden Imam) by a handful of early believers, the first Babi community was born in the city of Shiraz. As his claims spread and the missionary journeys of his earliest believers, known as Letters of the Living (Ḥorūf al-ḥayy), and other disciples intensified, more communities were formed, chiefly along the route taken by Mollā Ḥosayn Bošrūʾī (d. 1849) from Shiraz in the south, to Tehran in the north, and several locations in his home province, Khorasan. Qoddūs (d. 1849) and Moqaddas’s (d. 1889) activities in Kermān, Yazd, and other central cities, Bahāʾ-Allāh’s (d. 1892) visit to Māzandarān, and Ṭāhera’s (d. 1852) journeys from Karbalāʾ to Qazvīn, through western provinces, made enough converts to establish communities in all those provinces. The Bāb’s own journey from Shiraz towards the north (to Kolayn, several kilometers south of Tehran), and then to Tabrīz, via Qazvīn and Zanjān, strengthened, consolidated, and enlarged the communities that had already been established in those areas. By July, 1850, when the Bāb was executed in Tabrīz, there was no province in the entire country in which from a few up to ten Babi communities had not been established. These early Babi communities of Muslim converts, who were generally from Shaikhi background, had come from various strata of Persian society, although a few Jews and Zoroastrians had also joined the movement (Māzandarānī, 1943, p. 395; Samandar, p. 348).

The Bāb proclaimed the absolute truth of religious evolution, asserted the continuity of revelation, as opposed to its finality, a doctrine dogmatically held by the Muslims, brought a new Book and laid down laws and ordinances for a new religious order. He provided his believers with a motivation towards new standards of living, longing for advancement, and desire for change in their outlook. The spirit of the new day and order, enshrined in the writings of the Bāb, was sufficient to energize the communities to work in a collective unity for the creation of change towards improved private and social conditions.

The formation of the Babi communities in Iran was a direct result of intensified missionary activities of individual believers who attracted people to their cause. The conversion of a nobleman, a landlord, or a learned cleric provided an element of encouragement for large-scale conversion in some localities, while a sympathetic attitude on the part of some officials and religious authorities helped the rapid expansion of the community. A distinguishing feature of the early Babi communities was their eagerness to hold dawn prayers, listen to sermons, and attend study groups to read and discuss the writings of the faith. Meetings with non-believers to discuss religious matters, aimed at attracting them to the faith, and meetings with traveling teachers or passing believers were the most common social activities of the early communities. The strongest Babi communities in the rural areas, in terms of population and stability, were formed in Sangsar near Semnān, Najafābād near Isfahan, and Saysān near Tabrīz; however, numerous towns and cities also had large communities. The social life of the early communities was characterized by continuous interaction with the non-Babi populace, which was naturally hostile to the emergence of a new religion. The result, almost everywhere in the entire country, was social and religious conflict; persecution, restriction, banishment, and execution of the Babis.

The emergence ofBahāʾ-Allāh as a religious leader of the Babi community and the proclamation of his claim to be the fulfillment of the Bāb’s prophecies of the advent ofman yoẓheroh Allāh (he whom God will make manifest) attracted the vast majority of the Babis to his call. Some, however, remained Babis, and some followed Ṣobḥ-e Azal (q.v.), half-brother of Bahāʾ-Allāh, who claimed the leadership of the Babi community. Through his writings to the individual leading Babis and by sending his devoted followers to various communities, Bahāʾ-Allāh gradually increased the number of his followers, who became known as Bahais. During his ministry (1853-92), the Bahai communities grew in size and number, and performance of the duties prescribed in his writings became an essential mark of membership in the community. Communal activities, such as attending the Holy Day meetings, prayer sessions, sermons, and other religious activities increased.

Towards the end of Bahāʾ-Allāh’s stay in Adrianople (1863-68), a number of religious, theological and social principles were expounded in his writings which found progressive development in the private and collective life of the Bahais. At his passing (1892), he left approximately 50,000 believers scattered in Iran and other Middle Eastern countries (ʿAbd-al-Bahāʾ,Majmūʿa-ye makātīb, Tehran, 1975, no. 13, photocopied ms., p. 3).

During the ministries of ʿAbd-al-Bahāʾ (1892-1921), Bahāʾ-Allāh’s son and successor, and Shoghi Effendi (1921-57), ʿAbd-al-Bahāʾ’s grandson and Guardian of the Faith, the local Bahai communities developed substantially, Bahai laws and ordinances were put into action, Bahai administrative institutions, particularly from the early 1930s, were slowly and steadily established. The institution of the Nineteen Day Feast (Żīāfat-e Nūzdah-rūza), prescribed in theAqdas, came into full function as a vital pillar in the socio-religious life of the communities, and in various aspects of the faith several other developments, which deserve closer study, took place.

Bahai administration. From the early days of the faith to the closing years of the nineteenth century (1844-97), the religious and social affairs of the communities were conducted through the non-institutionalized consultation and arbitration of the leading Bahais in each locality. The Hands of the Cause of God (Ayādī-e Amr Allāh) appointed by Bahāʾ-Allāh (ʿAlāʾī, pp. 369-493), were charged with the responsibility of organizing teaching campaigns, protecting the faith and, to a lesser extent, being involved in all the major developments of the communities. At the instructions of ʿAbd-al-Bahāʾ, they began forming local Bahai councils (Maḥfel-e šawr) in Azerbaijan, which gradually extended into other provinces. In 1314/1897, the Council of Tehran was formed and six years later, in 1320/1903, it was officially constituted of four Hands and five others who were chosen by the Hands to serve on it. This was the first local Spiritual Assembly of Tehran which prepared its constitution and held weekly meetings to conduct the affairs of the community (Māzandarānī,Ẓohūr al-Ḥaqq, ms., Baháʾí Archives, Haifa, MD16-3, vol. 7, pp. 153-54).

Following the pattern set in Tehran, local Spiritual Assemblies were gradually formed in other parts of Iran until the 1920s when the principles of Bahai election were slowly adopted in the formation of the Spiritual Assemblies and their legal and administrative roles and rights in conducting the affairs of the communities were established and recognized by believers. Statistical reports for Iran show a significant growth since 1950 in the number of Spiritual Assemblies and localities where Bahais resided; while in that year the number of local Spiritual Assemblies was 280, and that of localities 712, in 1968 the number of Spiritual Assemblies reached 560 and of localities 1,541. In 1979, 679 Spiritual Assemblies and 1,699 localities were reported (Department of Statistics, Baháʾí World Centre, Haifa, Statistical Reports).

At the first national convention of the Bahais of Iran, held in Tehran over a period of eight days beginning on April 26, 1934, the first national Spiritual Assembly (maḥfel-e rūḥānī-e mellī) of the Bahais of Iran, a milestone in the history of the Bahai community, with its seat in Tehran, was elected (The Baháʾí World 6, pp. 22-23). The social and religious affairs of the national community of the Bahais of Iran, which, prior to 1934 had been directed by the former Central Assembly of Tehran, were transferred to the new body. Following the formation of the national Spiritual Assembly, the by-laws of the national Spiritual Assembly of the United States were translated into Persian and adopted with modifications by the Persian national Spiritual Assembly. Also national committees were appointed to help the national Spiritual Assembly with specific tasks (The Baháʾí World 6, p. 94). The establishment of the Bahai Administrative Order in Iran called for adherence to discipline, and soon it was found that sanctions had to be applied suited to the offense, from conscious and flagrant disregard of fundamental Bahai precepts and laws to disobedience to the head of the faith.

The first National Plan for the expansion and consolidation of the faith in Iran and adjoining lands came into effect on October 11, 1946 and lasted for 45 months ending on July 9, 1950. The objectives of the plan included the consolidation of all local Bahai communities; the re-establishment of 62 dissolved Spiritual Assemblies; the formation of 22 new groups and the creation of 13 new centers (The Baháʾí World 4, pp. 34-35). Following the first plan, the Persian Bahai community was assigned certain goals and objectives in the Ten Year Crusade (1953-63), the Nine Year Plan (1964-73), the Five Year Plan (1974-79), and the Seven Year Plan (1979-86). The detailed goals and achievements of the community are found in the volumes ofAḵbār-e amrī for the respective periods.

Bahai women. In the early years of the 1930s Bahai women joined the movement of discarding the veil and gradually abandoned the traditional veiling practice. This development opened new fields of service for women and made possible their fuller participation in the social and administrative activities of the communities. A central women’s progress committee was formed in 1944 to organize women’s activities throughout the country. Some of the fundamental tasks accomplished by this committee and its supportive bodies in various localities included holding the first convention of Anjoman-e Tarraqī-e Neswān (Society for the Advancement of women) in 1947 in Tehran (The Baháʾí World 11, p. 563), following which local and regional conferences, educational gatherings, and regular classes for illiterate women were conducted. As a result of continued effort and educational training, particularly during the Four Year Plan for the Bahai Persian women (1946-50) (The Baháʾí World 12, p. 65), they were enabled to acquire sufficient self-confidence and social recognition to fill elective and appointive offices in the community. Bahai women were elected to membership of the Spiritual Assemblies for the first time in 1954 (Āhang-e Badīʿ 10/2-3, 1334 Š./1955). By April 1973, illiteracy among Bahai women under the age of 40 was eradicated throughout the country (The Baháʾí World 15, p. 248). In recent years, prior to 1979, the Bahai women of Iran were participating in various fields of Bahai activities. Since 1979 scores of them who played effective roles in both rural and urban Bahai communities were imprisoned and more than twenty have been executed.

Bahai youth. Bahai youth of Iran, too, have played a role in the secular and spiritual destiny of the community throughout its history, but organized activities of youth date back to the establishment of a youth group in Tehran in 1929 which was soon followed by the formation of other youth groups in all the major Bahai centers in the country. In 1949-50, a total of 207 Bahai youth committees (lajna-ye javānān) existed in Iran to organize youth activities which included holding regular classes and conferences to deepen young people’s knowledge of the faith; establishing and operating libraries and clubs; conducting literacy classes; teaching in children’s education classes; holding exhibitions of fine arts and crafts; and spreading the message of the faith to non-Bahais. Starting from year 103Badīʿ/1946, national Bahai youth conventions (kānvenšan-e mellī-e javānān) were held in Iran to plan, activate, and coordinate youth activities. A report shows that within a few years between the late 1960s and early 1970s more than 1500 Bahai youth pioneered to home-front goals and more than 100 pioneers settled in foreign goal areas (The Baháʾí World 15, p. 249). The number and efficiency of the local youth committees were increased in the years immediately prior to the 1979 revolution. They were guided and supervised by the National Youth Committee (Lajna-ye Mellī-e Javānān) based in Tehran.

Education. An achievement in which dozens of Bahai communities invested their financial and intellectual efforts was the establishment ofBahai schools in tens of cities, towns, and villages to educate Bahai and non-Bahai children. They were closed by order of the government in 1934 (The Baháʾí World 6, pp. 26-30).

An educational, devotional, and recreational institution which originated in America in 1927 and was established in Iran in the summer of 1939 was the Bahai Summer School. The first Persian Summer School, held in Ḥājīābād, some 40 kilometers northeast of Tehran, consisted of three sessions of ten days in which a total number of 214 Bahais participated (The Baháʾí World 8, p. 78). As circumstances permitted, summer schools were held for many years in various localities in Tehran and other provinces. The permanent seat of the summer schools, run under the aegis of the national Spiritual Assembly, was in Ḥadīqa, an estate on the slopes of Mount Alborz to the northeast of the capital (see below), which attracted several hundred participants each summer.

Since 1315/1898 Bahai “Character Training Classes” (Kelāshā-ye dars-e aḵlāq) have been conducted in Tehran and other Bahai centers. In recent years a good deal of attention and expertise has been given to the advancement of Bahai child education and a considerable amount of children’s literature has been produced in Iran.

Publications. Since the establishment of the Bahai faith in Iran thousands of believers have received letters from its central figures: the Bāb, Bahāʾ-Allāh, and ʿAbd-al-Bahāʾ. These letters (makātīb,alwāḥ), which are scattered among the families of the recipients, form a substantial portion of the Bahai sacred texts, and their collection, preservation, and transcription have always ranked high in the list of responsibilities of local and national Spiritual Assemblies in Iran; thus far, more than thirty volumes of these letters have been published.

One of the achievements of the community was the establishment of the Bahai Publishing Trust in 1959 (The Baháʾí World 12, p. 292). Since 1316/1899, Bahai sacred texts have been hectographed and mimeographed by Mīrzā ʿAlī-Akbar Rūḥānī (known as Moḥebb-al-Solṭān) (Māzandarānī, 1974, p. 483) and others. Although the restrictive laws of the country prohibited the Bahais from printing their literature by letterpress, through the establishment of the trust, Bahai literature was regularly and systematically published in typewritten or calligraphic form until 1979 when the trust was closed under the Islamic régime. Between 1959 and 1979, several hundred titles were produced and distributed. The trust was also responsible for the publication of circulars, newsletters, pamphlets, and magazines. In 1975 alone, it produced 181,390 copies of books and pamphlets totaling 31 million pages (The Baháʾí World 16, p. 263). In the early 1970s an audiovisual center was established in Iran which made rapid growth during the few years of its existence. A report shows that in the mid-1970s the center produced 27 cassette programs containing prayers, songs, and speeches amounting to 40,000 copies, and 28 reels of film (ibid.). The Persian Bahai community also published several periodicals. One of the most popular, aiming at the educational and intellectual training of Bahai youth, theĀhang-e badīʿ, was established in Iran in 102Badīʿ/1945 as a publication of the Tehran Bahai Youth Committee and then became a national magazine which gained the support of 1,200 subscribers in the early 1950s (The Baháʾí World 12, p. 570). Suspended for five years (112-117 B./1955-60) due to intensified restrictions by the government,Āhang-e badīʿ was published for more than three decades until it was stopped by the onset of the Islamic régime.

Beginning in 1300 Š./1921 the Bahai community published a magazine calledAḵbār-e amrī. Containing the holy writings of the Bahai faith, domestic and foreign Bahai news, official announcements of Bahai administrative bodies, and articles on various aspects of the faith, the magazine became a vital means of communication and a register of the main historical events for six decades until its closing in 1980. Starting in 105 B./1948, the Bahai women of Iran published a monthly magazine, calledTarāna-ye omīd, to educate and entertain Bahai families, with special attention to women’s affairs. After some years of suspension, it reappeared in 130 B./1973 to function for several more years until 1979 (Aḵbār-e amrī 52/11, September, 1973, pp. 332-34).

The year 124 B./1967 witnessed the publication of a magazine for the Bahai children of Iran. NamedVarqā, the magazine was regularly published each month until 1979 and was supported by subscribers all over the country and abroad. This magazine played a significant role in the educational and intellectual life of Persian Bahai children for more than a decade. After the 1979 revolution, the magazine has continued to be published in India. To these major national periodicals,Našrīya, a news bulletin of the local Spiritual Assembly of Tehran, should be added. Distributed free of charge to each Bahai family in Tehran every 19 days,Našrīya functioned for a dozen years and kept its readers informed of the major news and developments in the Bahai community of Tehran.

Endowments and properties. The acquisition, preservation, and maintenance of the places directly associated with the history of the Bahai faith have been among the goals of the community since its early years. The places consisted of houses and sites associated with the principal figures of the faith, burial places of Bahai saints, places where the martyrdoms of believers took place, prisons, fortresses, and defense centers of heroes and renowned Bahais. The fact that these places were located throughout the country made their care a major undertaking for various committees at local and national levels. The work included the registration, description, and photographing of the sites in addition to their regular maintenance and restoration. In the late 1960s more than 124 holy places belonged to the faith in various localities throughout the country. To this should be added more than 200 national and 452 local endowments consisting of Bahai centers, cemeteries, hostels, and public baths (Department of Statistics, Baháʾí World Centre, Haifa, “Persia - Nine Year Plan File,” 14 January 1969).

To fulfill a commandment of Bahāʾ-Allāh to build a House of Worship (Mašreq al-Aḏkār) the Bahais of Iran acquired 3.58 square kilometers (The Baháʾí World 10, p. 48) of land on the slopes of Mount Alborz, named Ḥadīqa, in northeast Tehran, for the eventual construction of their first temple. Although the temple has yet to be built, a complex of buildings was erected there to serve as the seat of Bahai summer schools and other social and administrative activities.

Cemeteries. Since the Bahais have always been prohibited from burying their dead in Muslim cemeteries, the acquisition of burial grounds, termedGolestān-e Jāvīd (Eternal garden) in the Persian literature of the faith, has been a major goal of the Bahai communities throughout the country. From the earliest days, Bahai dead have been buried in their own private properties, in plots of land donated by individual Bahais to the community as local endowments, or, where possible, in the community-owned cemeteries obtained by collective financial contributions of individual Bahais. A systematic process of acquiring separate Bahai cemeteries, however, was inaugurated in most Bahai communities in the 1920s and continued in later decades. Prior to the 1979 revolution, most of the principal Bahai centers had their own cemeteries run under the supervision of the local Spiritual Assembly. After the revolution most of them have been destroyed and desecrated.

Economic and social institutions. Through the donations of individual Bahais, the first Bahai fund (Šerkat-e ḵayrīya) was established in Tehran in 1907 to financially support Bahai teachers, facilitate the education of Bahai children, provide sufficient care of Bahai orphans, the aged and handicapped, and be of assistance to students of higher education (Māzandarānī, VII, p. 259). In 1917 a Children’s Savings Company, which later was registered as Šerkat-e Now-nahālān, was founded in Qazvīn. On 23 November 1919 ʿAbd-al-Bahāʾ wrote a prayer in which he sought God’s blessing for its success and durability (Māzandarānī, op. cit., p. 322). He also donated two gold coins of five rubles each to its capital. The company had about 9,000 shareholders with approximately 120 million rials (about $1,700,000) in assets in 1967, half a century after its establishment (Yādgār-e jašn-e panjāhomīn sāl-e taʾsīs-e šerkat-e sahāmī-e now-nahālān, Tehran, 1967, pp. 1-2).

In 1940 ʿAbd-al-Mīṯāq Mīṯāqīya, a well-known Bahai of Tehran, built a hospital and donated it to the Bahai community. The hospital rapidly developed to employ highly respected physicians, and to obtain advanced equipment. It became known as one of the best medical centers in Tehran. In the early 1970s a nursing school, affiliated with the hospital, was inaugurated and the hospital itself opened medical clinics in Boir Aḥmad (The Baháʾí World 16, p. 264). In 1940 an institution for Bahai orphans was founded (The Baháʾí World 9, p. 251) which served the community for many years. On a more general level, an achievement of the Bahai communities in Iran was the establishment of modern public baths in most of the major populated towns and villages throughout the country to replace the unhygienic traditional baths. Some of the baths were built and donated to the community by individual Bahais and some were established through the collective financial participation of the members of the community.

Outstanding figures. Among the outstanding individuals in the first century of the faith wasAbu’l-Fażl Golpāyegānī, who accepted the Bahai faith in 1293/1876 and became a distinguished believer, particularly active in the propagation of its principles. He spent several years in prison due to his Bahai activities, then traveled extensively before settling in Egypt, where he died in 1914. Among his works areBorhān-e lāmeʿ, translated and published asThe Brilliant Proof (1912),al-Ḥojaj al-bahīya, translated and published asMiracles and Metaphors (1981). A selection of his shorter works, entitledLetters and Essays (1985), is also available in English. His other works such asal-Farāʾed,Šarḥ-e Āyāt-e Mowarraḵa,Kašf al-ḡeṭāʾ, and a few collections of his shorter works exist in Arabic and Persian.

Mīrzā Ḥasan Ṭālaqānī, son of Mīrzā Moḥammad-Taqī, known as Adīb (q.v.) al-ʿOlamāʾ and Adīb-e Ayādī, was born in Šawwāl 1264 (September 1848) in Karkabūd near Ṭālaqān. He received his elementary education in that city and traveled to Tehran and Isfahan for further education. The depth and range of his knowledge in Islamic studies, history, and Arabic and Persian literature gained him enough scholarly prestige to be invited to work as one of the co-writers of theNāma-ye dānešvarān, a voluminous biographical work initiated under ʿAlīqolī Mīrzā Eʿteżād-al-Salṭana. He also participated in the preparation of theQamqām-e Zaḵḵār written by Moʿtamed-al-Dawla Farhād Mīrzā during 1303-5 (1886-88). Adīb was distinguished as a writer, poet, and educator. He passed away on 6 Ḏu’l-qaʿda 1337 (4 August 1919) in Tehran.

An outstanding historian of the Bahai faith, Asad-Allāh Fāżel Māzandarānī (d. 1957), is the author of a nine-volume work covering the history of the first Bahai century (1844-1944). The work, volumes three and eight of which have so far been published (in 1943 and 1974-75), records the full biographies of the Bāb, Bahāʾ-Allāh, and ʿAbd-al-Bahāʾ, the faith’s leading disciples and learned members, poets, martyrs, and other prominent personalities. It covers the history of the persecutions of the Bahais; discusses the internal crises of the faith and, more significantly, contains excerpts from the holy writings and includes documentation and a considerable number of pictures. Other works of Fāżel include his dictionary of commonly used proper terms and titles in Bahai literature,Asrār al-āṯār, which was published in five volumes (1967-72) of more than 1,600 pages. Fāżel’s other major work,Amr wa ḵalq, contains hundreds of selections from the Bahai holy writings grouped under topics related to philosophical, theological, religious, and administrative matters. The work was published in Iran (1954-74) in four volumes. Among the other outstanding figures of the Bahai faith, was ʿAzīz-Allāh Meṣbāḥ (d. 1945), a well-educated writer and poet who served the community as an educator in the Tarbīat school for a quarter of a century, taught in Bahai classes and summer schools, and left poetry and other works. The remarkable achievement of ʿAbd-al-Ḥamīd Ešrāq Ḵāvarī (d. 1972) in writing and compiling more than 40 books and dozens of articles in every major field of Bahai studies also deserves to be mentioned.

Persian Bahais in international Bahai fields. The Persian Bahai community, as the oldest and wealthiest Bahai community in the world, both culturally and materially, has played a vital role in almost every major accomplishment of the Bahai world community. The earliest Bahai communities in the Middle East, and southern Russia were without exception formed through the pioneering activities of the Persian Bahais. In later periods they traveled and settled in different parts of the world to propagate the faith (The Baháʾí World 13, pp. 291-92). During the Ten Year World Crusade (1953-63) and subsequent global activities, the Persian community contributed substantial manpower and financial support. During 1968-73 alone, as a partial goal of the international Nine Year Plan (1964-73), 3,500 Persian Bahais were relocated in goal areas, both domestic and international, and some five thousand individuals, often using their own resources, served as missionaries abroad (The Baháʾí World 15, p. 247).

When in 1951-53 and again in 1957, Shoghi Effendi proclaimed the appointment of thirty-one Bahais as Hands of the Cause of God, eleven were Persians. In the first election of the Bayt al-ʿAdl-e Aʿẓam (the Universal House of Justice, April, 1963) three out of nine were Persians. At the present time, twenty-one Persians (out of 72) are members of the continental boards of counselors, supreme bodies responsible for the expansion and protection of the faith (Baháʾí News, no. 657, December, 1985, p. 1), and more than 250 Persians serve as members of 148 national Spiritual Assemblies throughout the world (Department of Statistics, Baháʾí World Centre, Haifa, “Annual Election Reports,” April, 1986).

Internal crises and external persecutions. It would be impossible to study the Bahai community without taking into consideration the internal crises and external persecutions that have affected the entire Bahai community throughout its history; personal desire to achieve leadership appears to have been the prime source of internal crises, particularly in the periods of transition of authority. The sanctions which are imposed on offenders range from warnings to deprivation of one’s right of voting in Bahai elections, and to excommunication in the severest case, which is termed covenant-breaking (naqż-e ʿahd). The authority for punishment, expulsion, and reinstatement is vested in the Center of the Faith (markaz-e mīṯāq) and its institutions. Although the internal crises have not caused sectarianism in the community, they have been sufficiently powerful to mobilize the unifying forces of the faith to counter them. The negative effects of the crises, however, are negligible when compared with the destructive consequences of external persecutions.

The history of the Bahai faith in Iran during the past fifteen decades has been one of joy resulting from the faith’s progress, and of bitter suffering, resulting from successive waves of persecution. Since its inception, the Bahai community of Iran has longed to spread the message of the faith, to enforce the laws and ordinances prescribed in its holy writings, to establish its religious and administrative institutions, and to function as a free community, loyal to the laws and constitution of the land, whose government would recognize the faith’s fundamental right of existence. Against these aspirations, the secular and religious forces of the country not only stood firm, denying its right as a religious community, restricting its basic freedoms, and belittling its teachings and doctrines, but also rose to uproot its very being from the land of its birth. The persecution of the Bahai faith which dates back to the confinement of the Bāb and his early followers in Shiraz, has continued uninterruptedly to the present time. Although in the history of the persecution, there are short intervals of relative ease in the general condition of the community, it is, nonetheless, impossible to cite a single year in which one sort of persecution or another did not take place (Seebahai faith, vii).

The establishment of the Islamic Republic of Iran in 1979 put an end to the organized, systematic activities of the Bahai faith in that country. By order of the new government all Bahai holy places, endowments, and properties were confiscated; Bahai institutions at the national and local levels ceased to function; thousands of Bahais, virtually in each major town and city, were arrested, tortured, and imprisoned, and more than 180 of them were executed. This number does not include dozens of Bahais who have been kidnapped or have disappeared without a trace. Since 1979 thousands of Bahais have been driven from their homeland by these unrelenting persecutions. A good number of them, still homeless, are classified as “refugees” in various countries around the world.

BAHAISM vi. The Bahai Community of Ashkhabad

Attracted by religious freedom and economic opportunities unavailable to them in Iran, Iranian Bahais began to settle in Ashkhabad around 1884; the community prospered and reached its peak during the period 1917-28.

The first Bahai settlement in Ashkhabad dates back to 1300/1882 when Moḥammad-Reżā Arbāb b. Moḥammad Kāẓem Eṣfahānī and Ḥājī ʿAbd-al-Rasūl Yazdī b. Moḥammad-ʿAlī Yazdī made their way there from Iran. During the next two years, they were followed by Ostād ʿAlī-Akbar Bannāʾ Yazdī, Ostād Moḥammad-Reżā Ḵorramšāhī, members of their families, their friends and others. The early Bahai settlers of Ashkhabad were principally contractors and traders; also present, but fewer in number, were craftsmen, artisans, and simple laborers.

The community’s early years were marked by rapid physical and economic growth and religious tolerance on the part of Ashkhabad’s non-Bahai inhabitants. The arrival of the respected Bahai scholar Mīrzā Abu’l-Fażl Golpāyegānī on 15 July 1889 greatly enhanced the intellectual life of the community (R. Mehrābḵānī,Šarḥ-e aḥwāl-e Abu’l-Fażāʾel Golpāyegānī, Tehran, 1974, p. 161).

An event that affected the early history of the community occurred on 12 Moḥarram 1307/8 September 1889 when a well-known Bahai leader, the seventy-year-old Ḥājī Moḥammad-Reżā Eṣfahānī, was stabbed to death in the Ashkhabadbāzār. His murder was engineered by fanatical Shiʿites who could not tolerate the increasing prosperity of the Bahai community. Immediately after Ḥājī Moḥammad-Reżā’s murder, the conspirators were arrested, and a special court was convened. The court sentenced two of the Shiʿite assassins to death and five others to exile and/or imprisonment for terms ranging from sixteen months to fifteen years; but, through the intercession of the Bahai community, the sentences were commuted. This act of forgiveness enhanced the prestige of the Bahais and earned them, for the first time, government recognition and protection (A. ʿAlīzād,Tārīḵ-eamr-e mobārak dar madīna-ye ʿEšqābād, ms., Haifa: Bahai International Archives, MR 2403, I, pp. 32-34).

The community continued to grow and to form social and religious organizations during the years immediately after Ḥājī Moḥammad-Reżā’s assassination. In 1313/1895, the first local Spiritual Assembly was founded (A. Māzandarānī,Ẓohūr al-ḥaqq, Tehran, 1974-75, VIII, p. 981). A Bahai school for boys was begun, regular gatherings to observe holy days were held, committees were formed to conduct community affairs and, by 1319/1901, the Bahai population of Ashkhabad topped 1,000 (Māzandarānī, p. 983). From Ashkhabad, which served as the center of Bahai activities, the faith made its way to Tashkent, Marv, and Samarkand.

The community’s most outstanding achievement, however, was the erection of the first Bahai temple (Mašreq al-Aḏkār) in the world. The temple had been planned during the ministry ofBahāʾ-Allāh (Shoghi Effendi,God Passes By, Wilmette, 1970, p. 300) and was designed, under the direct supervision ofʿAbd-al-Bahāʾ, by Ostād ʿAlī-Akbar Bannāʾ, during his visit to ʿAkkā in 1311/1893 (Māzandarānī, p. 995). The temple was started in 1902 and officially inaugurated in 1919.

From 1917 to 1928, the Bahai community flourished. In 1335/1917, the journalḴᵛoršīd-e ḵāvar began publication (ʿAlīzād, I, p. 69); in 1336/1918, the Bahai Youth League was formed and established a public library, published a Bahai calendar for ten years, arranged seminars, produced a wall-mounted bulletin,Fekr-e javān for young people, and offered music classes and literacy courses for adults (ʿAlīzād, I, pp. 71-84). In 1338/1920, the local Spiritual Assembly of Ashkhabad was officially recognized by the government (Māzandarānī, p. 990), regular gatherings were held to acquaint non-Bahais with the faith, two kindergartens were founded and various institutions such as the pilgrim house, the meeting hall, the medical clinic and two Bahai schools operated at full capacity.

Around the middle of 1928, the Bahais of Ashkhabad, conspicuous by their activities and influence, became the special victims of a general Soviet campaign against all religions. The Soviets appropriated the temple in 1928 and rented it to the Bahais for a five-year period which was extended for another five years. Bahai activities and institutions were curtailed or abolished, and leading members of the community were imprisoned or deported to Iran. During the early 1930s, the government-imposed economic hardships became so severe that many Bahai families, on the point of actual starvation, were forced to emigrate to Iran.

In the mid-1930s, the Bahai community was able to regain its freedom and revitalize its administrative organization; however, this brief renascence was cut short by fresh waves of persecution that began in the early months of 1938. In February, 1938, several hundred Bahais were arrested, houses were searched and literature and relics were confiscated; those arrested were charged with “working to the advantage of foreigners” (Baháʾí World VIII, 1938-40, p. 88). During their confinement, which lasted more than fifteen months and, in some cases, twenty-one months (ʿAlīzād, I, pp. 134-36), several Bahai prisoners died, and the rest were gradually exiled to Siberia. About 600 old men, women, and children were deported to Iran (Baháʾí World VIII, p. 89). The temple was converted to an art gallery in 1938 and was severely damaged in an earthquake ten years later. In 1963, it was demolished by the authorities and replaced by a public park.

Unauthenticated reports suggest that around 200 Bahais continue to live in and around Ashkhabad but do not have any organization or religious activities.

BAHAISM vii. Bahai Persecutions

Bahai persecutions were a pattern of continuing discriminatory measures against adherents and institutions of the Bahai religion, punctuated by outbreaks of both random and organized violence against individuals and property. Although Bahai accounts conflate earlier episodes involving Babis (seebabi executions and uprisings) with those concerned with Bahais in the proper sense, there are good grounds for avoiding this approach in analyzing what are really quite distinct phenomena. At the same time, it is worth observing that much of the original animus against Bahais was rooted in fears roused by Babi militancy between 1848 and 1853.

Persecution in the late 19th and 20th centuries was ostensibly motivated and justified by religious considerations, whereas in recent decades anti-Bahai polemic has become heavily politicized, even under the Islamic Republic. Nevertheless, social and economic factors cannot be discounted in the earlier period any more than simple religious prejudice in the later. The earliest anti-Bahai activities were essentially continuations of previous attacks on Babis and took the form of isolated beatings, expulsions, lootings, or killings; such incidents were almost always initiated by individualʿolamāʾ or local government officials for whom they were expedient. From the 1920s, however, physical attacks gave way on the whole to general civil and religious discrimination, representing a broader consensus of anti-Bahai feeling at all levels of society. Even then, the potential for actual violence was never far beneath the surface, as demonstrated by the events of 1955 and the 1980s.

The main accusations leveled against the Bahais may be found in the extensive anti-Bahai polemical literature published in Iran since the last century (see the bibliography). Religiously, Bahais are consideredkoffār (unbelievers) in that they claim a book and prophet chronologically posterior to the Koran and Moḥammad, regard the Islamicšarīʿa (canonical law) as abrogated and replaced by that of their own faith, and seek to convert Muslims to their beliefs. More recently, however, it has become customary to condemn Bahaism precisely because it is “not a religion” but a political movement working in conjunction with royalist, Zionist, American, British, or other agencies for the subversion of Islam and the Iranian nation. It is perhaps worth placing on record here that no convincing evidence has ever been presented for Bahai involvement with British, Israeli, or American intelligence or with SAVAK (the state security agency): the real reasons for Bahai unpopularity must be sought on deeper social and psychological levels.

Among incidents in the Qajar period, the following may be noted: the execution of three Bahais in Tabrīz in 1283/1867, following the murder of an Azalī Babi by one of the accused; several outbreaks of trouble in the Isfahan region, including a wave of arrests in 1291/1874, the executions of two wealthy Bahai merchants in 1296/1879, and mass expulsions in Najafābād and Sedeh in 1306/1889—in these and other incidents, major roles were played by Shaikh Moḥammad-Bāqer Eṣfahānī, his son Shaikh Moḥammad-Taqī (Āqā Najafī), Mīr Sayyed Moḥammad, theemām-e jomʿa of Isfahan, and Solṭān-Masʿūd Mīrzā Ẓell-al-Solṭān (q.v.); the arrest of some 50 Bahais, including several leaders of the movement, in Tehran in 1300/1883; the murder of 5 Bahais in Torbat-e Ḥaydarī in 1314/1896; the murder of Ḥājī Moḥammad Tabrīzī in Mašhad in 1315/1898, leading to a prolonged wrangle between the prime minister (Amīn-al-Dawla) and the authorities in Mašhad; further disturbances in Najafābād in 1316-17/1897, involving abast (seeking the protection of an inviolate location) of some 300 people at the British telegraph office; the execution of 7 Bahais in Yazd in 1308/1901, on the orders of Solṭān-Ḥosayn Mīrzā Jalāl-al-Dawla; and a series of disturbances in 1321/1903, in Rašt, Isfahan (where 3 Bahais were killed and some 4,000 soughtbast in the Russian consulate), and Yazd (where about 100 Bahais were put to death). (For details of these and other incidents, see in particular Momen,Bābí and Baháʾí Religions; Nicolas,Massacres; Browne,Materials, chap. 7; Shoghi Effendi,God Passes By, pp. 198-203, 296-99.)

In the course of these and other outrages against Bahais, frequent representations were made to the Iranian government by the British and Russian legations, but at no time were serious measures taken to proceed against the guilty parties or to prevent further outbreaks. The Bahai incidents may thus be considered as particular foci for foreign concern about issues of civil liberties and the enforcement of law and order in Iran at this period.

During the period of the Constitutional Revolution, both royalists and constitutionalists were accused by their opponents of being “Babis,” usually without any distinctions between Azalīs (q.v.) and Bahais. Although the Bahais claimed to be neutral and did not, for the most part, engage in overt political activity, this was not always clear to the general public. Their Azalī rivals, with whom they were frequently confused, certainly did number among their ranks several prominent reformers. At the same time, the Bahais were well represented in court and government circles, and writings of the Bahai leadership of the period express support for the shah and disapproval of constitutionalist activities (see MacEoin, “Religious Heterodoxy;” Roemer,Bābī-Behāʾī, pp. 153-60). Although direct attacks on Bahais at this time were limited, it seems certain that the sect’s long-term failure to win the sympathy of anti-traditionalist elements in Iranian society dates from this period.

In the Pahlavi era, anti-Bahai feeling entered a new phase. From about 1342/1926, “the moves against the Baha’is assumed a more subtle, pseudo-legal nature” (Momen,Bábí and Baháʾí Religions, p. 462). A pogrom in Jahrom in that year, which was instigated for political motives by Esmāʿīl Khan Ṣawlat-al-Dawla and in which eight individuals died, was to be the last outbreak on that scale until 1955. A major factor in the decline of violent attacks was undoubtedly the weakness of theʿolamāʾ under Reżā Shah, but this did not prevent discrimination against Bahais taking other forms. Denied official recognition in the 1906 Constitution or subsequent legislation, the Bahais were unable to secure basic rights as a religious community on a par with those accorded to Jews, Christians, or Zoroastrians, whose civil recognition depended on their status asahl al-ketāb (peoples of a [sacred] book). Bahai institutions were unable to register as corporate bodies in law (as they were doing in other countries at that time); Bahai marriages were not legally recognized; the printing, circulation, and import of Bahai literature was banned (although Bahai books and journals did continue to be published in typewritten or lithographed format); Bahai centers were often closed and meetings prohibited or disrupted; Bahais in government employ (including army officers) were occasionally dismissed or demoted. One of the most serious setbacks suffered by the Bahai community was the closure in May, 1934, of the prestigious Tarbīat school in Tehran, followed by other Bahai schools throughout the country on the grounds that these institutions had closed on Bahai holy days in the previous year. Although this last measure has to be set in the context of the broader policy towards foreign and religious minority schools in general, it had a particularly severe effect on the Bahais, whose schools, attended by many non-Bahai children from the upper and new middle classes, represented the only acceptable presence of the sect within society at large.

During this period, the Bahai community of Iran grew substantially in numbers. From an estimated 100,000 adherents in the 1880s (between 1.25 and 2.00 percent of the population), it rose to nearly 200,000 by the 1950s, by which point the Bahais were probably the largest religious minority in the country (for details, see Smith, “Babi and Bahaʾi Numbers”). In spite of this, Bahaism was unable to make the transition from the status of a “sect”(sociologically defined) to that of a “church” or recognized independent religious body. Bahais (including women) were generally well educated, disproportionately represented in the professional and entrepreneurial classes, included large numbers of converts from the Jewish and Zoroastrian (but not, as a rule, the Christian) communities, and had active ties with converts to their faith in Europe, North America, and elsewhere. From about 1909, American Bahai teachers and doctors lived and worked in Iran, winning the respect of liberal elements, but identifying Bahaism with foreign interests in the eyes of the more conservative (as demonstrated in the incident in 1342/1924, when the American vice-consul in Tehran, Robert Imbrie, was killed by a mob which mistakenly believed him to be a Bahai; see Momen,Bábí and Baháʾí Religions, pp. 462-65). Bahais themselves emphasized their support for Reżā Shah’s attacks on the clergy and for his various programs of modernization (e.g., Shoghi Effendi,Baháʾí Administration, pp. 171-73), but this failed to win them sympathy from either the shah or secular modernists, while it served further to alienate conservative and religious elements. This was to prove disastrous for the Bahais in later years, as the Pahlavi reforms came to be more widely criticized and they found themselves identified (as they had identified themselves) as bearers of Western values within an Islamic context. In this sense, the Bahais’ own optimism about the pace and direction of change was, in the long term, to prove their own worst enemy once “progress” itself became charged with negative connotations; at the same time, the identification of the Bahais with secularizing reform, anti-clericalism, and support for the monarchy cannot be overlooked as, in itself, a strong factor in turning public opinion against those things.

In 1374/1955, following a series of anti-Bahai speeches by Shaikh Moḥammad-Taqī Falsafī, which were broadcast throughout Iran during the month of Ramażān/April-May, the national Bahai headquarters in Tehran was occupied by the army, after which the Minister of the Interior announced in the Majles that orders had been issued for the suppression of Bahaism. With official sanction, a brutal pogrom followed across the country, in the course of which many Bahais were murdered, property (including holy sites) confiscated and destroyed, women raped, Bahais in government employ dismissed, and numerous other measures taken to harass the Bahais individually and collectively. The Bahai movement, which by this date had a widespread international following, mounted a campaign—which included an appeal to the United Nations—to bring foreign pressure to bear on the Iranian government to stop the outrages, and by 1957 the situation had returned to one of strained “normality.” Various explanations have been advanced to account for the 1955 pogrom, of which Fischer’s seems most plausible: that the government was trying to “buy off” the right-wing Islamic opposition of Kāšānī and the Fedāʾīān-e Eslām (Fischer,Iran, p. 187). Other factors are discussed by Akhavi (Religion and Politics, p. 77).

During the 1950s, Shaikh Maḥmūd Ḥalabī’s Ḥojjatīya organization was established with the express aim of conducting campaigns against the Bahais. Both the Ḥojjatīya and the Tablīḡāt-e Eslāmī (Islamic propaganda) group actively worked against Bahai interests during the 1960s and 70s, disrupting meetings, intimidating sect members and would-be converts, publishing and disseminating often scurrilous anti-Bahai literature. There is even evidence of collaboration between the Tablīḡāt-e Eslāmī and SAVAK in the organization of anti-Bahai activities, including extensive surveillance of sect members (Nash,Secret Pogrom, p. 51; Anonymous,Bahaism, pp. 37-54).

Since the revolution of 1979, the situation for Iranian Bahais has deteriorated seriously. During the first seven years of the new regime, some 200 Bahais, including a large proportion of the national leadership, were executed, many more imprisoned, property confiscated and destroyed on a large scale, thousands dismissed from their employment, the funds of Bahai-owned companies sequestered, and the community generally harassed as “enemies of Islam,” agents of foreign powers, or supporters of the shah’s regime. As a result of these measures, large numbers of Bahais have fled Iran, acquiring the status of religious refugees in several countries. In spite of intense international condemnation by the United Nations, human rights groups, and some national parliaments, the Iranian government has refused to modify its position on the Bahai issue, leaving fears that members of the sect will remain scapegoats for the foreseeable future.

Bahai sources regularly inflate the numbers of individuals killed in persecutions, usually citing the figure of over 20,000. This often involves conflation with the figures for Babi martyrs, but even so 20,000 is highly exaggerated. In all, it is estimated that 300 to 400 Bahais have died in the course of incidents in Iran from the inception of the movement (see MacEoin, “From Babism to Bahaʾism,” pp. 236-37, and idem, “A Note on the Numbers”).

Analyses of anti-Bahai prejudice, which extends from the religious right to the political left of Iranian society, have so far been limited. The standard polemical works are grossly distorted and cannot be relied on for information about the real causes of conflict, although they do permit valuable insights into the psychological factors at work. Bahai accounts are generally more accurate but prone to oversimplification and exaggeration (see MacEoin, “Iran’s Troubled Minority”). MacEoin has attempted to develop an analysis based on the parallel between Western and Bahai perceptions of Bahaism as a positive bearer of Western, “progressive” values on the one hand and Iranian perceptions of the faith as a negative bearer of foreign, anti-Islamic influences on the other (“The Bahaʾis of Iran”). Future analyses may use as their model sociological work on the controversiality of new religious movements carried out in recent years in Europe and North America.

BAHAISM viii. Bahai Shrines

Of the Bahai sites of pilgrimage and visitation, the most important are the tombs of Bahāʾ-Allāh and the Bāb in Israel and the houses of the Bāb and Bahāʾ-Allāh in Shiraz and Baghdad.

Shrines and holy places in Israel. Since Bahāʾ-Allāh’s exile to Palestine in 1868, the Bahai world spiritual and administrative center has been in the Acre (ʿAkkā)/Haifa area. The most important Bahai holy places there are: (1) The shrine of the Bāb, halfway up Mt. Carmel in Haifa. ʿAbd-al-Bahāʾ had the Bāb’s remains secretly brought from Iran in 1899 and built a stone building in traditional Levantine style in 1909, where the Bāb’s remains were placed. ʿAbd-al-Bahāʾ himself was buried there in 1921. In 1948-53 Shoghi Effendi added a white marble superstructure, consisting of a columned arcade topped by a drum and gold dome, designed by the Canadian Bahai architect William Sutherland Maxwell (1874-1952). The Shrine of the Bāb is surrounded by extensive gardens. (2) The Monument Gardens, also in the area of the shrine, are the white marble tombs of several members of ʿAbd-al-Bahāʾ’s family: his sisterBahāʾīya (Bahīya) Ḵānom, his brother Mīrzā Mahdī, his mother Nawwāb, and his wife Monīra. Each tomb is in the form of a small dome supported by columns. (3) The International Bahai Archives, built above the shrine of the Bāb by Shoghi Effendi in 1954-57 to exhibit historic relics and documents. It is constructed of white marble in the style of a Greek temple. (4) The seat of the Universal House of Justice, a large columned white marble building of classical style completed in 1983. (5) The mansion of Mazraʿa, a house used by Bahāʾ-Allāh in 1877-79. This was a summer house of ʿAbd-Allāh Pasha about 6 km north of Acre that ʿAbd-al-Bahāʾ rented for Bahāʾ-Allāh once the authorities no longer insisted on his close confinement in the city. A stone house set amid the fields and orchards of the coastal plain, it was leased by the Bahais in 1950 and purchased in 1973. (6) The mansion of Bahjī, a large house 2 km northwest of Acre, built by ʿAbd-Allāh Pasha for his mother in 1821. Bahāʾ-Allāh moved to the house in 1879 and remained there the rest of his life. After Bahāʾ-Allāh’s death the house fell into disrepair. Shoghi Effendi gained custody of the house in 1929 and restored it. He eventually acquired large parcels of land around the house, which have gradually been developed into a circular park. (7) The shrine of Bahāʾ-Allāh, a small stone building next to the mansion of Bahjī. Bahāʾ-Allāh was buried in a house used by his son-in-law adjacent to Bahjī. Eventually a monumental superstructure is planned for this shrine as well, which is the Bahaiqebla.

A number of other historic sites are owned or controlled by the Bahais in the Acre/Haifa area. These include the cell in the prison barracks where Bahāʾ-Allāh was confined, the houses of ʿAbbūd and ʿAbd-Allāh Pasha in Acre, the house of ʿAbd-al-Bahāʾ in Haifa, and several gardens near Acre used by Bahāʾ-Allāh. For the most part these have been restored and are visited by Bahai pilgrims.

The two other sites of Bahai pilgrimage are no longer in Bahai hands. The house of Bahāʾ-Allāh in the Karḵ district of Baghdad was seized by the Iraqi government in 1925. This was the house Bahāʾ-Allāh lived in for most of his stay in Iraq. Bahāʾ-Allāh declared it a site of pilgrimage in his book of laws, theal-Ketāb al-aqdas (Ketāb-e aqdas). The house of the Bāb in Shiraz—a beautifully preserved nineteenth-century middle-class home in the old part of the city—was seized by the authorities and demolished in 1980. This was ordained to be a place of pilgrimage both by the Bāb in theBayān and by Bahāʾ-Allāh.

Bahais also consider a number of historic sites elsewhere to be holy places—places visited by the Bāb, Bahāʾ-Allāh, or ʿAbd-al-Bahāʾ; sites of martyrdoms; and tombs of martyrs and important believers. These include a number of places in the West visited by ʿAbd-al-Bahāʾ and a large number of places in Iran—notably the houses of Bahāʾ-Allāh in Tehran and Māzandarān; houses associated with the Bāb in Shiraz, Būšehr (Bushire), Isfahan, and Urmia; the site of the conference of Badašt; and the cell where Bahāʾ-Allāh was imprisoned in 1852-53. These were expropriated following the revolution in 1979.

A Bahai who is able is obligated to make a pilgrimage once in his lifetime to pray at the shrine of Bahāʾ-Allāh or at the house of the Bāb in Shiraz or the house of Bahāʾ-Allāh in Baghdad. In addition, it is considered spiritually uplifting to visit places associated with holy souls and martyrs. There is little ritual associated with visiting the Bahai shrines. Visitors are expected to remove their shoes and maintain an atmosphere of quiet reverence but are otherwise free to do as they wish. Bahais commonly wear their national dress on formal occasions while on pilgrimage.

BAHAISM ix. Bahai Temples

The Bahai temple, designated in Bahāʾ-Allāh’sKetāb al-aqdas (Most holy book) as Mašreq al-aḏkār (lit. Dawning place of the mention of [God]), is known usually in the West as “House of Worship.” Although the faith originated in Iran, no Bahai temple was ever built in that country, due to local antagonism. The history of the faith, however, shows that since the time of Bahāʾ-Allāh until the present, the Bahais of Iran have gathered in private Bahai homes to pray and to read the writings of the faith.

Although the basic spiritual and physical characteristics of the Bahai temple were described in the writings ofBahāʾ-Allāh, their details were gradually elaborated on numerous occasions in the writings of his son and successor,ʿAbd-al-Bahāʾ (d. 1921). It was during the latter’s ministry that the atmosphere of religious tolerance in Ashkhabad (ʿEšqābād) inspired the Bahais to build the world’s first Bahai temple under the personal guidance and close attention of ʿAbd-al-Bahāʾ. While in the Chicago area in 1912 he also laid in Wilmette the corner-stone of the second Bahai temple.

During the ministry of ʿAbd-al-Bahāʾ’s grandson and successor, Shoghi Effendi (1921-57), purchasing land for the construction of future temples became an important goal for many Bahai communities and the construction of the temples in Germany (Europe), Uganda (Africa), and Sydney (Australia) were assigned to the Bahais of these countries. Since 1963 the Universal House of Justice, the supreme elected governing body of the Bahais of the world, has called for the construction of three additional temples in Panama City (Latin America), Samoa (Pacific Ocean), and New Delhi (India).

Bahai laws prescribe that a temple be built with the utmost possible perfection in each town and village, and emphasize that its doors be open to all regardless of religion, race, color, nationality, sex, or other distinction; that only the holy scriptures, of Bahai or other religions, be read or chanted therein, in any language; that no musical instruments be played although readings and prayers set to music may be sung by choirs; that no pictures, statues, or images be displayed within the temple walls; that no sermons be delivered and no ritualistic ceremonies practiced; and that no pulpits or altars be erected as an incorporated architectural feature, although readers may stand behind a simple, portable lectern. There being no clergy in the Bahai faith, readers are selected from the community, none serving as a permanent reader. The architect of a Bahai temple could be a Bahai or not, and the submission of designs by the public is permissible. The spirit of the Bahai laws emphasizes that a Bahai temple is a gathering place where the followers of all faiths may worship God without the imposition of denominational practices or restrictions. Since the act of worship is deemed to be purely individual in character, rigidity and uniformity are avoided in Bahai temples.

As stipulated by ʿAbd-al-Bahāʾ, the essential architectural character of the temple requires a nine-sided, circular shape. Although a dome has so far been a feature of all Bahai temples, it is not regarded as an essential part of their structure. It has been advanced that the number nine, as the largest single digit representing comprehensiveness and unity, stands as the numerical value of the Arabic word “Bahāʾ,” from which the words Bahāʾ-Allāh and Bahai have been derived. Existing Bahai temples, surrounded by gardens and often referred to as “silent teachers,” have played an important role in familiarizing the public with Bahai history and teachings, and because of their unique designs reflecting the indigenous cultural, social, and environmental elements of their locations, they continue to attract large numbers of the public.

The Bahai temple, as one of the outstanding institutions conceived by Bahāʾ-Allāh, is surrounded by a complex of humanitarian, educational, and charitable institutions such as a hospital, an orphanage, a school, a university, a hostel, etc. It belongs to the international Bahai community which is governed by the Universal House of Justice. The cost of constructing temples has been met by voluntary contributions made by Bahais throughout the world, they being explicitly forbidden to accept donations for the advancement of the faith from non-Bahais, a stricture rigorously upheld. Houses of Worship are maintained and administered by the national Spiritual Assembly of the Bahais of the country in which they are located.

The structural design of the first Bahai temple in Ashkhabad was prepared by Ostād ʿAlī-Akbar Bannāʾ and work, which was started in 1902 and supervised by Ḥājī Mīrzā Moḥammad-Taqī, the Wakīl-al-Dawla, was completed in 1919. The temple, which served the community for two decades was expropriated by the government and converted into an art gallery in 1938. Ten years later, violent earthquakes seriously damaged the building and the heavy rains of the following years weakened the structure to the point that the Soviet authorities decided to demolish the remaining edifice and convert the site into a public park.

The temple in Wilmette, near Chicago, on Lake Michigan was designed by Louis J. Bourgeois in 1919, while the corner-stone had already been laid on 1 May 1912 by ʿAbd-al-Bahāʾ. Dedicated in 1953, it is the most ornate Bahai temple in the world and can seat 1,191 people. It is 191 feet from the lowest level to the pinnacle of the dome ribs, and the diameter of the exterior of the dome is 90 feet.

The construction of the temple near Kampala, Uganda, designed by Charles Mason Remey, started in May, 1957 and the temple was opened to the public on 15 January 1961. The height of the building is 124 feet, and the diameter of its dome is 44 feet. It has seating capacity of 800.

The fourth Bahai temple, with a seating capacity of 600, also designed by Remey, was officially dedicated on 16 September 1961 at Ingleside, near Sydney, Australia. It is located on a seven-acre property and the height from its basement floor to the top of the spire is 130 feet.

The fifth Bahai temple was constructed at Langenhain, in the Taunus Hills near Frankfurt-am-Main, West Germany. Designed and built by Teuto Rocholl, a non-Bahai architect, the temple seats about 500 persons, measures 158 feet in diameter at its base, and 92 feet in height from base to the top of the dome. Twenty-seven pillars support the dome in the interior. The central rotunda is brightened by the reflection of the sun on 570 glass panels. The temple was dedicated on 4 July 1964.

The corner-stone of the sixth Bahai temple was laid atop Cerro Sonsonate, seven miles north of Panama City, Panama, on 8 October 1967. It was designed by the English architect, Peter Tillotson. Construction started on 1 December 1969 and the temple was dedicated on 29 April 1972. Its seating capacity is 550; its diameter at base is 200 feet, and its overall height is 92 feet.

The seventh temple, which was designed by Hossein Amanat (Ḥosayn Amānat), was built in Western Samoa, in the Pacific Ocean. An area of approximately 17 acres surrounds it, and it can seat 700. The construction of the temple was commenced in 1979 and it was dedicated on 1 September 1984. The building is 102 feet high and is located at Tiapapata, in the hills behind Apia.

The eighth Bahai temple, near Nehru Place, at Bahapur, in New Delhi, India, and known as the Lotus Temple because of its shape, was dedicated on 24 December 1986. Designed by Fariburz Sahba (Farīborz Ṣahbā), the temple stands in an area of 26.7 acres and has an overall height of 40.8 meters and is 70 meters in diameter. The temple contains 1,200 fixed seats, expandable to 2,500.

The Bahais of Iran acquired an area of 3,580,000 square meters on the slopes of Mount Alborz, named Ḥadīqa, in northeastern Tehran, for the eventual construction of the first temple in that land. Although the design was prepared and preliminary studies were undertaken, hostile circumstances prevented its construction. A complex of buildings, however, was erected on the site in the 1960s and dedicated to educational and administrative activities.

Of a total of 148 national Bahai communities around the world, 84 have acquired sites for the future construction of temples; the remainder are in the process of securing them. In many cases the lands acquired have, in the meantime, been put to agricultural uses, or buildings devoted to the education of children, etc., have been erected on them.

BAHAISM x. Bahai Schools

The Bahai schools were a series of government recognized educational institutions established, owned, and controlled by the Bahai community in various centers of Iran and Ashkhabad and conducted on Bahai principles from 1897 until 1929 in Ashkhabad and until 1934 in Iran.

Despite the significance of child education, both general and religious, as explicitly propounded in the writings of Bahāʾ-Allāh, who made the education of both boys and girls an obligation of the parents (seeBaháʾí Education, pp. 4-6), and further elaborated by his son and successor, ʿAbd-al-Bahāʾ (d. 1340/1921; ibid., pp. 11-53), the prolonged and severe persecution of the Bahai community which started with the inception of the Babi faith in Iran in 1260/1844 and continued throughout the period of Bahāʾ-Allāh’s ministry (d. 1309/1892), had prevented the process of formal education of Bahai children from unfolding until about 1897. Before then, only informal elementary classes could be offered by individual believers at private homes on a tutorial basis. These classes were designed primarily to provide fundamental courses on the Persian and Arabic languages and literatures, and the history and writings of the Bahai faith. They were held in early Bahai communities such as Russian Turkmenistan, Burma, and various places in Iran like Najafābād near Isfahan.

Under the guidance of ʿAbd-al-Bahāʾ more than thirty Bahai schools were gradually established as circumstances permitted throughout Iran and several places in India, Egypt, Turkey, Palestine, and southern Russia.

Established, controlled, and funded through the support of the Bahai community, the earliest Bahai schools began in Tehran andAshkhabad, now in Russian Turkmenistan, and were followed by the erection of the Tawakkol school in Qazvīn, the Taʾyīd and the Mawhebat (for girls) in Hamadān, the Waḥdat-e Bašar in Kāšān, the Maʿrefat in Ārān (near Kāšān), the Taraqqī in Šahmīrzād (near Semnān), the Mīṯāqīya in Neyrīz, and a number of similar schools in Ābāda, Qomrūd (near Kāšān), Najafābād, Bahnamīr (near Sārī), Maryamābād and Mehdīābād (near Yazd), Bārforūš, Sārī, Bošrūya (in Khorasan), Eštehārd (near Karaj), and several other schools outside Iran such as Tashkent, Marv, İskenderun (Turkey), and Daidanaw (Burma). Bahai schools not only attracted the children of Bahai background but soon gained enough educational strength and reliability to attract children of various religious and social backgrounds.

The Tarbīat school was established in Tehran in 1315/1897 and two years later became officially recognized by the government. Founded by Ḥājī Mīrzā Ḥasan Adīb Ayādī (d. 1337/1918), the Tarbīat became one of the best-known schools in Iran by virtue of the devotion of its teachers, the advanced quality of its curriculum, and its high standard of order and discipline (Ṯābet, pp. 94-95;Baháʾí News 1/7, 1910, p. 5). During the first few years of its existence the Tarbīat was supported by financial contributions from individual Bahais, but, as it expanded in subsequent years, the local Spiritual Assembly of Tehran formed a management committee. Among its earliest members were Dr. ʿAṭāʾ-Allāh Baḵšāyeš (d. 1363/1944) and Dr. Moḥammad Monajjem (d. 1338/1920). Following Adīb, Monajjem and Baḵšāyeš, ʿAzīz-Allāh Meṣbāḥ (d. 1363/1945) and ʿAlī-Akbar Forūtan became the principals of the school. A statistical report shows that the school in 1330/1911 had a total of 371 students in 8 grades (in 11 classes), 18 faculty members, and 4 staff (ms., International Baháʾí Archives, Haifa, MR 1402). By 1932 the school offered 6 preparatory grades and 4 intermediate grades; of the 26 teachers, 20 were Bahais, and of the 541 students, 339 were Bahais, 175 Muslims, 21 Christians, 4 Jews, and 2 Zoroastrians (The Baháʾí World V, p. 117).

The foundation of the Tarbīat school for girls in Tehran was in response to ʿAbd-al-Bahāʾ’s emphasis on the education of women as a matter of necessity. Established in the name of Dr. ʿAṭāʾ-Allāh Baḵšāyeš in 1329/1911 (Solaymānī, 1973, p. 23), a few American Bahais such as Miss Lillian Kappes (d. 1338/1920), Dr. Susan Moody (d. 1353/1934), Dr. Genevieve Coy (d. 1382/1963), and Miss Adelaide Sharp (d. 1396/1976) served in the school in close cooperation with their Persian Bahai and non-Bahai colleagues. Starting with 6 grades for children and offering special courses for girls up to the age of 20 (Ṯābet, p. 104), the school could accommodate 400 students around 1919 (Āvāra, p. 73) and a decade later was advanced enough to offer 11 grades to 719 students, of whom 359 were Bahais, 352 Muslims, and 8 Jews (The Baháʾí World V, p. 117).

Outside Iran, the private informal education of the Bahai children of Ashkhabad, which had started with the establishment of the Bahai community in that land in 1301/1883 (Tārīḵ-emoḵtaṣar-e taʾsīs wa baqā-ye madrasa-ye pesarāna wa doḵtarāna-ye bahāʾīān-e ʿEšqābād 1897-1927, ms., International Baháʾí Archives, Haifa, M1678), received official governmental recognition in 1315/1897 through the unfailing efforts of its founders Sayyed Mehdī Golpāyegānī (d. 1346/1928) and Ḥājī Mīrzā Ḥosayn Moʿallem Yazdī (d. 1346/1928) who erected a new building for the school and hired Bahai and non-Bahai teachers (Solaymānī, 1968, pp. 407-17). By 1907, the increasing number of girl students required a separate girls’ school of seven grades. Both schools (ca. 1927) had 462 students (237 boys and 225 girls), 62 of whom were non-Bahais; 20 percent of the students were exempted from paying the tuition and 46 percent would pay part of it (Tārīḵ-emoḵtaṣar). These Bahai schools were the first educational institutions to be conducted along modern pedagogical lines in the region (Hoonaard, p. 109). The schools were confiscated by the Bolshevik government in 1929 (Māzandarānī, 1975, p. 1041). Following the foundation of Bahai schools in Tehran and Ashkhabad, numerous other schools were opened in almost every major Bahai community. To refer to just a few leading ones, in Qazvīn, the first Bahai school, called the Tawakkol, was opened in 1324/1908 as a result of the encouragement and financial support of the leading Bahais of the city such as Mīrzā Mūsā Ḥakīmbāšī (Ḥakīm Elāhī) and Mīrzā Reżā Khan Taslīmī under the management of Ḥājī Ebrāhīm Wāʿeẓ.

In 1327/1909 the Taʾyīd school for boys and the Mawhebat school for girls were officially opened in Hamadān (Ešrāq Ḵāvarī, p. 139), through the efforts of Mīrzā Āqā Jān Ṭabīb b. Hārūn, and in 1331/1913 were officially recognized by the government (Ṯābet, p. 39). The name Mawhebat was given the school by ʿAbd-al-Bahāʾ, who continued to encourage it (ʿAbd-al-Bahāʾ, pp. 13-14, 25, 83-84, 183-85).

The Bahai school in Kāšān, which was formed in 1316/1898 through the efforts of Ḵᵛāja Rabīʿ (d. 1336/1917) received official governmental recognition in 1328/1910 under the name of Waḥdat-e Bašar, given also by ʿAbd-al-Bahāʾ. The school started with 6 grades and in 1332/1913, the seventh grade was added (Māzandarānī, 1972, p. 283).

The local Spiritual Assembly of the Bahais of Najafābād, in about 1328/1910, hired a private teacher to conduct necessary classes for the Bahai children of the village. These classes, which lasted for two years, were the predecessors of a school which was inaugurated in 1330/1912 as a branch of the Tehran Tarbīat school, to offer four grades under the management of Moḥammad-ʿAlī Šāʾeq. In 1337/1919 the school continued its services under a new name, Saʿādat, and in 1344/1926 developed to a six-grade school and was officially recognized by the government in 1349/1931 in the name of Aḥmad Šahīdī, its principal. It continued until 1352/1934 when, with about l27 students, it was closed by order of the government.

In the same village the Saʿādat school for girls occupied its own building in 1346/1928 to accommodate classes in three grades and was officially recognized in 1347/1929. In 1348/1930 it expanded to a six-grade school and in the last three years of its services (1350-52/1932-34) all 24 girls who graduated from the sixth grade passed the final Ministry examinations. The school was closed by order of the government in 1352/1934 (The History of the Saʿādat Schools in Najafābād, ms., Baháʾí International Archives, Haifa, M1741). Subsequent to the establishment of these schools, the Saʿādat school in Bārforūš, in 1331/1912, a Bahai school in Ardestān in 1332/1913 (Ṯābet, pp. 39-40), and many others in other centers came into being.

As Bahai institutions, the daily operation of these schools was in conformity with Bahai teachings and principles. Schools were free for the children of poor families and others would pay a sum in proportion to the financial means of the family. The total tuition paid by the students, however, in most cases, was not sufficient to run the school, and the balance had to be paid by the local Spiritual Assembly of the city or be met through private contributions of individual Bahais.

In 1313 Š./1935 the Deputy Minister of Education under Reżā Shah issued an official order to the effect that since the Tarbīat school had been closed on Thursday, 15 Āḏar 1313 Š./6 December 1934 (the commemoration day of the martyrdom of the Bāb), it could no longer operate (Martin, p. 17;The Baháʾí World VI, p. 27). The closing of the Tarbīat school was followed by the closing of all other Bahai schools in the country. Since then they have remained closed and the efforts of the Bahais to have the order rescinded have been of no avail.

In addition to the regular, recognized Bahai schools, in 1315/1898 Sayyed Ḥasan Hāšemīzāda (known as Motawajjeh) (d. 1335 Š./1956) gathered a group of Bahai children of south Tehran and inaugurated Bahai classes which became known as “Character Training Classes” (Kelāshā-ye dars-e aḵlāq) and soon were formed in all parts of the city and gradually were instituted in the whole country on Friday mornings (Solaymānī, 1968, pp. 40-45). At the outset the curriculum of these classes consisted of the memorization of prayers and short excerpts from Bahai and other sacred texts. Later theDorūs al-dīyāna, written by Moḥammad-ʿAlī Qāʾenī (d. 1303 Š./1924) and published in Ashkhabad in 1329/1911, was used and the study of selections from Bahāʾ-Allāh’sKetāb-e īqān (The book of certitude) andAqdas (The most holy book),ʿAbd-al-Bahāʾ’sMaqāla-ye šaḵṣ-ī sayyāḥ (A traveler’s narrative) andMofāważāt (Some answered questions), and the Persian translation of J. E. Esslemont’sBaháʾuʾlláh and the New Era, formed the curriculum.

As the classes extended, management committees both at the local and national levels were formed to conduct and supervise the classes. The children of each community were grouped according to their age to form classes from grades one to twelve. To fulfill the academic need of the various classes ʿAlī-Akbar Forūtan (in 1933) compiled a series of special textbooks for various grades which became basic standard books and were widely studied throughout the country. The series consisted of Bahai history, laws, ordinances, and administrative principles. Depending on the mutual interest of the teachers and the students, other materials, in addition to the text books, were also taught in the classes. No salary was paid to the teachers and no tuition fees were charged.

Bahai children’s classes are currently held throughout the Bahai world in 165 countries or territories (The Seven Year Plan: 1979-1986, Haifa, 1986, p. 75) and the curriculum is prepared by the national and/or local committees in charge of the classes. Many are attended by non-Bahai students, as well.

Bahai seasonal schools, mostly summer and winter schools, are also held around the world to foster association and a spirit of fellowship among the Bahais, provide intellectual training, and offer courses on the history, tenets, and administration of the faith as well as fundamental courses on the history and teachings of other religions, to deepen their understanding of different aspects of the faith. Courses are usually conducted in lecture form and are accompanied by study classes, seminars, and workshops.

Originated in America in 1927 (Shoghi Effendi, 1970, p. 340) for the primary use of the Bahais, Bahai summer schools were adopted by other Bahai communities around the world and are open to non-Bahais who wish to learn about the faith and the social life of the Bahai community. Bahai seasonal schools as national institutions function under the direct supervision of the national Spiritual Assembly in each country and every member of the Bahai community is encouraged to attend one of the schools each year.

The first Bahai summer school in Iran was instituted in 1939 on the estate of a Bahai in Ḥājīābād, some 40 kilometers northeast of Tehran, and as circumstances permitted continued functioning in various locations until 1979, when the Bahai institutions were closed by the Islamic government.

The latest statistical report shows that 128 national Assemblies, 86 percent of the national communities in the world, held seasonal schools by April, 1968 (The Seven Year Plan, p. 100). For detailed reports on Bahai seasonal schools see the “Survey of Current Baháʾí Activities” in volumes ofThe Baháʾí World.

BAHAISM xi. Bahai Conventions

Bahai conventions occur at the national and international level for the primary purpose of electing the national Spiritual Assemblies and the Universal House of Justice (Seemaḥfel-e rūḥānī andbayt al-ʿadl).

The first Bahai convention in the world was probably the meeting convened by the Chicago Spiritual Assembly on 26 November 1907 for the purpose of choosing a site for the House of Worship (Mašreq al-Aḏkār) that was to be built. Thereafter, conventions were held annually in the United States and, from 1910, on ʿAbd-al-Bahāʾ’s instructions, were held each year during the Bahai festival of Reżwān (21 April-2 May). In 1909, with the approval of ʿAbd-al-Bahāʾ, the convention decided to set up a formal national body to be called the Bahai Temple Unity, the precursor of the national Spiritual Assembly in the United States.

In some countries, Bahai conventions antedate the establishment of the national Spiritual Assembly since there were national Bahai institutions that were precursors of that body. In Iran, for example, the first national convention was held in 1927 to elect the “Central Spiritual Assembly” although the national Spiritual Assembly was not formally set up until 1934. In other countries, the holding of national conventions postdated the establishment of national Spiritual Assemblies which were elected by postal ballots until then. This occurred in the British Isles where the national Spiritual Assembly was elected in 1923, but the first convention was not held until 1927. In general, however, the development of Bahai conventions lagged behind in the East compared with the West because of the difficulties of holding large meetings.

Currently, Bahais in electoral districts elect delegates to the national convention. The Universal House of Justice decides the total number of delegates depending on the number of Bahais in that country. The lowest number of delegates is nine and the numbers can then rise in multiples of five, nine and nineteen. The highest number of delegates is currently 171. Each national Spiritual Assembly then distributes the delegates among the electoral districts in proportion to the number of Bahais in each district.

The national convention is held annually, although this may be changed in the future by the Universal House of Justice. It has two main functions: Firstly to elect the new national Spiritual Assembly—each delegate votes for nine persons from among the whole adult Bahai community of that country; secondly, the National Convention may consult on any subject it wishes and can make resolutions to be passed on to the national Spiritual Assembly. However, the national Spiritual Assembly has no obligation to act on these resolutions, only to consider them.

The international convention is at present held every five years in Haifa to elect the Universal House of Justice. All national Spiritual Assembly members are eligible to attend and vote.

Both national and international conventions are usually held during the Reżwān period (see above). The convention elects its own chairman and secretary. Bahai elections are by secret ballot; there are no electioneering or canvassing of votes and no nominations of candidates.

BAHAISM xii. Bahai Literature

Bahai literature is a large body of writing in Persian and Arabic produced by leaders and adherents of the Bahai religion in Iran from the 1860s to the present. This article is concerned primarily with poetry and belles lettres rather than apologetic, didactic, historiographical, liturgical, or scriptural materials, except insofar as the last-mentioned exhibit characteristics of literary interest.

The immediate antecedents of Bahai literature are the various scriptural and apologetic writings produced in the 1260s/1840s by theBāb (seebayān) and some of his leading followers. Babism was primarily a literate and elitist movement among a section of the Shiʿiteʿolamāʾ, but from its outset conventional learning and scholarly writing were, if not wholly rejected, relegated to a status much inferior to that enjoyed by the products of “innate knowledge” and “inspired” composition or “revelation,” in which the speed of writing was regarded as a sign of divine activity. In the later phase of the movement (roughly 1264/1848 to 1283/1866), the ability to write or utter “divinely-inspired” verses became the chief criterion whereby claimants to religious authority might be judged. Several individuals regarded asommī (in this case unlearned, but not illiterate) began to write in this manner, but apart from works by the Bāb and Mīrzā Yaḥyā Nūrī Ṣobḥ-e Azal (q.v.), very little of this material has survived. Nevertheless, those writings we do possess, together with letters and fragments by other members of the Babi hierarchy (all of themʿolamāʾ, likeMollā Moḥammad-ʿAlī Bārforūšī Qoddūs, Qorrat-al-ʿAyn Ṭāhera (q.v.),Sayyed Yaḥyā Dārābī, and Sayyed Ḥosayn Yazdī share certain important characteristics (see MacEoin,Babi Doctrine and History, chap. 4). There is a tendency toward esotericism, obscurantism, idiosyncrasy in matters of style, grammar, and subject, and the use of extended doxological and invocatory formulae (particularly in elaborate perorations based on the divine names). Free association and stream-of-consciousness-style composition are marked features of some works, e.g., the Bāb’sKetāb al-asmāʾ andKetāb-e panj šaʾn or Ṣobḥ-e Azal’sMerʾāt al-bayān,Ṣaḥāʾef al-Azal,Laḥaẓāt, etc.

These characteristics are retained in the later writings of Ṣobḥ-e Azal (which include a great deal of poetry), but otherwise the Azalī branch of Babism has been almost bereft of literary productions of any kind, in spite of the existence of Azalī litterateurs such as MīrzāĀqā Khan Kermānī, Shaikh Aḥmad Rūḥī Kermānī (q.v.), andMīrzā Yaḥyā Dawlatābādī. Mīrzā Ḥosayn-ʿAlī Nūrī Bahāʾ-Allāh (q.v.), whose Bahai version of the original Babi movement rapidly ousted its Azalī rival throughout Iran, first came to prominence as one of the unlearned revealers of inspired verses in Baghdad during the 1850s and then as the de facto head of the faith in the 1860s. His early writings represent a significant departure from most previous Babi writing (except for the poetical works of Qorrat-al-ʿAyn, with whom he was associated) in that they are, for the most part, couched in straightforward prose or verse. Although he was later to take a marked aversion to such matters, Bahāʾ-Allāh was at this period markedly influenced by Sufi writing and even spent a two-year period (1270-72/1854-56) living as a dervish in Kurdistan (see Cole, “Bahaδu’llah and the Naqshbandi Sufis”). Sufi influences are particularly at work in a small number of poems composed in Baghdad, Kurdistan, and Istanbul, several of which bear the pen name (taḵalloṣ) “Darvīš.” The most important of these are: 1) a Persianḡazal entitledRašḥ-e ʿamā, generally considered his earliest extant work; 2) an Arabicqaṣīda of 127 distichs (bayts) entitledal-Qaṣīdaal-warqāʾīa, modeled on ʿOmar ebn al-Fāreż’s famousNaẓm al-solūk; 3) a Persianmaṯnawī of 318bayts entitledMaṯnawī-e mobārak, written in Istanbul and probably the last of Bahāʾ-Allāh’s works in verse. Perhaps the most noticeable feature of these poems, which are written in an elegant yet uncomplicated style and possess considerable freshness, is the complete absence of identifiably Babi elements.

This is also largely true of some of Bahāʾ-Allāh’s earliest prose works, several of which are of real literary merit. Notable among these are: 1)Haft wādī and 2)Čahār wādī, two Persian mystical treatises along the lines of ʿAṭṭār’sManṭeq al-ṭayr; 3)Kalemāt-e maknūna, a collection of Persian and Arabic aphoristic statements, mostly of an ethical nature; 4) theḤorūfāt-e ʿālīn, a short Arabic disquisition on death, which also exists in a Persian translation by the author; 5) theKetāb-e īqān, one of his very few full-length works, being a book of apologetics and exegesis written in a lucid and original Persian style; 6) theJawāher al-asrār, an Arabic treatise along similar lines written about the same time; and 7) a series of brief Persian and Arabic poems and prose pieces, largely mystical in nature, including “Lawḥ-e mallāḥ al-qods” and “Lawḥ-e nāqūs,” all in prose, and the poems “Lawḥ-e ḥūrīya,” “Lawḥ-e šakar-šakan,” “Lawḥ-e ḡolām al-ḵold,” “Lawḥ-e halhala yā bešārāt,” “Sāqī az ḡayb-e baqāʾ,” “Bāz ā wa be-deh jām-ī,” and “Az bāḡ-e elāhī.”

Although Bahāʾ-Allāh continued to write extensively in Edirne (1280-85/1863-68) and Palestine (1285-1309/1868-92), his later work is, with only a few exceptions, increasingly turgid, repetitive, and visibly lacking in the linguistic brilliance and poetic energy that characterize his early output. The contents of some of these later writings reveal an acquaintance with European ideas, but the style and format remain Persian. Divorced from its earlier mysticism, Bahāʾ-Allāh’s prose becomes less elegant and even archaic. Perhaps the best products of this period are a series of proclamatory letters to several kings and rulers in Asia and Europe, some of which exhibit a polished epistolatory style. His last major work, a book-length Persian letter to the famousmojtahed of Isfahan Āqā Najafī, is a rambling patchwork of quotations from earlier works tied together with personal reminiscences and historical allusions. The need to produce “inspired” verses at great speed in response to the stream of letters and petitions arriving from Iran and elsewhere led him to rely more and more on established formulae in order to keep up with the demand.

By contrast, the works of Bahāʾ-Allāh’s eldest son ʿAbbās (ʿAbd-al-Bahāʾ) exhibit the mannered characteristics of an urbane and well-educated litterateur in touch with modern currents of thought and behavior and with some European writing. Whereas his father’s Arabic was heavily Persianized, simple, and frequently ungrammatical, that of ʿAbd-al-Bahāʾ is polished, careful, and more Arab than Iranian in its manner. His earliest work, a commentary on the Hadith “konto kanzan maḵfīyan” written in his late teens in Edirne for ʿAlī Ševket Pasha, shows close familiarity with the ideas and exegetical methods of philosophical Sufism. These and related themes occur in several other works which appear to be from roughly the same period, includingtafsīrs on theSūrat al-fāteḥa and the wordsḡolebat al-Rūm (Koran 30:1). Other issues begin to emerge in later works, however, among which social and political questions come increasingly to the fore. The most detailed and interesting of these works is a Persian treatise entitledal-Resāla al-madanīya (orKetāb asrār al-ḡaybīya le-asbāb al-madanīya [sic]), written in 1292/1875 and published anonymously in Bombay (1310/1892-93) and Cairo (1329/1911), and later translated twice into English. This work, which makes general proposals for reform in Iran and the Islamic world as a whole, deserves to be more seriously regarded as a contribution to the reformist literature of the period. Much slighter and rather more conservative in tone is theResāla-ye sīāsīya (1893), also published anonymously. Of less interest are hisMaqāla-ye šaḵṣī sayyāḥ (A traveler’s narrative), a brief anonymous history of Babism written about 1303/1886 and later published together with a translation by E. G. Browne; and theTaḏkeratal-wafāʾ, a collection of meager hagiographies given as table-talks in 1915 and published posthumously in Haifa in 1343/1924. Until his death in 1340/1921, ʿAbd-al-Bahāʾ kept up a vast correspondence with Bahais in Iran, Europe, and the United States, and his collected “tablets” (alwāḥ;tawqīʿāt) contain numerous examples of his mature literary style. Of interest too are his many public addresses delivered in Europe and North America, his table-talks collected under the titleal-Nūr al-abhā fī mofāważāt ḥażrat ʿAbd al-Bahāʾ, and his numerous Persian prayers (monājāt). The latter are often extremely beautiful, with a fine feeling for the rhymes and cadences of the language; some are even written in verse.

ʿAbd-al-Bahāʾ’s grandson and successor, Šawqī (Shoghi Effendi, d. 1377/1957), wrote principally in English, all his major works being translated later into Persian; but he also penned large quantities of letters in the latter language, as well as some in Arabic. His baroque and mannered style, with its extended periods, archaisms, and at times contrived vocabulary, had a marked effect on Bahai writing in this century, encouraging it to be florid, hyperbolic, and out of step with general changes in modern Persian letters (a phenomenon paralleled by Bahai writing in English during the same period). At the same time, Šawqī’s elegant and sensitive translations of Bahai scriptural writings (largely works by Bahāʾ-Allāh) deserve to be mentioned here.

Bahai writing in general has concentrated on apologetics and historiography, and includes very few works of real literary merit or wider interest, with the partial exceptions of the writings of MīrzāAbu’l-Fażl Golpāyegānī, some autobiographical works (notably Mīrzā Ḥaydar-ʿAlī Eṣfahānī’sBehjat al-ṣodūr, Yunes Khan Afrūḵta’sḴāṭerāt-e noh-sāla, and Dr. Ḥabīb Moʾayyad’sḴāṭerāt-e Ḥabīb), and a few collections of hagiographical biography in the tradition of Islamicrejāl literature (notably Solaymānī’sMaṣābīḥ-e hedāyat and Bayżāʾī’sTaḏkera-ye šoʿarāʾ).

There is, however, a substantial body of poetry written by Iranian adherents of the faith, some of which is of an exceptionally high standard, although it remains for the most part unknown outside Bahai circles. Bahai poetry is essentially a continuation of classical Persian and Arabic religious verse, although it has its own themes and conventions. Much of it is didactic or apologetic in nature, and most of it makes for dull reading, but this is more than compensated for by the vigor and freshness of the better examples.

A number of early Babis wrote poetry, among them Ḥājj Solaymān Khan Tabrīzī and Karīm Khan Māfī (Behjat Qazvīnī), but little of their work has survived. Of much greater importance is the verse of Qorrat-al-ʿAyn Ṭāhera, which has remained popular with Bahais and has even gained a well-deserved reputation with a wider public in Iran and India. Born in Qazvīn 1229/1814 into a family ofʿolamāʾ, she received training as anʿālema and became a leading exponent of the Shaikhi (q.v.) school. An early convert of the Bāb’s, she dominated the Iraqi branch of the Babi movement until 1263/1847, when she returned to Iran. Her influence on the formulation of Babi doctrine was considerable, and the numerous apologetics she wrote on behalf of the sect helped provide the impetus for the break with Islam in 1264/1848. Imprisoned for several years in Tehran, she was executed following the attempt on the life of Nāṣer-al-Dīn Shah in 1268/1852. Her reputation among modern Bahais rests largely on the belief that she was an early champion of women’s rights, something which has no foundation in fact. Nevertheless, her legendary stature combined with the genuine beauty of many of the poems she composed has given her work a firm place in Bahai literature. Only a small number of her poems (as well as several falsely attributed to her) have been published, but the present writer has discovered several manuscripts of what appear to be authentic works by her, from which a scholarly edition of her poetry may eventually be prepared.

The existence of poetry by Qorrat-al-ʿAyn and Bahāʾ-Allāh gave the writing of verse an acceptable place in the Bahai movement, even when the marked anti-Sufism of Bahāʾ-Allāh and ʿAbd-al-Bahāʾ (see, e.g. Bahāʾ-Allāh,Alwāḥ-e mobāraka, pp. 184-88; ʿAbd-al-Bahāʾ,Makātīb I, p. 346) rendered many of the classical models unacceptable and blocked the possibility of a spontaneous development of mystical verse within the religion. Although ʿAbd-al-Bahāʾ spoke disparagingly of the poets of the past (Makātīb I, p. 451), he did express approval of poetry written on Bahai religious themes and included versified passages in some of his letters (e.g., ibid., pp. 414, 421, 439; II, pp. 54-55). Since both singing and instrumental music were permitted inal-Ketāb al-aqdas (seeaqdas), poetry became a natural extension of liturgical recitation and a useful vehicle for the expression of numinous feelings and didactic intentions.

The earliest Bahai poet of merit was Mollā Yār-Moḥammad Zarandī Nabīl (1247-1310/1831-92), better known as the author of the history translated into English by Shoghi Effendi asThe Dawn-Breakers orNabil’s Narrative. Converted to Babism at an early age, Zarandī was among the Babis who took up residence in Baghdad in the 1850s. Having failed to attract a following for theophanic claims advanced by himself, he became one of the earliest proponents of belief in Bahāʾ-Allāh as the Babi messiah. After journeys which took him to Iran, Iraq, Turkey, and Egypt, he finally settled in Palestine, where the Bahai exile community was located from 1285/1868. His history was begun in 1305/1886 and completed shortly before his suicide in 1310/1892, following the death of Bahāʾ-Allāh.

Very little of Nabīl’s poetry has been published. A lengthy poem in couplet form (maṯnawī) providing details of Babi and Bahai history was printed in Cairo in 1342/1923-24, but copies of it are extremely rare and it has not been reissued since then; another historicalmaṯnawī, entitledHejr o weṣāl (Separation and union) has not so far found its way into print. Several examples of the shorter poems, including two fineqaṣīdas, each with the refrainBahāʾ,Bahāʾ, have been published by Browne (JRAS 24, 1892, pp. 323-25;Materials, pp. 351-57) and Bayżāʾī (Taḏkera III, pp. 421-35). Nabīl does appear, however, to have been a prolific writer: Bayżāʾī states that he has seen a collection of his poems amounting to 10,000bayts, the bulk being made up ofmaṯnawīs (Taḏkera III, p. 418). Apart from the vigor of style in his non-historical poems, the chief characteristic of Nabīl’s work is its use of hyperbole in reference to the claims and person of Bahāʾ-Allāh.

Of great literary merit is the work of Zarandī’s younger contemporary, Āqā Mīrzā ʿAlī-Ašraf Lāhījānī, known as ʿAndalīb (ca. 1270/1853-54—1335/1917), whosedīvān runs to over 750 pages. Originally a Shaikhi, ʿAndalīb was converted to Bahaism in his twenties, after which he became widely known in Lāhījān for his convictions. In 1300/1883, he was arrested along with several others in the vicinity of Rašt and imprisoned there for almost two years; it was during this period that he completed hisdīvān ofḡazals, amounting to over 300 poems. He later took up residence in Shiraz, where he remained, apart from several journeys (including two to Palestine), until his death.

ʿAndalīb’sḡazals, written in the classical style, are notable for the absence of overt references to Bahai beliefs or figures, and have undeservedly been neglected by non-Bahai anthologists. His other poetry is unqualifiedly Bahai in inspiration, consisting largely of poems in praise of Bahāʾ-Allāh and ʿAbd-al-Bahāʾ or on various Bahai festivals, particularly that of Reżwān (see ʿīd-e reżwān). He also wrote a lengthymaṯnawī on the martyrdoms of two Bahai brothers in Isfahan in 1296/1879 (Dīvān, pp. 433-70) and another in reply to criticisms of Bahai belief. Apart from his fame as a poet, ʿAndalīb enjoyed a reputation as one of the leading controversialists of the Bahai movement in his day. A lively account of his technique is given by E. G. Browne inA Year Amongst the Persians (pp. 401-2, 433-35, 436-38, 438-40, 442-43). At least one prose work in defense of Bahaism (anestedlālīya in reply to Shaikh Bahāʾī Lāhījānī) is extant but unpublished.

The writing of apologetics was a particular concern of another Bahai poet of the same period, Mīrzā Moḥammad Sedehī, known as Naʿīm (1272-1334/1856-1916), whose most popular work,Aḥsan al-taqwīm orJannat al-naʿīm, is an extended poetical apology for Bahaism. Of peasant stock, Naʿīm had a limited education but wrote poetry from an early age and formed part of a small literary circle in the village complex of Sedeh. This small group, which included the poets Āqā Sayyed Moḥammad Nayyer and Āqā Sayyed Esmāʿīl Sīnā, was converted to Bahaism in 1298/1881. Arrested and expelled from the Isfahan area, Naʿīm settled in Tehran, where he taught Persian at the British embassy and established a class for young Bahai missionaries, which he ran until his death.

Apart from theAḥsan al-taqwīm, which has been published in several editions, including an annotated recension by ʿAbd-al-Ḥamīd Ešrāq Ḵāvarī, Naʿīm is well known in Bahai circles for hisQaṣīda-ye nūnīya (published in full but without title, with a translation by E. G. Browne in hisLiterary History of Persia IV, pp. 198-220), aBahārīya (orSayfīya) modeled on that of Mīrzā Ḥabīb Qāʾānī, and amorabbaʿ entitledManẓūma-ye bīst o noh ḥorūf. Naʿīm also wrote several prose works, some of which have been published; these include two Bahai apologies (estedlālīya), a refutation of the Persian introduction to theKetāb-e noqṭat al-kāf, and a collection of passages from the PersianBayān. The apologetic and didactic character of so much of Naʿīm’s verse makes it rather forced and often turgid, although one cannot deny the ingenuity with which he incorporates textual references and quotations into the first part of hisAḥsan al-taqwīm. Where his poetry is freed from these restraints, however, it does reveal considerable charm.

In contrast to the overtly sectarian character of the above writers, the work of Abu’l-Ḥasan Mīrzā Shaikh al-Raʾīs (1264-1336/1848-1918) is for the most part concerned with broader issues. A son of Moḥammad-Taqī Mīrzā Ḥesām-al-Salṭana, Abu’l-Ḥasan trained as anʿālem and acquired a reputation as a preacher and a constitutionalist. He appears to have been converted to Bahaism at an early age, either by his mother or by Mīrzā ʿAlī-Reżā Sabzavārī Mostašār-al-Molk. Although Shaikh al-Raʾīs never openly proclaimed his Bahai allegiance, his connection with the faith did become known and proved a spur for controversy on more than one occasion. Under the sobriquet of Ḥayrat, Shaikh al-Raʾīs wrote a small amount of poetry, most of which has been collected in the compilation entitledMontaḵab-e nafīs. There are also several poems by him on Bahai themes, some of which have been published by Bayżāʾī (Taḏkera I, pp. 282-90). His prose works include theResāla-ye etteḥād-e Eslām, written for Sultan ʿAbd-al-Ḥamīd, and theResālat al-abrār, an Arabic diatribe against Ḡolām Aḥmad Qādīānī.

Mīrzā Moḥammad Ardestānī, known as Nāṭeq (1298-1355/1880-1936), also started life as anʿālem, but abandoned his clerical calling following his conversion in 1325/1907. He was for eleven years Director of the Bahai Waḥdat-e Bašar school in Kāšān and later taught at the Taʾyīd school in Hamadān before becoming a full-time Bahai missionary. Hisdīvān of almost 400 pages was published posthumously by the Bahais in Tehran. Although they show little originality, Nāṭeq’s poems at least take a somewhat broader view than those of most Bahai poets. Several prose works by him remain unpublished.

There are numerous other Bahai poets, most of whom have been made known thanks to the assiduous researches of Neʿmat-Allāh Ḏokāʾī Bayżāʾī, whose 4-volumeTaḏkera-ye šoʿarā-ye qarn-e awwal-e bahāʾī contains biographies and samples of the work of no fewer than 134 individuals. Not very many of these are of much literary merit, of course, since Bayżāʾī’s criterion for inclusion appears to have been that someone be a Bahai and write poetry. Nevertheless, his collection does serve to draw attention to the work of several individuals previously unknown and possibly worth further notice. It is worth observing that a reasonable number of female poets appear in this collection, several of whom were active in the Babi and early Bahai periods.

BAHAISM xiii. Bahai Pioneers

“Pioneer” (in English) andmohājer (in Persian: migrant, pl.mohājerin) are terms used in Bahai literature to designate those who leave their homes to settle in another locality with the intention of spreading the Bahai faith or supporting existing Bahai communities.

The Bahai faith does not have any professional religious leaders. Therefore all of the functions normally undertaken by these individuals, including missionary activities, are the responsibility of ordinary Bahais. In the Bahai community, ordinary Bahais move to a new area where they find employment or set up their business and then seek out converts in their new locality. This movement may be to a different area in the same country or to a foreign country where there are no Bahais, or it may be to an area where the existing Bahai community is weak. This activity and those doing it are calledmohājarat (migration) andmohājerin (migrants) respectively in Persian and pioneering and pioneers in English. The pioneer is supposed to remain in that place until the Bahai faith is firmly established among the native people of that area and its institutions are functioning properly (Horby, comp., p. 578).

TheBāb instructed his first eighteen disciples, called “the Letters of the Living” (ḥoruf al-ḥayy), to disperse and take his message throughout Iran and the neighboring countries. There are also many instances whereBahāʾ-Allāh directed Bahais to travel to a foreign country (e.g., India), in order to spread the Bahai faith there (Momen, 1999-2000), or among the Baḵtiāri and the tribes of Kermanshah (Raʾfati, p. 96). But such a person would usually be a traveling teacher (moballeḡ) and would not remain in the area for long. In the time ofʿAbd-al-Bahaʾ, there is more evidence of his instructing Bahais to settle in various places; for example he asked some of the Turkish-speaking Bahais of Azarbaijan to move to towns in Anatolia (Fāżel Māzandarāni, pp. 62, 98).

In 1916-17, ʿAbd-al-Bahāʾ wrote a series of letters to the North American Bahais, known asFarāmin-e tabliḡi (in Eng.,Tablets of the Divine Plan; lit. Missionary commands) in which he gives instructions about various places around the world where Bahais are to settle. Although there was little response to this call in his lifetime, these letters were regarded by Shoghi Effendi in later years as the charter and ground plan for the expansion of the Bahai faith. However, the spread of the Bahai faith was largely by happenstance up to the 1930s. A Bahai might move to a new area because of his/her work or might be converted in one area and then return to his/her home town or village and start spreading the Bahai faith there. The spread of the faith in an area may also be the result of persecution somewhere else, such as the establishment and growth of the Bahai community ofAshkhabad (seeBahaism vi) by Bahais escaping persecution in Iran (Momen, 1991).

Shoghi Effendi spent the first fifteen years of his leadership of the Bahai community building up the institutions of the Bahai administration. Then in 1937, he began to implement the instructions given by ʿAbd-al-Bahāʾ in theFarāmin-e tabliḡi, creating systematic plans for the expansion of the Bahai community and asking National Spiritual Assemblies (Maḥfel-e Ruḥāni) to send Bahais to areas where there were no Bahais. It was at this time that Shoghi Effendi first began to use terms in Persian that linked this activity to the early history of Islam, by calling a person who moved to a new areamohājer, implicitly linking this activity to those who moved from Mecca to Medina with the Prophet Moḥammad. A person who first moved to a country that did not have any Bahais was called afāteḥ (opener, conqueror), using the term that designates those who, in early Islamic history, opened up new areas to Islamic rule.

Up until that time, the wordmohājer had been used in Bahai texts to designate those Bahais who had moved from Iran to the Haifa-ʿAkkā area to live in proximity to the Bahai leadership. In English, however, Shoghi Effendi used the term “pioneer,” which had entirely different connotations for the American Bahais to whom it was addressed. For them, it evoked the spirit of those who opened up new areas for settlement in the early history of the United States. In addition, Shoghi Effendi translated and publishedNabil’s Narrative (1932), a history of the sufferings and sacrifices of the early Babis, in order to inspire the Western Bahais to make the sacrifices needed for pioneering to difficult posts in less developed countries of the world (Momen, 2011).

The History of mohājerat (pioneering). The planned sending out of pioneers began with the Seven-Year Plan of the North American Bahais (1937-44), when Shoghi Effendi asked for pioneers to be sent to those countries in South America, where there were no Bahais. Thus the North American Bahai community was the first to be given goals for pioneering, and soon other Bahai communities were also being asked to do this. Within a decade, every community where a National Spiritual Assembly had been established was given goals for expansion, including for the sending out of pioneers, for spreading the Bahai faith both in their own country and beyond.

In 1938, Shoghi Effendi began to refer in his letters to Iran to the need for Bahais to migrate in order to spread the Bahai faith (1973b, p. 188), and, shortly afterwards, Bahais began to move to some 187 places, often villages, in Iran where there were no Bahais; most were forced to leave because of local pressure against them. In addition, starting in 1941, some 145 Bahai families left Iran to settle in Arabia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Baluchistan (Pakistan), and Bahrain. The majority of these families settled in Iraq but were deported by the Iraqi government two years later (Bahāʾī World 9, pp. 56, 81-82). A notable one among them was Abu’l-Qāsem Fayżi, who moved with his wife to Bahrain in 1942 and was later designated a Hand of the Cause (Ayādi-e Amr Allāh). In October 1946, the Iranian Bahai community adopted a 45-Month Plan, in which Bahais were sent to settle in twenty-two new localities in Iran and also to Iraq, India, Bahrain, Afghanistan, and various places in Arabia and the Persian Gulf (Bahāʾī World 11, pp. 34-35; Shoghi Effendi, 1968, p. 31; idem, 1973b, p. 287). During 1951-53, several Iranian families moved to Africa in order to assist with the Two-Year Plan of the British Bahais to open up three African countries to the Bahai faith. One of them, Musā Banāni (to Uganda in 1951), was named a Hand of the Cause a few years later.

During the Ten-Year Plan (1953-63), Shoghi Effendi gave each of the twelve National Bahai Assemblies then in existence a plan that included many goals for which they had to cooperate with each other. This plan called for pioneers to move to 131 countries, territories, and islands where there were no Bahais. Iran was made responsible for 7 territories in Asia and 6 territories in Africa, as well as consolidating the Bahai communities in a further 12 territories in Asia and 2 in Africa. For the first year from April 1953 to May 1954, any Bahai that migrated to one of the 131 territories was designated a knight (fāres) of Bahāʾ-Allāh. After that date, only the first to arrive at one of these places was thus designated. Of the 252 people that were named knights, 24 were Iranians with another 20 people of Iranian origin from India and Egypt. Among these was Raḥmat-Allāh Moḥājer, who pioneered with his wife from Iran to the Mentawei Islands, Indonesia, and was later designated a Hand of the Cause (Bahāʾī World 12, pp. 256, 261, 263, 268; 13, pp. 291-92, 449-57, 459).

When the Universal House of Justice was established, it launched a Nine-Year Plan (1964-73), in the course of which the Bahais of Iran were given the primary responsibility of sending pioneers to Afghanistan, Mongolia, and seven of the Asian Soviet Republics; these same territories continued to be their responsibility during the subsequent Five-Year Plan (1974-79). However, during the former plan they had additional responsibilities to send pioneers to Arabia and 6 countries in Africa, and in the latter plan they also had secondary goals of settling pioneers in 56 other countries in Asia, Africa, Europe, and South America (Analysis, 1964, pp. 21-22, 34;Analysis, 1974, pp. 35-38, 93).

The Iranian Bahais were at this time numerically the largest Bahai community in the world. The fact that they are relatively unrepresented in the early years of Bahai pioneering is because of the greater problems they faced, compared with Bahais from North America and Europe. Most Iranian Bahais did not have the level of education that would enable them to obtain employment in another country. Furthermore, Iran did not have diplomatic relations with most countries, so it was more difficult to obtain a visa. The Bahai pioneers to Arabia and Bahrain in the 1940s, for example, had first to move to Iraq and settle there for while to obtain visas before moving on to their final goal. There were also language problems. These problems eased as time went on and at the end of the Five-Year Plan in 1979, the Universal House of Justice announced that the Iranian Bahais had “far surpassed any other national community in their outpouring of pioneers” (1996, p. 401).

On the other hand, 1979 was also marked by the establishment of the Islamic Revolution in Iran, which crippled the Iranian Bahai community. Although a large number left Iran in the immediate aftermath of the Revolution, only a small number of these were able to settle in pioneer positions. What is more, with the banning of the Bahai administrative institutions in Iran, the Iranian Bahai community has been given no formal goals in subsequent plans. Iranian Bahais living outside Iran have, however, continued to be probably the largest group undertaking international Bahai pioneering. Many of the Iranian Bahai pioneers experienced extreme hardship and privations, often having to adopt local standards of living below what they were used to. For instance, Qodrat-Allāh ʿĀzemiḵᵛāh used to travel among the villages of the Congo repairing kerosene lamps (Bahāʾī World 16, pp. 519-20). Some even lost their lives (Bahāʾī World 15, pp. 257, 514-17;Bahāʾī World 1993-94, pp. 147-50, 156-57). One consequence of the large number of Iranian pioneers in different countries of the world is that many Bahais in these parts of the world are somewhat familiar with Persian culture and language.

The nature of pioneering has evolved throughout Bahai history and will presumably continue to evolve. Even in the early decades of the 20th century, a small number of American Bahais were asked to migrate to Iran. The purpose was not to increase the number of Bahais but to help with education and health projects in Iran (Armstrong-Ingram). Since the beginning of the 21st century, this aspect of supporting Bahai communities has become more prominent with pioneers now usually being asked to help in building capacity among the Bahais and to assist the development activities of the community to which they go (involving such activities as study classes, children’s classes, junior youth empowerment programs, and devotional meetings). Furthermore, pioneering is now often a short-term commitment, sometimes lasting only for three months.

The Role of mohājerat (pioneering). Shoghi Effendi wrote at length about the action of pioneering. He described it as a spiritually meritorious, although not an obligatory, service that all Bahais should consider performing and wrote of a pioneer’s function as being “far above the average service” (1973a, p. 55). In the opening phase of the Ten-Year Plan, he even stated in a general letter sent to most national Bahai communities, that, at that time, pioneering took “precedence over every other type of Bahāʾi service” (1970, p. 162; idem, 1981, p. 303, idem, 1982, I, p. 194; cf. also idem, 1968, p. 71; Hornby, comp., pp. 579, 581-82). He wrote of the fact that it was a service that even simple, ordinary Bahais could perform (1981, pp. 172-73). He advised, however, that, despite its importance, pioneering should not be allowed to disrupt the normal family relationships of husband and wife or parents and children (The Universal House of Justice, 1991, I, p. 409, II, p. 383; cf. Hornby, comp., pp. 232-33). He also considered it the duty of the Bahai institutions to give every assistance to individuals in overcoming problems that might prevent them from pioneering (1968, pp. 71-72). During the Ten-Year Plan, he linked the activity of pioneering, which was then being done on a global scale, with the prophecies in the Book of Daniel of the 1335 days and of Habbakuk that the “the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea” (Daniel 12:12; Habakkuk 2:14; Shoghi Effendi, 1973a, pp. 54-55).

Both ʿAbd-all-Bahaʾ (pp. 26, 50, 61; tr., pp. 32, 38, 52;Star of the West 8/3, p. 37) and Shoghi Effendi (The Universal House of Justice, 1991, I, pp. 40-41) wrote of the need for pioneers to acquire proficiency in the local language and to familiarize themselves with the history, customs, and the social and religious background and traditions of the people of the areas to which they were moving. The Universal House of Justice has stated, however, that being a pioneer involves no special status or authority in the Bahai community (Hornby, comp., pp. 573, 588). Although financial help may be given to those who need it in order to move to and settle in a new location, it is expected that they make every effort to obtain employment or set up a business in order to become financially independent (Shoghi Effendi, 1973b, p. 285; Hornby, comp., pp. 572, 589; The Universal House of Justice, 1991, II, p. 63).

See alsoCONVERSION v. TO BABISM AND THE BAHAI FAITH.

BAHAISM xiv. Nineteen Day Feast

The Nineteen Day Feast (żiāfat-e nuzdah-ruza) is a gathering of the Bahai community every nineteen days that has devotional, administrative, and social aspects and is the core of community life.

The origins of the observance go back to theBāb, who established what eventually became the Bahai calendar, consisting of nineteen months of nineteen days each, and ordained that each Bābi should invite nineteen others every nineteen days as guests, even if only water be served and even if it be fewer than nineteen guests (Bayān al-ʿarabi 9:17).Bahāʾ-Allāh confirmed this injunction in theKetāb-e aqdas (sec. 57; tr., p. 40), explaining that its purpose is “to bind hearts together, albeit through both earthly and heavenly means,” although inQuestions and Answers (no. 48), this command is stated not to be obligatory. However, in the case of both the Bāb and Bahāʾ-Allāh, these appear to be injunctions to the individual rather than a command to establish a community institution. No further instructions regarding this command appear in the published writings of Bahāʾ-Allāh, possibly because elsewhere he states (Entešārāt-lajna XXXI, p. 31) that he did not want the Bahais to gather in large numbers, which might attract attention. But developments did occur, since the German Christian missionary Pastor Christian Közle (d. 1895), who was stationed at Urmia, reports that the main meeting of the Bahai community occurs on the last day of each Bahai month (Momen, pp. 74-75).

ʿAbd-al-Bahāʾ evolved both the concept and the practice of the Nineteen Day Feast. Both in his dealings with the American pilgrims who began to arrive in ʿAkkā and in his correspondence, he encouraged the new North American communities to hold meetings every nineteen days, at which prayers were said and hospitality provided. As early as 1901, “Nineteen-Day Teas” for women were being held in Chicago. During 1905-7, the feast became formalized, regular, and country-wide, largely through the efforts of Isabella Brittingham, and were based on a feast hosted by ʿAbd-al-Bahāʾ in 1905 (Stockman, pp. 50, 244-45; Walbridge). They also became community events rather than private gatherings. For these Western Bahaʾis, ʿAbd-al-Bahāʾ linked the Nineteen Day Feast with the Lord’s Supper (ʿAbd-al-Bahāʾ, p. 149; II, p. 421), interpreting the Qurʾanic reference to a banquet (māʾeda) descending from heaven (Qurʾan 5:112-14) as indicating that this should be both a physical and spiritual repast. He emphasized in particular the creation of an atmosphere of unity and spirituality, calling it a “confluence of holy souls” (The Universal House of Justice, I, p. 429). However, in Iran, there were still dangers for the Bahais from gathering in large numbers, at least in the early part of ʿAbd-al-Bahāʾ’s ministry, and so ʿAbd-al-Bahāʾ continued Bahāʾ-Allāh’s instructions that the meetings of the Bahais for prayers be in small groups only, and that they be on personal initiative, but he also indicated that they would eventually become formal community gatherings (Fāżel Yazdi, I, pp. 353-54).

The next major development of the Nineteen Day Feast came with Shoghi Effendi’s instructions in the early 1930s that, in addition to the devotional (prayers and readings from scripture) and social (food and conversation) sections of the feast, there should be an administrative section, where there would be consultation about the affairs of the community. Shoghi Effendi gave many other instructions about the feast, including: that it should be held, if possible, on the first day of the Bahai month; that in order to facilitate freedom of discussion during the administrative portion of the feast, only enrolled Bahais may attend; that only scripture (mainly Bahai but also from the Qurʾan and the Bible if desired) should be read in the devotional part, but messages from the Bahai institutions and other material may be read in the administrative section; and that music may form part of the devotional section. The local spiritual assembly (maḥfel-e ruḥāni) is to be responsible for organizing the feasts, although it may delegate this task to individuals or committees. In areas where there is no spiritual assembly, the Bahais may nevertheless hold feasts.

The Universal House of Justice (Bayt-al-ʿadl-e aʿẓam), the present world leadership of the Bahai faith, sees the Nineteen Day Feast as a continuation of human activities throughout the ages, which have brought people together in acts of devotion and festivity. It sees its significance in its combining all of the important processes of human life, the spiritual, the administrative, and the social; its being an activity in which all Bahais can participate; and its role as the main way in which the local Bahai administrative institutions (local spiritual assemblies,maḥfel-e ruḥāni) can keep close contact with their communities. Indeed, the feast should form a “dynamic link” between the individual Bahais and the administrative structure of the Bahai community. It gives the administrative institutions an opportunity to communicate their plans to the community and, in the process of consultation, for the individual Bahais to present their innovative ideas and constructive criticism. All of this is seen by the Universal House of Justice as an important part of the process of building a unified community and progressing towards a global civilization. In addition, it has emphasized that great care should be given to the preparation of the locality for the feast, the choosing of the readings for it and the hospitality offered (The Universal House of Justice, I, pp. 419-22). While confirming Shoghi Effendi’s ruling that the Nineteen Day Feast is primarily for enrolled Bahais, it has stated that, should individuals who are not Bahais attend, the feast can continue with the administrative portion modified to take account of this.

At present in the Bahai world, the Nineteen Day Feast is held within the above framework but with a wide variety of local cultural features. In some parts of the world, music and singing form a major part of the program; in other parts they do not feature at all. In smaller communities, the Bahais gather in each other’s homes, and in larger communities, they gather at the local Bahai center. As communities grow even larger, there can be several Nineteen Day Feasts held in different parts of a locality.

Title:

BAHAI FAITH OR BAHAISM

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1163/2330-4804_EIRO_COM_6391

Language:

English

First-online:

30 Aug 2020

Last-update:

19 Oct 2016

ISSN:

2330-4804

Publisher:

Brill