Bahá’í Faith

In 1844 a young merchant of Shiraz, Sayyid ‘Alí-Muhammad, declared that he was the Báb, “the Gate”, bearer of a new revelation and herald of one greater still to come. His movement spread rapidly across Iran and was fiercely persecuted; the Báb was executed in Tabriz in 1850.

One of his followers, Mírzá Husayn-‘Alí, known as Bahá’u’lláh (“the Glory of God”), was imprisoned in Tehran in 1852 and then exiled to Baghdad. There, in 1863, he declared that he was the one the Báb had foretold. Further exiles took him to Constantinople, Adrianople and finally the prison city of Akka, in Ottoman Palestine, where he died in 1892.

His son ‘Abdu’l-Bahá led the community and travelled to Europe and North America in 1911–1913. His grandson Shoghi Effendi built up its institutions. Since 1963 the Universal House of Justice in Haifa has guided the faith, which is now found in almost every country.

The execution of the Báb in 1850 did not end the Bábí movement, but it left it leaderless and hunted. In 1852 a few Bábís tried to kill the Shah, and a wave of executions followed. Bahá’u’lláh, though not involved, was thrown into the Síyáh-Chál, the “Black Pit” of Tehran, where Bahá’ís believe he received the first intimation of his mission. Released after four months, he was exiled to Baghdad, then under Ottoman rule, where he slowly revived the scattered Bábí community.

In 1863, as the Ottomans moved him on to Constantinople, he declared his mission in the Ridván garden outside Baghdad. In Adrianople the community split when his half-brother Subh-i-Azal opposed him, and most Bábís became Bahá’ís. From 1867, in Adrianople and then in Akka, Bahá’u’lláh addressed letters to the rulers of his time, among them Napoleon III, Queen Victoria, Tsar Alexander II, Pope Pius IX and the Shah of Iran, calling on them to pursue justice and peace. In 1868 he was sent with his family and companions to the prison city of Akka, where he completed the Kitáb-i-Aqdas in 1873. He spent his last years at the mansion of Bahjí nearby, and his shrine there is now the holiest place for Bahá’ís. In his will, the Book of the Covenant, he named his eldest son ‘Abdu’l-Bahá as his successor and the interpreter of his writings.

‘Abdu’l-Bahá led the faith from 1892 to 1921. His authority was challenged by his half-brother Mírzá Muhammad-‘Alí, but the great majority of Bahá’ís remained loyal to him. In these years the faith reached the West: the first Americans became Bahá’ís in Chicago in 1894, and pilgrims from Europe and North America began to visit Akka. In Ashgabat, in Russian Central Asia, Bahá’ís began the first House of Worship in 1902. Freed from confinement after the Young Turk revolution of 1908, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá laid the remains of the Báb to rest in a shrine on Mount Carmel in 1909, and on his journeys of 1911–1913 laid the foundation stone of the House of Worship in Wilmette, near Chicago. The British knighted him in 1920 for his relief of famine in Palestine during the First World War.

His grandson Shoghi Effendi, appointed Guardian in ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s will, led the community from 1921 to 1957. Educated at Oxford, he translated many of the central writings into English and built up the faith’s administrative order of elected local and national spiritual assemblies. He also laid out the gardens of the world centre in Haifa and Akka, and his Ten Year Crusade (1953–1963) took the faith to many new countries. Not every community could grow: in the Soviet Union Bahá’í life was suppressed from the late 1920s and the Ashgabat temple was confiscated, and in Iran a national campaign against Bahá’ís in 1955 led to attacks and the seizure of their centre in Tehran.

Shoghi Effendi died in London in 1957 without naming a successor. The Hands of the Cause, senior Bahá’ís he had appointed, guided the community until 1963, when the members of the national assemblies elected the first Universal House of Justice. A claim by Charles Mason Remey to be the second Guardian was rejected by nearly all Bahá’ís, and the small groups that followed him have remained marginal.

From the 1960s the faith grew most in India, Africa, Latin America and the Pacific. New Houses of Worship opened in Kampala and Sydney in 1961, Frankfurt in 1964, Panama in 1972, Apia in 1984 and New Delhi, the Lotus Temple, in 1986. The seat of the Universal House of Justice on Mount Carmel was completed in 1983, the terraces of the Shrine of the Báb opened in 2001, and in 2008 the Bahá’í holy places in Haifa and Akka were inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. In Iran, the revolution of 1979 brought systematic persecution, including the execution of many members of elected Bahá’í bodies; in 2008 the seven informal leaders of the Iranian community were arrested and later given long prison sentences.

Bahá’ís believe in one God, unknowable in essence, who reveals his will through a series of messengers: Abraham, Moses, Krishna, Zoroaster, the Buddha, Jesus, Muhammad, the Báb and Bahá’u’lláh. Each brought teachings suited to their time; all religions come from the same source.

The central theme of Bahá’u’lláh’s message is the oneness of humanity. From it follow principles such as the equality of women and men, the elimination of prejudice, universal education, harmony between science and religion, and the building of a peaceful world order.

The soul is immortal; heaven and hell describe nearness to or distance from God, and life is a journey of spiritual growth.

Bahá’ís pray daily, choosing one of three obligatory prayers, and read the sacred writings each morning and evening. In March they fast for nineteen days from sunrise to sunset. The Bahá’í calendar has nineteen months of nineteen days, and the community gathers at the start of each month for the Nineteen-Day Feast.

There are no clergy. Local and national spiritual assemblies, elected without candidates or campaigning, run community affairs. Much activity takes the form of study circles, devotional gatherings and children’s classes open to everyone. Houses of Worship, such as the Lotus Temple in New Delhi, welcome people of all faiths.

The writings of the Báb, of Bahá’u’lláh and of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá are regarded as sacred scripture. Bahá’u’lláh wrote in Arabic and Persian. His Kitáb-i-Aqdas sets out laws and institutions, the Kitáb-i-Íqán explains the unity of the messengers, and the Hidden Words offers short verses of spiritual counsel.

Bahá’ís also honour the scriptures of other religions as sacred.