History of the Baháʼí Faith

In Islam, the Mahdi is a messianic figure who is believed to be a descendant of Muhammad who will return near the end of time to restore the world and the religion of God.[7] While both Sunni and Shiʻa groups believe in the Mahdi, the largest Shiʻa group, the Twelvers, believe that the Mahdi is the Twelfth Imam, Muhammad al-Mahdi, who is believed to have gone into occultation since 874 CE.[7]

In the Twelver view the Twelfth Imam first went into a "Minor Occultation" between 874 and 941 CE where the Hidden Imam still communicated with the community through four official intermediaries. The "Greater Occultation" is then defined from the time when the Hidden Imam ceased to communicate regularly until the time when he returns to restore the world.[8]

The Shaykhi movement was a school of theology within Twelver Shiʻa Islam that was started through the teaching of Shaykh Ahmad al-Ahsá'í. Shaykh Ahmad's teachings included that the Imams were spiritual beings and thus, in contrast to the widespread Shiʻa belief, that the Imams existed within spiritual bodies, and not material bodies.[9] He also taught that there must always exist the "Perfect Shiʻa" who serves as an intermediary between the Imams and the believers, and is the one who can visualize the consciousness of the Hidden Imam.[9][10] In 1822 he left Iran and went to Iraq due to the controversy that his teachings had brought. There he also found himself at the centre of debate, thus deciding to move to Mecca, he died in 1826 on his way there.[9]

Before the death of Shaykh Ahmad, he appointed Siyyid Kázim of Rasht to lead the Shaykhí movement, which he did until his death in 1843. Siyyid Kázim formulated many of the thoughts that were ambiguously expressed by Shaykh Ahmad including the doctrine of salvation history and the cycles of revelation.[9] His teaching brought a sense of millenarian hope among the Shaykhis that the Hidden Imam may return.[9] Siyyid Kazim did not leave a successor, but before his death in December, 1843, he had counselled his followers to leave their homes to seek the Mahdi, who according to his prophecies would soon appear.[9][11]

Shrine of the Báb in Haifa, Israel

Siyyid ʻAlí-Muhammad, who later took on the title the Báb, was born on October 20, 1819, in Shiraz to a merchant of the city; his father died while he was quite young and the boy was raised by his maternal uncle Ḥájí Mírzá Siyyid ʻAlí, who was also a merchant.[11][12]

In May 1844 the Báb proclaimed to Mulla Husayn, one of the Shaykhis, to be the one whose coming was prophesied by Shaykh Ahmad and Siyyid Kázim and the bearer of divine knowledge.[13] Within five months, seventeen other disciples of Siyyid Káẓim had recognized the Báb as a Manifestation of God.[14][15] These eighteen disciples were later known as the Letters of the Living and were given the task of spreading the new faith across Iran and Iraq.[13] The Báb initially attracted most of the followers of the Shaykhí movement, but soon his teachings went far beyond those roots and attracted prominent followers across Iran. His followers were known as Bábís.

The first accounts in the West of events related to the history of the Báb and his followers appears January 8, 1845 as an exchange of diplomatic reports not published in the newspapers.[16] This was an account of the first Letter of the Living to be dispatched from the presence of the Báb – the second Letter of the Living and first Babi martyr, Mullá ʻAlí-i-Bastámí. The British diplomat who recorded these events was Sir Henry Rawlinson, 1st Baronet who wrote first to Stratford Canning, 1st Viscount Stratford de Redcliffe, then Ambassador to Istanbul, and it included an enclosure from the Governor of Kirmánsháh protesting the arrest in Ottoman lands of a Persian mullá. Follow-up exchanges continued from January into April where diplomatic records of events end. Ottoman state archives affirm his arrival in Istanbul where he is then sentenced to serve in the naval ship yards at hard labor – the Ottoman ruler refusing to banishment him as it would be "difficult to control his activities and prevent him spreading his false ideas."[16] The first public account was published Nov 1, 1845 in the London Times.[16][17] It was centered on events in Shiraz when the last Letter of the Living, Quddús returned after traveling with the Báb.[16] The story was also carried from Nov 15 by the Literary Gazette[16][17] which was subsequently echoed widely in other countries.[18]

After some time, preaching by the Letters of the Living led to opposition by the Islamic clergy, prompting the Governor of Shiraz to order the Báb's arrest. After being under house arrest in Shiraz from June 1845 to September 1846,[13] the Báb spent several months in Isfahan debating clergy, many of whom became sympathetic.[19] Among the most unexpected of those who embraced the Cause of the Báb was a brilliant theologian who bore the title of Vahid—meaning “unique”. A trusted advisor to the Shah, Vahid had been sent to interrogate the Báb on behalf of the king, who wished to secure reliable firsthand information about the movement that was sweeping his land. Upon learning of Vahid's conversion, the Shah called for the Báb to be brought to Tehran. The Prime Minister—fearing that his own position might be fatally undermined should the Shah also fall under the Báb’s influence—halted the Báb’s escort outside Tehran, then ordered instead that he be imprisoned in the remote fortress of Máh-Kú, near the Turkish border. The excuse given to the Shah was that the Báb’s arrival in the capital might lead to great public distress and disorder.

During the Báb’s incarceration in the fortress of Maku in the province of Azarbaijan close to the Turkish border, he began his most important work, the Persian Bayán, which he never finished. He was then transferred to the fortress of Chihríq in April 1848.[11] In that place as well, the Báb's popularity grew and his jailors relaxed restrictions on him. Hence the Prime Minister ordered the Báb back to Tabriz where the government called on religious authorities to put the Báb on trial for blasphemy and apostasy.[13] Bábism was also spreading across the country, and the Islamic government saw it as a threat to state religion, even going so far as to send military forces against the Bábís. Communities of Bábís established themselves in Iran and Iraq,[20] and in 1850 reached several cities of Azarbaijan.[21] Coverage in newspapers in the West reoccurred in 1849 including in the French journal Revue de l'Orient.[16] In the fall of 1850 newspaper coverage fell behind quickly unfolding events. Though the Báb was named for the first time he had in fact already been executed.[22]

In mid-1850 a new Prime Minister, Amir Kabir,[23] ordered the execution of the Báb, probably because various Bábí insurrections had been defeated and the movement's popularity appeared to be waning. The Báb was brought back to Tabríz from Chihríq, so that he could be shot by a firing squad. On the morning of July 9, 1850, the Báb was taken to the courtyard of the barracks in which he was being held, where thousands of people had gathered to watch. The Báb and a companion (a young man named Anis) were suspended on a wall and a large firing squad prepared to shoot.[13] After the order was given to shoot and the smoke cleared, the Báb was no longer in the courtyard and Anis stood there unharmed; the bullets apparently had not harmed either man, but had cut the rope suspending them from the wall.[lower-alpha 1] The soldiers subsequently found the Báb in another part of the barracks, completely unharmed. He was tied up for execution a second time, a second firing squad was ranged in front of them, and a second order to fire was given. This time, the Báb and his companion were killed.[13] Their remains were dumped outside the gates of the town to be eaten by animals.

The remains, however, were rescued by a handful of Bábis and were hidden. Over time the remains were secretly transported by way of Isfahan, Kirmansháh, Baghdad and Damascus, to Beirut and thence by sea to Acre, Israel on the plain below Mount Carmel in 1899.[24] In 1909, the remains were finally interred in a special tomb, erected for this purpose by ʻAbdu'l-Bahá, on Mount Carmel in the Holy Land in Haifa, Israel. The Shrine of the Báb remains an important place of pilgrimage for Baháʼís. The Shrine is a protected site and in 2008 was listed on UNESCO's World Heritage Sites.

While the Báb claimed a station of revelation, he also claimed no finality for his revelation.[25] A constant theme in his works, especially the Persian Bayan was that of the great Promised One, the next embodiment of the Primal Will, whom the Báb termed He whom God shall make manifest, promised in the sacred writings of previous religions would soon establish the Kingdom of God on the Earth.[13][26] The Báb's writings have an emphasis on recognizing a future prophet, "He whom God shall make manifest", when he arrives.[25]

Baháʼu'lláh was born on November 12, 1817, in Tehran. Baháʼu'lláh's father was entitled Mírzá Buzurg while he served as vizier to Imám-Virdi Mírzá, the twelfth son of Fat′h Ali Shah Qajar. Mírzá Buzurg was later appointed governor of Burujird and Lorestan,[27] a position that he was stripped of during a government purge when Muhammad Shah came to power. After his father died, Baháʼu'lláh was asked to take a government post by the new vizier Haji Mirza Aqasi, but he declined the position.[28]

At the age of 28, Baháʼu'lláh received a messenger, Mullá Husayn, telling him of the Báb, whose message he accepted, becoming a Bábí. Baháʼu'lláh began to spread the new cause, especially in his native province of Núr, becoming recognized as one of its most influential believers.[29][27] The accompanying government suppression of the Báb's religion resulted in Baháʼu'lláh's being imprisoned twice and enduring bastinado torture once.[27] Baháʼu'lláh also attended the Conference of Badasht, where 81 prominent Bábís met for 22 days; at that conference where there was a discussion between those Bábís who wanted to maintain Islamic law and those who believed that the Báb's message began a new dispensation, Baháʼu'lláh took the pro-change side, which eventually won out.[29]

Before his death, the Báb had been in correspondence with two brothers, Baháʼu'lláh and Ṣubḥ-i-Azal who, after the death of many prominent disciples, emerged as the mostly likely leaders.[29] In a letter sent to Ṣubḥ-i-Azal, then aged around nineteen, the Báb appears to have indicated a high station or leadership position.[29] The letter also orders Ṣubḥ-i-Azal to obey the Promised One when he appears;[30] in practise, Ṣubḥ-i-Azal, however, seems to have had little widespread legitimacy and authority.[29] Baháʼu'lláh in the meantime, while in private hinted at his own high station, in public kept his messianic secret from most and supported Ṣubḥ-i-Azal in the interest of unity.[29]

In 1852, two years after the execution of the Bábí, the Bábís were polarized with one group speaking of violent retribution against the Shah, Nasser-al-Din Shah while the other, under the leadership of Bahaʼu'lláh, looked to rebuild relationships with the government and advance the Bábí cause by persuasion and the example of virtuous living.[31] The militant group of Bábís was between thirty and seventy persons, only a small number of the total Bábí population of perhaps 100,000. Their meetings appear to have come under the control of a "Husayn Jan", an emotive and magnetic figure who obtained a high degree of personal devotion to himself from the group.

Baháʼu'lláh met briefly with a couple of the radical Bábí leaders and learned of an assassination plan. He condemned the plan, but was soon asked to leave Tehran by the authorities.[31] In the vacuum of leadership[31] on August 15, 1852 about 3 Bábís[31] attempted the assassination of the Shah and failed.[29] Notwithstanding the assassins' claim that they were working alone, the entire Bábí community was blamed, and a slaughter of several thousand Bábís followed. Amidst the general violence some Bábís were imprisoned in the Síyáh-Chál (Black Pit), an underground dungeon of Tehran.[32] According to Baháʼu'lláh, perhaps the lone survivor, it was during his imprisonment in the Síyáh-Chál that he had several mystical experiences, and that he received a vision of a Maiden from God, through whom he received his mission as a Messenger of God and as the One whose coming the Báb had prophesied.[29][32]

Map of Baháʼu'lláh's banishments

The government later found Baháʼu'lláh innocent of complicity in the assassination plot, and he was released from the Síyáh-Chál, but the government exiled him from Iran. Baháʼu'lláh chose to go to Iraq in the Ottoman Empire and arrived in Baghdad in early 1853.[29] A small number of Bábís, including his half-brother Ṣubḥ-i-Azal, followed Baháʼu'lláh to Baghdad. An increasing number of Bábís considered Baghdad the new centre for leadership of the Bábí religion, and a flow of pilgrims started coming there from Persia. In Baghdad people began to look to Ṣubḥ-i-Azal for leadership less and less due to his policy of remaining hidden, and instead saw Baháʼu'lláh as their leader.[29][33] Ṣubḥ-i-Azal started to try to discredit Baháʼu'lláh and further divided the community.[33] The actions of Subh-i-Azal drove many people away from the religion and allowed its enemies to continue their persecution.[28]

On April 10, 1854 Baháʼu'lláh left Baghdad in order to distance himself from Ṣubḥ-i-Azal and as to avoid becoming the source of disagreement within the Bábí community; he left with one companion to the mountains of Kurdistan, north-east of Baghdad, near the city Sulaymaniyah.[28] For two years Baháʼu'lláh lived alone in the mountains of Kurdistan[32] living the life of a Sufi dervish.[29] At one point someone noticed his remarkable penmanship, which brought the curiosity of the instructors of the local Sufi orders.[28] During his time in Kurdistan he wrote many notable books including the Four Valleys.[32] In Baghdad, given the lack of firm and public leadership by Ṣubḥ-i-Azal, the Bábí community had fallen into disarray.[28] Some Bábís, including Baháʼu'lláh's family, thus searched for Baháʼu'lláh, and pleaded with him to come back to Baghdad, which he did in 1856.[29]

Baháʼu'lláh remained in Baghdád for seven more years. During this time, while keeping his perceived station as the Manifestation of God hidden, he taught the Báb's teachings. He published many books and verses including the Book of Certitude and the Hidden Words.[29] Baháʼu'lláh's gatherings attracted many notables, both locals and Iranian pilgrims, giving him greater influence in Baghdad and in Iran. His rising influence in the city, and the revival of the Persian Bábí community gained the attention of his enemies in Islamic clergy and the Persian government.[29][34] They were eventually successful in having the Ottoman government call Baháʼu'lláh from Baghdad to Constantinople.[34]

Before he left Baghdad on the way to Constantinople, Baháʼu'lláh camped for twelve days in the Garden of Ridván near Baghdad starting on April 22, 1863. During his stay in the garden a large number of friends came to see him before he left. It was during his time in the Garden of Ridván that Baháʼu'lláh declared to his companions his perceived mission and station as a Messenger of God.[32] Today Baháʼís celebrate the twelve days that Baháʼu'lláh was in the Garden of Ridván as the festival of Ridván.

After travelling for four months over land, Baháʼu'lláh arrived in the capital of the Ottoman Empire, Constantinople (now Istanbul). Although not a formal prisoner yet, the forced exile from Baghdad was the beginning of a long process which would gradually move him into further exiles and eventually the penal colony of Akká, Ottomon Empire's Palestine (now Acre, Israel). Baháʼu'lláh and his family, along with a small group of Bábís, stayed in Constantinople for only four months. Due to his refusal to build alliances with the Ottoman politicians, Baháʼu'lláh had no means of resisting pressure from the Iranian ambassador to exile him further away, and Sultan Abdulaziz banished Baháʼu'lláh to Adrianople (current-day Edirne), which was a site for the exile of political prisoners.[29]

ʻAbdu'l-Bahá in Adrianople with his brothers and companions of Baháʼu'lláh.

During the month of December 1863, Baháʼu'lláh and his family embarked on a twelve-day journey to Adrianople. Baháʼu'lláh stayed in Adrianople for four and a half years. In Adrianople Baháʼu'lláh made his claim to be Him whom God shall make manifest more public through letters and tablets.[29] Baháʼu'lláh's assertion as an independent Manifestation of God made Ṣubḥ-i-Azal's leadership position irrelevant; Ṣubḥ-i-Azal, upon hearing Baháʼu'lláh's words in a tablet read to him, challenging him to accept Baháʼu'lláh's revelation, refused and challenged Baháʼu'lláh to a test of divine will at a local mosque, but he lost face when he did not appear.[29] This caused a break within the Bábí community, and the followers of Baháʼu'lláh—who became the vast majority—became known as Baháʼís, while the followers of Ṣubḥ-i-Azal became known as Azalis.[28]

Starting in 1866, while in Adrianople, Baháʼu'lláh started writing a series of letters to world rulers, proclaiming his station as the promised one of all religions.[29] His letters also asked them to renounce their material possessions, work together to settle disputes, and endeavour towards the betterment of the world and its peoples. Some of these leaders written to in the coming years include Pope Pius IX, Napoleon III of France, Czar Alexander II of Russia, Queen Victoria of Great Britain and Ireland, Násiriʼd-Dín Sháh of the Persian Empire and the rulers of America.[29]

Shrine of Baháʼu'lláh

The disagreements between the Baháʼís and the Azalís allowed the Ottoman and Persian authorities to exile Baháʼu'lláh once again. Baháʼu'lláh and his family left Adrianople on August 12, 1868 and after a journey by land and sea arrived in Acre on August 31. The first years in Acre imposed very harsh conditions on, and held very trying times for, Baháʼu'lláh. Mirzá Mihdí, Baháʼu'lláh's son, was suddenly killed at the age of twenty-two when he fell through a skylight while pacing back and forth in prayer and meditation. After some time, the people and officials began to trust and respect Baháʼu'lláh, and thus the conditions of the imprisonment were eased and eventually, after Ottoman Sultan Abdulaziz's death, he was allowed to leave the city and visit nearby places.

From 1877 until 1879 Baháʼu'lláh lived in the house of Mazra'ih.[29]

The final years of Baháʼu'lláh's life were spent in the Mansion of Bahjí, just outside Acre, even though he was still formally a prisoner of the Ottoman Empire. During his years in Acre and Bahjí, Baháʼu'lláh produced many volumes of work including the Kitáb-i-Aqdas.[29] On May 9, 1892 Baháʼu'lláh contracted a slight fever which grew steadily over the following days, abated, and then finally took his life on May 29, 1892. He was buried in a Shrine located next to the Mansion of Bahjí in Israel. During his lifetime, communities of Baháʼís were established in Armenia, Burma, Egypt, Georgia, India, Lebanon, (what is now) Pakistan, Sudan, Syria, Turkey, and Turkmenistan.[20]

Baháʼí scholar Moojan Momen writes that as of 2006 the Baháʼí Faith was established in 191 independent countries, with 179 National Spiritual Assemblies, and that Baháʼí literature had been translated into 800 languages by that year.[59] According to Encyclopædia Britannica, the Baháʼí Faith is the second-most geographically widespread religion after Christianity in terms of being present in the highest number of locations.[60][61][62] Sociologist Margit Warburg argues that this is due to the Baháʼí strategy of establishing a presence everywhere possible even if sometimes only a very small one.[63] The only countries with no Baháʼís documented as of 2008 are Vatican City and North Korea.[64][lower-alpha 2] Also, while Israel is a destination for Baháʼí pilgrimage, Baháʼí staff in Israel do not teach their religion to Israelis following the policy of the Baháʼí administration.[66] The members of the Baháʼí Faith remain nearly entirely united in a single, organized, hierarchical community.[67][lower-alpha 3]

Most scholarly sources estimate that there are from five to eight million Baháʼís in the world in the early 21st century.[5][71][72][6] In 2020, the Secretariat of the Universal House of Justice wrote that, "on the basis of information received from Baháʼí communities across the world, and on reputable external sources," the current estimate for the number of Baháʼís worldwide is "about eight million" and that Baháʼís reside in "well over 100,000 localities."[4]

The most recent full election of the Universal House of Justice was on 29 April 2018.[73] A one-year Baháʼí teaching plan was launched in 2021 by the Universal House of Justice's annual Ridván message to the worldwide Baháʼí community.[74] This was followed by the beginning of a nine-year teaching plan launched in 2022's Ridván message.[75] These two teaching plans are intended as the first two in a longer series of plans covering the period of 2021–2046.[76]