Baháʼí Faith

Overview

The Baháʼí Faith is a religion founded in Iran in 1863 by Mirza Husayn Ali Nuri, known as Bahá’u’lláh. Its origins lie in the religious ferment of nineteenth-century Persia and the movement of Ali Muhammad Shirazi, known as the Báb. The name Baháʼí derives from an Arabic word meaning “splendor.” Baháʼís accept the legitimacy of Islam, including Twelver Shia Islam, while recognizing the Báb and Bahá’u’lláh as central figures in a faith that arose after Islam. Baháʼí teachings reject violent conflict, and adherents regard spreading their faith as a religious duty.

The faith’s spiritual and administrative center is in Haifa, Israel. The Universal House of Justice, its international governing body, has its seat there. The Shrine of the Báb in Haifa and the Shrine of Bahá’u’lláh near Acre are the faith’s two most holy places. Thousands of Baháʼí pilgrims visit them each year. Their location reflects Bahá’u’lláh’s exile to the Land of Israel under Ottoman rule and the subsequent development of Baháʼí institutions there.

In Iran, the faith’s country of origin, Baháʼís have faced systematic state persecution since the 1979 Iranian Revolution. The Islamic Republic does not recognize their religion in its constitution. It restricts their worship, education, employment, burial practices and contact with fellow believers abroad. Iranian authorities have used communication with the faith’s headquarters in Israel to support espionage charges, although the headquarters’ location follows from events that took place decades before the establishment of the State of Israel. Raids, arrests and property seizures continued through 2022, making the treatment of Baháʼís a major test of religious freedom in Iran.

Origins

The faith’s origins begin with Ali Muhammad Shirazi, the Báb, who lived from 1819 to 1850. In the setting of Twelver Shia Islam, belief in the return of the Twelfth, or Hidden, Imam held central religious importance. Shirazi first claimed to be a gateway to the Hidden Imam and later declared himself that Imam. His claims challenged the Shia clerical establishment and its interpretation of sacred texts. Persia’s Qajar rulers also viewed them as a challenge to state legitimacy because the monarch governed a Shia state. This conflict concerned religious authority and political power; it does not justify adopting the later Iranian regime’s characterization of Baháʼís or their beliefs.

Bahá’u’lláh, whose birth name was Mirza Husayn Ali Nuri, followed the Báb’s movement and founded the Baháʼí Faith in Iran in 1863. From 1852 to 1877, he lived under imprisonment or exile. He was eventually sent from Persia into territories ruled by the Ottoman Empire and settled in the Land of Israel. During his years of imprisonment and exile, he wrote the Kitáb-i-Aqdas, a title meaning “The Most Holy Book.” His writings became central to the faith’s religious life and institutions.

Bahá’u’lláh lived in a house in Acre and died in 1892. He was buried near the city; his tomb stands in a park outside Acre along the road to Nahariya. His presence there arose from Ottoman exile, long before Israel’s establishment. The subsequent development of Baháʼí holy places and headquarters in Israel followed this history rather than any project created by a modern state. Conspiracy theories claiming that Russia or another foreign power created the faith contradict its documented nineteenth-century Iranian origins. A fabricated memoir used to present the faith as a colonial creation was dismissed as a forgery by experts including Ahmad Kasravi.

Doctrine

Baháʼí teachings recognize Islam, including its Twelver Shia branch, as legitimate while giving religious authority to revelations associated with the Báb and Bahá’u’lláh. The difference matters in Iran because Twelver Shia clerical authority is bound to teachings about the Hidden Imam. The Báb’s claims, followed by the emergence of the Baháʼí Faith, departed from the clerical establishment’s interpretation of those teachings. Baháʼís hold their beliefs without treating violent conflict as a means of advancing them. They also regard the communication of their faith to others as a religious obligation. These positions have brought them into conflict with rulers who seek to control public religious practice and conversion.

Bahá’u’lláh’s writings provide the faith’s principal texts. The Kitáb-i-Aqdas was written during his imprisonment and exile and occupies a central place among them. After Bahá’u’lláh’s death, his son Abbás Effendi, known as ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, became leader of the community and received authority to interpret his father’s work. That succession gave the growing community a recognized interpreter as it expanded beyond its original centers in Iran and Acre.

The faith’s religious life also has a distinct geography. The shrines of Bahá’u’lláh and the Báb are its two most holy places and central destinations for pilgrimage. The Báb’s shrine stands on Mount Carmel in Haifa; Bahá’u’lláh’s burial place lies near Acre. These sites connect the faith’s teachings, leadership and history of exile. They also explain why international Baháʼí administration developed in Israel despite the religion’s Iranian origin.

History

During Bahá’u’lláh’s lifetime, the community developed under conditions of imprisonment and exile. His death in 1892 brought ‘Abdu’l-Bahá to leadership. Through his travels, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá spread the Baháʼí Faith around the world. He also instructed believers to purchase land on Mount Carmel overlooking Haifa Bay, where Bahá’u’lláh had envisaged a world headquarters. The eventual establishment of headquarters in Haifa joined religious pilgrimage with international administration. The Universal House of Justice now serves as the faith’s international governing body from its seat there.

In Iran, conflict with clerical opponents predated the Islamic Republic. Persia’s Qajar rulers had treated the Báb’s claims as a threat to their legitimacy. Later, the Pahlavi dynasty resisted clerical pressure to make persecution of Baháʼís official government policy. That distinction did not remove social hostility or every form of discrimination, but it marked a difference from the state policy adopted after 1979. During the Iranian Revolution, dozens of Baháʼís were lynched and many others were arrested. Following the revolution, clerics made persecution of the community state policy.

The new constitutional order recognized certain religious minorities but excluded the Baháʼí Faith. Baháʼís were barred from publicly holding religious ceremonies and rituals and from government and military posts. Authorities restricted teaching and practice of the faith and pressured adherents to renounce it, at times offering relief from mistreatment or release from detention in exchange. Restrictions also affected private employment, with official and unofficial measures limiting livelihoods. Religious identity thus influenced access to work, public life and personal security.

Education became another instrument of exclusion. In 2004, Iranian university entrance forms preprinted “Islam” as the religious affiliation of Baháʼí applicants. Authorities denied Baháʼí students admission or expelled them once their faith became known. During one reporting period, more than 175 Baháʼí students enrolled at Iranian universities, but nearly half were expelled after officials learned their religion. These measures affected students seeking ordinary academic qualifications, not merely community leaders. Reza Pahlavi identified the regime’s exclusion of Baháʼís from education as religious discrimination.

Burial and property rights have also faced repeated interference. In May 2008, authorities arrested two Baháʼí community officials and another Baháʼí in Isfahan over burials at a site their community had used for 15 years. During the reporting period ending in 2010, Baháʼí cemeteries in Isfahan and other cities were desecrated, defaced or blocked from community access. Authorities routinely prevented families in Tabriz from burying deceased Baháʼís at the city’s Vadi-i-Rahmat Cemetery. Remains were sent to Miandoab, where families could not perform Baháʼí burial rites. The destruction and vandalism of Baháʼí cemeteries continued in 2022.

Political role

The Baháʼí Faith is a religious community rather than a political party. Its teachings reject violent conflict, and Baháʼí religious practice does not turn its adherents into agents of a foreign state. Nevertheless, successive Iranian authorities have treated the faith’s independent religious organization and its efforts to spread its beliefs as political threats. The original confrontation over the Hidden Imam challenged the religious authority on which the Shia establishment relied. After 1979, the Islamic Republic turned that religious opposition into law, policing, exclusion and prosecution.

The regime has also linked Baháʼís’ ordinary contact with coreligionists abroad to security accusations. It restricts foreign ties and has used communications or contributions to headquarters in Israel to support charges of espionage. Such contact concerns the international administration of a religion whose central institutions grew from nineteenth-century Ottoman exile. The location of those institutions does not establish espionage or a plot against Iran. Likewise, theories assigning the faith’s creation to foreign governments obscure its origins in Iran and its documented conflict with Persian rulers and clerics.

Individual prosecutions show how religious activity has been framed as an offense against the state. An Ahvaz revolutionary court convicted Baháʼí woman Mitra Badrnejad of membership in a Baháʼí organization and propaganda against the state; her prison sentence was reduced to one year on appeal. Across Iran, at least 65 Baháʼís stood trial during a six-month period in 2019. Religious practice, community organization and the expression of faith have repeatedly brought adherents into contact with the criminal justice system.

Under Ebrahim Raisi’s presidency, persecution escalated. A June 2022 Revolutionary Court mass trial sentenced 26 Baháʼís from Shiraz to prison terms of two to five years. Some also received two years of internal exile and bans on foreign travel. A Fars Province appeals court denied their appeals on August 30, 2022. These proceedings formed part of a wider pattern of arrests and property actions directed at Baháʼís across the country. The separate entry on Persecution of Baháʼís covers that pattern in greater detail.

Relationship to Israel and the Jewish people

Israel contains the Baháʼí Faith’s world headquarters and its two most holy shrines. Haifa is home to the Shrine of the Báb and the seat of the Universal House of Justice. Near Acre, Bahá’u’lláh’s tomb marks his burial place after his death in 1892. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s direction to acquire land on Mount Carmel helped shape the community’s enduring presence around Haifa Bay. Thousands of pilgrims travel to the shrines each year. These religious sites arose from the faith’s own history in the Land of Israel.

The Iranian regime has used that presence to portray Baháʼí contact with Israel as evidence of espionage or allegiance to a foreign power. The chronology contradicts that portrayal: Bahá’u’lláh settled in the area under Ottoman rule and died decades before the State of Israel was established. A religious headquarters in Israel and communication with it do not make Iranian Baháʼís agents of Israel. The accusation has served as a pretext for restricting their worship and overseas ties and for bringing security charges against members of the community.

The faith’s connection to Israel is therefore primarily historical, spiritual and administrative. Its pilgrimage sites belong to Baháʼí religious tradition; its governing institution coordinates an international community. The distinction between that religious relationship and the Iranian regime’s charges is essential to understanding both the faith’s geography and the persecution of its adherents in Iran.

Present day

Baháʼís in Iran continue to face restrictions that reach across religious, educational and economic life. The state does not recognize their faith in its constitution, bars public ceremonies and limits teaching and practice. Admission to universities and continued enrollment can depend on concealing religious identity. Baháʼís are excluded from government and military posts and face obstacles in private employment. Authorities have offered relief from mistreatment in exchange for renouncing the faith. Restrictions on contact with the international Baháʼí community intensify the effects of these domestic measures.

Security operations continued in successive years. On November 22, 2020, regime agents raided Baháʼí homes across several Iranian cities, including Tehran, Isfahan and Mashhad. They searched homes and confiscated personal items, including electronic devices and religious books. Iranian authorities arrested 64 Baháʼís between January and December 2021. On July 19, 2022, security forces arrested five Baháʼís and sent them to the Shiraz Intelligence Detention Center.

In July and August 2022, security forces carried out further raids on Baháʼí homes, confiscated property and arrested adherents at home and at work. By October of that year, more than 1,000 Baháʼís were being held within Iran’s criminal justice system. Property seizures and cemetery destruction accompanied the arrests. The continuing pressure affected ordinary families as well as people accused of community organization or religious teaching.

The pattern extended beyond the events of 2022. In 2023, recorded religious-minority rights violations under Iran’s regime affected Baháʼís more heavily than any other minority group, followed by Sunnis. Despite sustained pressure in the country where the faith began, Baháʼí institutions in Haifa and Acre continue to serve an international religious community. Their existence in Israel remains a consequence of the faith’s nineteenth-century history, while the denial of religious freedom to Baháʼís in Iran remains a defining feature of the Islamic Republic’s treatment of the community.