A Short Introduction to the Bahá'í Faith

chapter 7

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chapter 9

Chapter 8

8. THE HISTORY OF THE BAHÁ'Í FAITH

In the course of a little more than 150 years, the Bahá'í Faith has grown from an obscure movement within a minority sect of Islam into a worldwide religion. Only the briefest outline of its history can be given.

Bahá'í history can conveniently be broken up into five periods:

a. The Period of the Báb (1844-1852)
b. The Ministry of Bahá'u'lláh (1852-1892)
c. The Ministry of `Abdu'l-Bahá (1892-1921)
d. The Period of the Guardianship (Shoghi Effendi, 1921-1963)
e. The Universal House of Justice (1963-)

The Báb

In Mecca, the Báb announced his message, but was generally ignored. His plans for proceeding from Mecca to Karbala, a holy city in the south of Iraq, also came to nothing owing to the fierce opposition which one of his disciples had encountered there. The Báb returned to Shiraz and was detained and placed under house arrest by the governor of that city.

Despite these early setbacks, the message of the Báb spread throughout Iran. Many thousands of people became his followers including many religious scholars of Islam. The governor of Shiraz, fearing the growth of the movement, decided to arrest the Báb again in 1846. His officials carried out the arrest but the sudden appearance of cholera in the city threw everything into confusion and the Báb was allowed to leave the city. He journeyed to the city of Isfahan in central Iran. The governor of Isfahan was a Georgian Christian who had converted to Islam and risen to his present high position. He asked the leading Shi`i religious official in the city to accommodate the Báb.

Isfahan was then the leading centre of Shi`i Islam in Iran. Here the Báb wrote several of his most important works and discussed these with the religious scholars and students gathered there. His teachings convinced many including the governor of Isfahan. The latter offered to put his personal fortune at the disposal of the Báb and to arrange a personal interview with the Shah.

Reports from Isfahan and all over Iran were arriving at the capital about the new religious movement. They alarmed the Prime Minister, who sent orders to Isfahan for the arrest of the Báb. The governor of Isfahan hid the Báb for a time in one of his palaces, but in February 1847, this governor died. His successor had the Báb sent under guard towards Tehran.

The Prime Minister, whose own position was dependant on the religious influence that he wielded over the Shah, feared that the results of any meeting between the Báb and the Shah would lead to the loss of his own position. He, therefore, halted the progress of the Báb's escort outside Tehran and diverted them to Maku in the extreme north-west of Iran. Here in a remote corner of the country and imprisoned among a hostile people, the Prime Minister hoped that the Báb would be isolated and his movement would gradually die away. The Prime Minister's hopes were not, however, fulfilled. The Báb won over his prison warder in Maku and his teachings continued to spread through the towns and villages of Iran.

In 1848, several significant events occurred. Early in this year, the Prime Minister changed the place of imprisonment of the Báb from Maku to Chihriq in the hope of making him more isolated. Also in this year, the Báb issued the Bayán, his principal book of laws and teachings. This book made it clear that he was in fact inaugurating a new religious dispensation that abrogated the dispensation of Islam. This fact was then proclaimed in a conference of his followers held in the summer of that year in a village called Badasht on the road between Tehran and the north-east. At about the same time, the Prime Minister had the Báb brought from his imprisonment to Tabriz, the provincial capital of the north-west. There a mock trial was held before the crown-prince and an assembly of religious notables in the hope that the Báb would be humiliated. The Báb, however, conducted himself with a dignity that won him even more supporters. The trial also gave the Báb an opportunity to announce publicly his claim to be the Mahdi of Islam.

Between 1848 and 1850 there were several episodes in which the religious leaders in various localities around Iran stirred up the people against the Bábís;. When this resulted in civil unrest, the local authorities called upon the Shah's army to attack the Bábís;s. These episodes culminated in several massacres of Bábís;s in different parts of Iran.

In the middle of the year 1850, the new Shah and his Prime Minister decided that the only way of stopping this religious movement would be to execute the founder. They therefore had the Báb brought to Tabriz again and suspended in a public square in front of a firing squad consisting of a regiment of soldiers. There then occurred what Bahá'ís consider to have been a miracle. All of the shots missed and the Báb seemed to have disappeared. He was eventually found dictating his last words to his secretary. The Báb was then brought back to the square, suspended again, and a new regiment was lined up (the first regiment having refused to carry out a further attempt). This time the shots succeeded and the Báb was killed. His body was rescued by some of his followers. After being hid in various places for fifty years, it was eventually interred in a shrine on the side of Mount Carmel in the city of Haifa. An imposing superstructure was then built over this shrine.

The persecutions of the Bábís continued over the next few years. Eventually in the summer of 1852, a small group of Bábís decided to obtain revenge on the Shah by assassinating him. Their plans were, however, poorly made and the plot was a failure. Although most of Bábís had not been involved in the plot, this event triggered an intense persecution that resulted in the execution of almost all of the remaining leading Bábís. Among those executed was Táhirih, the female member of the Letters of the Living.

Bahá'u'lláh

It was while he was in this pit that a visionary experience occurred to him which he has described in some of his writings and which he pinpoints as the start of his mission.

In the Bahá'í Faith, this episode is seen as equivalent to the Burning Bush in the Mosaic dispensation, to the Dove that descended upon Jesus after his baptism by John the Baptist, to the enlightenment of the Buddha under the Bo tree, and to the first appearance of the Angel Gabriel to Muhammad.

Although most of the Bábí prisoners in the Siyah Chal were executed, Bahá'u'lláh's life was spared because of his high social position and the intervention of the Russian minister in Tehran (Bahá'u'lláh's sister was married to an official of the Russian legation). Bahá'u'lláh was released from imprisonment on the condition that he go into exile. Although the Russian Minister offered him the choice of proceeding to Russian territory, Bahá'u'lláh preferred to go to Baghdad (no doubt foreseeing that, if he went to Russia, he would become a pawn in the political game that was being played between Russia and England for supremacy in Iran).

In Baghdad, Bahá'u'lláh proceeded to revitalize the Bábí community. The Bábís had become demoralized and degraded as a result of the persecutions that had decimated their ranks. For two years in 1854-6, he withdrew to the mountains of Kurdistan. For part of this time he lived alone; the rest of the time he was a guest in a Sufi retreat in the town of Sulaymaniyya. Here he expounded on mystical themes and attracted many people to himself. When he returned to Baghdad at the end of this time, he kept his contacts with some of these Sufis. His two main mystical works, the Seven Valleys and the Four Valleys, were written to two Sufi leaders at this time. While in Baghdad, Bahá'u'lláh wrote several other important works. These included the Hidden Words, a series of aphorisms on spiritual and ethical themes, and the Book of Certitude (Kitáb-i-Íqán), which deals with the nature of religion and explains the fulfilment in the present day of the prophecies of the holy books of the past.

The Iranian authorities made representations to the Ottoman government about the presence and increasing influence of Bahá'u'lláh in Baghdad, close to the Iranian border. Orders eventually came that Bahá'u'lláh was to go to Istanbul, the capital of the Ottoman Empire. In many places in his writings, the Báb had written of a Messianic figure whom he called "Him whom God shall make manifest". Just before his departure from Baghdad in April 1863, Bahá'u'lláh announced to a group of his Bábí companions his claim to be the one promised by the Báb (this event is commemorated by Bahá'ís each year in the holy days of Ridván).

Bahá'u'lláh remained in Istanbul for only three months before being sent on to Edirne (Adrianople) in European Turkey. Here Bahá'u'lláh openly announced his claim to be the one foretold by theBáb and the inaugurator of a new religious dispensation. He sent his emissaries to Iran to publicize this claim among the Bábís, almost all of whom now became Bahá'ís. While in Edirne, Bahá'u'lláh also started a series of letters that he sent to the leading monarchs of his time. He called on them to turn to his teachings, to abandon warfare, and become reconciled among themselves. He also wrote to the Muslim and Christian religious leaders, informing them of his claim to be the one promised in their scriptures.

In Edirne, Bahá'u'lláh experienced opposition from his half-brother, Mirza Yahya Azal. Azal had been promoted by the Báb to be a figurehead among the Bábís. After the execution of the Báb, many had looked to him to be the leader of the Bábís. Azal, however, was not a capable leader. Many Bábís were, therefore, already looking to Bahá'u'lláh for leadership even before he had put forward his claim. Azal did manage, however, to cause Bahá'u'lláh many problems. He attempted to kill Bahá'u'lláh by poisoning and the result caused Bahá'u'lláh's hand to shake for the rest of his life. Azal also sent inflammatory reports to the Ottoman authorities, the result of which was to cause them to send both Azal and Bahá'u'lláh off into further exile. This opposition from Azal is similar to the opposition experienced by the other founders of the world religions from those who were close to them; the injury caused to Jesus by one of his twelve disciples, Judas Iscariot, and the opposition to the Buddha from his cousin Devadatta, for example.

In 1867, orders came that Bahá'u'lláh and his companions were to leave Edirne. Without knowing where they were going, they were forced to sell their possessions and leave. They were taken to Gallipoli and put aboard a ship. Eventually they arrived in the prison-city of Akka in Palestine (Azal was sent to Cyprus where he remained until his death).

In Akka, Bahá'u'lláh was at first imprisoned in the citadel for two years. When that building was required for other purposes, he was placed in a succession of houses in the city under house arrest. Soldiers guarded the city gate with strict instructions not to let Bahá'u'lláh or his companions out and not to let any of his followers that came to meet him in to the city. It was in these circumstances that Bahá'u'lláh wrote his most important book, the Kitáb-i-Aqdas (the Most Holy Book), in which he outlined his main religious laws. This was followed in the next two decades by a series of writings (tablets as they are called by Bahá'ís) in which he gave the distinctive teachings of his religious dispensation.

The personality of Bahá'u'lláh and the character of his companions eventually overcame the hostility of the authorities. In 1877, Bahá'u'lláh was allowed to move outside the city walls. In 1879, he took up residence in the mansion of Bahjí just outside Akka.

The last years of Bahá'u'lláh's life were spent in writing and dictating numerous works; receiving the pilgrims that came in increasing numbers; and directing the affairs of his religion. The religion itself was now gradually spreading into Egypt, Anatolia, the Caucasus, Central Asia, and India. Even in Iran, despite episodes of persecution from time to time, the religion was spreading among all classes and in all parts of the country.

Bahá'u'lláh passed away on 29 May 1892 in the mansion of Bahjí and was buried in a nearby house. He was seventy-four years of age and had spent forty of those years as a prisoner and exile. In 1844, at the age of 27, he had voluntarily given up the life of comfort and prestige that was his inheritance and entered the ranks of the poor and oppressed in the world. Like many millions in our world today, Bahá'u'lláh knew what it was like to lose home and possessions, to be stripped of all human rights, to be a prisoner and a refugee, to be subjected to unjust legal procedures and to be the victim of corrupt officials; in Tehran in 1852, he had experienced the anger of a mob whipped into blind and senseless rage; on the road to Baghdad, he and his family had suffered from poverty, hunger and exposure; during the course of his exiles, he and his wife had watched their children become ill and die; and in the early years in Akka, he had experienced overcrowded accommodation, lack of food, unhygienic conditions and the resultant diseases. When therefore Bahá'u'lláh writes of the need for society to look after the poor and disadvantaged and to guard against injustice and corruption, he is writing of things which he had experienced at first hand and about which he cared deeply. His shrine is regarded by Bahá'ís as the holiest place on earth.

`Abdu'l-Bahá

From the earliest years of his ministry, `Abdu'l-Bahá was opposed by his half-brother, Mírzá Muhammad `Alí. The latter claimed that `Abdu'l-Bahá was exceeding his authority. At first, Mírzá Muhammad `Alí succeeded in obtaining the support of several influential Bahá'ís. In the end, however, his opposition faded away and the overwhelming majority of Bahá'ís supported `Abdu'l-Bahá. This was undoubtedly mainly due to the clear and unequivocal text of Bahá'u'lláh's Book of My Covenant in which `Abdu'l-Bahá's appointment was made.

The main result of the opposition of `Abdu'l-Bahá's half-brother was the re-imposition of the strict terms of the original government orders of exile. This confined `Abdu'l-Bahá to the city of Akka for some five years. Eventually, as a result of the Young Turks Revolution in 1908, `Abdu'l-Bahá was freed. One of his first actions when freed was to complete the shrine of the Báb on Mount Carmel and to place the remains of the Báb there.

During the early years of `Abdu'l-Bahá's ministry, the Bahá'í Faith was taken to North America. By the turn of the twentieth century, there was a community of several thousand Bahá'ís in North America. Some small groups also arose in Europe. This was a very significant turning-point in the development of the Bahá'í Faith. It demonstrated that the Bahá'í Faith was capable of appealing to people outside the cultural world of the Middle East to which it had been confined up to that point in time. After he was freed in 1908, `Abdu'l-Bahá moved to Egypt for a while before setting off on the first of two journeys to the West. In the first journey in 1911, `Abdu'l-Bahá visited France and England. Then in 1912-13, he visited North America, Great Britain, France, Germany, and Hungary. In all these places he spoke at public meetings, in churches and before a wide variety of associations. He spoke on many of the issues of that time: peace, women's rights, racial equality, labour relations, etc. He met many prominent politicians, philosophers, artists, scientists, and leaders of thought and was the centre of a great deal of attention from newspapers and magazines.

`Abdu'l-Bahá returned to Haifa in 1913 and the following year the First World War broke out cutting off communications with the outside world. During these war years, `Abdu'l-Bahá wrote the Tablets of the Divine Plan, laying down his instructions for the world-wide spread of the Bahá'í Faith.

At the end of the war, the Haifa-Akka area fell to the British army and Palestine came under the British mandate. `Abdu'l-Bahá was much respected by the British authorities and he was eventually knighted for his services. `Abdu'l-Bahá passed away on 28 November 1921 and is buried in one of the rooms of the shrine of the Báb.

Shoghi Effendi and the Guardianship

During the early years of Shoghi Effendi's ministry there were several episodes of persecution of Bahá'í communities. In Iran in 1926-7, there were several outbursts in which Bahá'ís were killed, and again in 1934, wide-ranging official measures were taken against the Bahá'ís. From 1926 onwards, the Soviet authorities increasingly persecuted the Bahá'í communities in the Caucasus and Central Asia. In 1928, they expropriated the Mashriqu'l-Adhkár that the Bahá'ís had built in Ashkhabad. In 1922, the house that Bahá'u'lláh had occupied in Baghdad, which was a site of pilgrimage for Bahá'ís, was taken over. Despite winning their case before the League of Nations in 1928, the Bahá'ís were never able to regain possession of it. In 1928, some 53 Bahá'ís were arrested in Adana in Turkey.

Shoghi Effendi spent the first fifteen years of his ministry establishing and assuring the properfunctioning of the Bahá'í administrative structure. He then began to use this administration in a series of plans to extend the geographical range of the Bahá'í Faith. In 1937, he gave the American Bahá'ís the task of taking the Bahá'í Faith to several countries in Central and Southern America. Over the next few years he gave plans to various national Bahá'í communities. He gave the Iranian and Egyptian Bahá'ís the task of spreading the Bahá'í Faith to the Arab countries, the Indian Bahá'ís to South-East Asia; the British Bahá'ís to Africa; and he gave the American Bahá'ís a further plan involving Latin America and Europe. The culmination of all this was a Ten-Year World Crusade (1953-1963) which was to open many of the remaining countries of the world to the Bahá'í Faith.

During the Ten-Year Crusade, a development occurred which was eventually to change the face of the Bahá'í Faith. In widely separate corners of the world such as Uganda, Bolivia, Indonesia and India, large numbers of poor, illiterate villagers and tribal peoples began to enrol in the Bahá'í community.

Shoghi Effendi passed away in 1957 during a stay in London. He is buried in north London. The Bahá'í world continued to be administered until the end of the Ten-Year World Crusade in 1963 by a group of individuals whom Shoghi Effendi had designated "Hands of the Cause of God" and whom he had called the "chief stewards of Bahá'u'lláh's embryonic World Commonwealth." In 1963, the Universal House of Justice, a body which was ordained in Bahá'u'lláh's writings, was established by election.

The Universal House of Justice

The Universal House of Justice has launched successive plans for the spread and consolidation of Bahá'í communities around the world. These plans have been: the Nine Year Plan (1964-73); the Five Year Plan (1973-79); the Seven Year Plan (1979-86); the Six Year Plan (1986-92); the Three Year Plan (1993-96); and the Four Year Plan (1996-2000). In broad outline these plans have included the tasks of:

• spreading the Bahá'í Faith to all parts of the globe and increasing the number of its adherents;
• establishing and improving the functioning of the Bahá'í administrative order in all parts of the world and accelerating the maturation of the national and local Bahá'í communities so that they take on more of the functions envisaged for them in the Bahá'í teachings;
• encouraging the individual spiritual development of all Bahá'ís as well as their universal participation in all aspects of Bahá'í community life
• improving the qualitative aspects of Bahá'í community and family life, especially through a wider extension of Bahá'í education;
• promoting the greater involvement of the Bahá'ís in the life of human society, and in particular the pursuit of projects of social and economic development in well-established Bahá'í communities;
• increasing worldwide the translation, production, distribution and use of Bahá'í literature;
• proclaiming the message of Bahá'u'lláh to all strata of society and minority groups;
• developing the Bahá'í world centre as the spiritual and administrative focus of the world Bahá'í community;
• collecting, classifying and making available the writings of the central figures of the Bahá'í Faith;
• erecting, as resources allow, further Bahá'í Houses of Worship, the Mashriqu'l-Adhkárs;
• extending the relationships of the International Bahá'í Community with international organizations such as the United Nations and its subsidiary organs.

A notable feature of the most recent plans has been the increasing extent to which responsibility for drawing up and monitoring the plans has been devolved away from the Bahá'í World Centre towards the national and local Bahá'í communities.

chapter 7

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chapter 9