In the previous article, “Bahá’í Contributions to the Development of Iran,” the interactions between the Bahá’í community and the modernist reformers in Iran in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were examined over issues such as government, educational reform, and the social role of women. These were issues that had an immediate and evident impact on society. There are a number of Bahá’í teachings, however, that operate at a deeper level and are therefore much more radical, since they were implemented gradually, the changes and their implications were not always discerned by the Iranian population or even, in some cases, by the Bahá’ís themselves. Thus, in the course of the last part of the nineteenth and the whole of the twentieth century, the Bahá’í community in Iran underwent a profound change in its culture and functioning that has resulted in a community that operates in a radically different way from the rest of Iranian society. It presents Iranians with a different model of society.

In the early 1880s, Bahá’u’lláh surveyed the state of the world and wrote that He found it “lamentably defective.” He wrote that He looked for moderation and justice among the leaders of society and discerned instead injustice, strife, chaos, and confusion and that the situation was now irredeemable.¹Gleanings from the Writings of Bah’u’lláh, CX, bahai.org/r/529444114. Shoghi Effendi wrote of the “progressive deterioration in human affairs,” in Messages to the Bahá’í World: 1950–1957 (US Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1971 edition), 103. In other words, there were no suggestions that He could make to fix matters. The situation of the world would inevitably get worse until, “Such shall be its plight, that to disclose it now would not be meet and seemly.”²Bahá’u’lláh, Gleanings, LXI In a letter written a decade earlier to Queen Victoria, Bahá’u’lláh likened the statesmen and political theorists of His time to ignorant physicians who have been summoned to heal the body politic of its illness but only make matters worse.³Bahá’u’lláh, Gleanings, CXX. Whereas He, “the true Physician,” was “debarred from administering the remedy.”⁴ Bahá’u’lláh, Gleanings, XVI.

Given that the world’s system of governance, its economic order, its social structures, and its values were irredeemably defective, and the whole of the world order was in danger of collapse, the only remedy was to roll up the old “World Order” and “spread out a new Order in its stead.”⁵ Bahá’u’lláh, quoted in Shoghi Effendi, The World Order of Bahá’u’lláh, bahai.org/r/687286793. Thus, Bahá’u’lláh was calling for a complete and radical change. There have been many revolutions in human history that have sought to bring about change at the level of governance, economics, and society: the French Revolution, the American Revolution, the various communist revolutions, and the Constitutional Revolution and Islamic Revolution of Iran. But what Bahá’u’lláh proposed was a far more radical change than what any of these revolutions proposed. He called for a change at the very deepest levels of the vision, assumptions, and values of society and a transformation of the social order. 

There is, of course, much that could be said about such far-reaching changes, but this article will be confined to the consideration of one thread. One of Bahá’u’lláh’s most radical proposals was the dismantling of the power relationships that keep a small group of the elite at the top of society. This elite then organizes the thinking and working of society—its law, governance, education, and the media—in such a way as to maintain the hegemony of wealth and power. In about 1868, Bahá’u’lláh declared that that power had been seized from both secular and religious leaders (umará va ‘ulamá): “From two ranks amongst men power hath been seized: kings and ecclesiastics.”⁶Bahá’u’lláh quoted in Shoghi Effendi, The Promised Day is Come, bahai.org/r/738996878. This radical statement was not, however, a precursor to what happened in the other revolutions mentioned above, taking power from one group in order to hand it to another. What Bahá’u’lláh was aiming for was a radical overhaul of the structure of society so as to no longer have a pyramid of power. As became clear over time, the Bahá’í administrative system aims to remove power from the grasp of individuals completely. Authority is to be vested in elected institutions acting as a body. As Shoghi Effendi wrote:

But praise be to God that the Pen of Glory has … dismissed the assertions of individuals as an authoritative criterion, even though they were recognized as the most accomplished and learned among men, and ordained that all matters be referred to authorized centers and specified assemblies.⁷Letter written on behalf of Shoghi Effendi in 1927, translated in Messages from the Universal House of Justice, 1963–1986, comp. Geoffry W. Marks (Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1986), 216–7.

This was the vision that Bahá’u’lláh presented to the Bahá’í community and to the world. It required a major reorientation of values, assumptions, and practices. Such changes could not be achieved simply through sending instructions; they could not be forced on people; they required a process of counseling and education. The Bahá’í leaders carried this out both through their writings with the inculcation of new values and attitudes and in the specific instructions they sent about the structure and functioning of the community. The process necessarily proceeded slowly and in stages. Because of the continuing hostility and persecution from the general population in Iran, the process also proceeded unobtrusively behind closed doors. It is not surprising, therefore, that the radical nature of what was going on was, for the most part, missed. 

One major change that was initiated in the early years of the twentieth century was the transfer of authority from individuals to leadership councils that eventually became elected institutions, which at the local level were called Local Spiritual Assemblies.⁸A handful of individuals such as ‘Abdul-Ḥusayn Ávárih (Áyatí), Ḥasan Níkú, and Ahmad Sohrab, who had held prominent positions in the Bahá’í community, resisted these changes and this eventually led them to leave the Bahá’í community and attack it. Moojan Momen, The Baha’i Communities of Iran 2 (George Ronald, 2021), 8, 242–3, 405–7. Of course, the mere fact of having elected councils is not sufficient to achieve the goal of removing power from individuals and eliminating hierarchy. It requires a radical change in the way that elected institutions operate. There are many elements to this, but it includes a prohibition on the formation of parties and factions, on nominations of candidates for election or office, and on all manner of election campaigning. The guidance coming from the Bahá’í leaders regarding the consultation process that leads to decisions within the Assemblies includes such elements as maintaining a calm, prayerful, and reflective atmosphere, being detached from one’s own opinions and open to considering all suggestions made, and the willingness to accept and work for the final decision even if one voted against it. The absence of factions and parties (and the divisiveness that goes with them) and the elimination of the chairman’s ability to cast the deciding vote or to set the agenda and other similar measures are all designed to reduce the aggrandizement of individuals and limit the ability of both individuals and vested interests to dominate and determine the decisions made in the consultation process. No individual has power or authority simply by virtue of being elected to these institutions. Only the institution acting as a body has authority. 

Thus, a novel form of representative democracy was introduced into the Bahá’í community. Since the beginning of this century, an element of participatory democracy has also been added, with most day-to-day decisions being made at the grassroots level through consultation and planning among those who engaged in social action, thus giving them agency. Part of the process is an educational element that encourages participants to think for themselves and gives them the confidence to verbalize their thoughts within a group setting, thus training them to consult effectively in a non-combative manner. It also gives them an ethos of collaborative service and the capacity to undertake simple but fundamental acts of service, such as running children’s classes and junior youth empowerment activities. Meetings are held at a local level, where participants identify the needs of their society and consult about what they can do to address those needs, given the capacities of the group; plans are made which are then carried out in a spirit of collaboration. A few months later, the group meets again to review the results of this effort and what has been learned from it. Moreover, these participants are not just the members of the Bahá’í community. All members of society are welcome to participate in these society-building activities and in the associated consultative and decision-making process. Thus, the Bahá’ís aim to create an ever-widening group of like-minded members of society united in working for the betterment of their community. This pattern of activity is not fixed but is envisioned as continuing to evolve, and there may be major changes to it in the future, depending on the experience gained.

This participation of members of the wider society in the Bahá’í grassroots activities has the potential to influence the general Iranian society. And so, although these changes are occurring within the structures of the Bahá’í community, they can act as a model for Iranians to see that a community can function in ways that are radically different—that replace the competition, conflict, and coercion inherent within the present hierarchical social order with an order that functions through consultation, collaboration, and cooperation and where institutions become instruments for the facilitation of grassroots action rather than for individuals to wield power.

It should be acknowledged, however, that the ongoing hostility towards and persecutions of the Bahá’í community of Iran has limited and continues to limit the range of social actions that it could undertake and has resulted in many who are not Bahá’ís but who appreciate the discourse and lines of action of the Bahá’í community being inhibited from participating in this process. However, the Bahá’ís have continued to be resilient to the pressures that are exerted against them and constructive in their efforts to bring like-minded individuals in Iranian society together to find ways of improving the social environment. Thus, for example, after the Bam earthquake in 2003, Bahá’í educators volunteered to teach young children in that area whose education had been disrupted, and for this they were arrested and imprisoned.⁹“Bahá’ís who offered education to earthquake-hit Iranian region arrested,” Bahá’í World News Service, 15 March 2011, news.bahai.org/story/812; Kian Sabeti, “Saman’s School: Iranian Authorities Jail Education Pioneer for Being a Bahá’í,” Iranwire, 5 September 2023, iranwire.com/en/bahais-of-iran/120153; Kian Sabeti, “Baha’i Jailed After Educational and Humanitarian Service Projects,” Iranwire, 27 September 2023, iranwire.com/en/bahais-of-iran/120949. Similarly, some 54 young Bahá’ís were working alongside like-minded fellow Iranians in a literacy project among the poor in Shiraz when they were arrested in 2006, and several of them imprisoned.¹⁰“Iran: Scores Arrested in Anti-Baha’i Campaign,” Human Rights Watch, 4 June 2006, hrw.org/news/2006/06/04/iran-scores-arrested-anti-bahai-campaign; “54 Bahá’ís arrested in Iran,” UPI, 24 May 2006, upi.com/Top_News/2006/05/24/Report-54-Bahais-arrested-in-Iran/54361148504612; “Iranian report confirms innocence of Shiraz Baha’is,” Bahá’í World News Service, 24 October 2008, news.bahai.org/story/661. More recently there have been a number of arrests in places such as Isfahan, Tehran, and Semnan of Bahá’ís after they had been educating Afghan children who are denied education by the state.¹¹ See “Appeals Court Upholds 90-Year Combined Prison Sentence for 10 Baha’i Women in Isfahan,” Human Rights Activists News Agency, en-hrana.org/appeals-court-upholds-90-year-combined-prison-sentence-for-10-bahai-women-in-isfahan; “Samin Ehsani, Children’s Rights Activist and Baha’i, Summoned to Prison,” Iranwire, 17 June 2022, iranwire.com/en/bahais-of-iran/104924; “Anisa Fanaian, a Bahá’í Citizen in Semnan Province, Sentenced to 8 Years in Prison,” Iran Press Watch, 8 December 2024, iranpresswatch.org/post/25225.

The most important consequence of this change of ethos was to take social agency down to the level of the individual. Thus, this process is bringing together groups of individuals, who are often on the lowest rungs of the social hierarchy, and encouraging them not to wait for government or for charities to help them, but rather to take agency themselves, assess the realities of their communities, identify its needs, and consult about plans to improve their society that are within the capacities of the group, while at the same time expanding these capacities through an educational process. 

Apart from the elimination of the power hierarchy, there was a second element in the development of the Bahá’í community of Iran that stood in contrast to the agenda of the modernist reformers. After the Constitution was signed in 1906, the new king, Muḥammad `Alí Sháh, tried to overturn it and the nation became divided. The Constitutionalist reformers, many of whom were familiar with the Bahá’í teachings and had close relations with the community, naturally expected the Bahá’ís to support the Constitutionalist side, given the commonality between the Bahá’í social teachings and the reforms advocated by the Constitutionalists. Although He had previously advised the Bahá’ís against seditious activity in direct opposition to the government, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá appears to have allowed the Bahá’ís to act in conjunction with the reformers in trying to persuade the government of Iran to carry out social reforms. There is evidence of this from various parts of Iran, such as Sari, Isfahan, Shiraz, and Tehran. Then in the period immediately after the signing of the Constitution in 1906, two factors changed. First, the previous national unity in calling for reforms shattered with the emergence of political parties, each with its own agenda and vision for the future of Iran, some supported the shah and others the Constitution. Second, as a consequence of the first, the peaceful nature of the reform movement that had succeeded in obtaining the Constitution disintegrated with the emergence of conflict and violence between the two sides, each trying to subvert and destroy the other. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá wrote of the need for unity and warned of the danger of foreign interference in Iran. He now strictly forbade the Bahá’ís from any engagement with the polarized and often violent politics of the era:

We have no connection with any party: we are neither partisans of the Victorious Government nor do we share the opinions of the Glorious People. We stand aside from all strifes, wish well to all, and offer our prayers and supplications at the Throne of God that He will reconcile these two honourable elements with one another.¹²Edward Granville Browne, The Persian Revolution, 1905–1911 (University Press, 1910), 425–9, quotation translated by Browne, 427. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s approach to the Constitutional Revolution was more complex and nuanced than can be detailed here. For more, see Mina Yazdani, “‘Abdu’l-Bahá and the Iranian Constitutional Revolution: Embracing Principles While Disapproving Methodologies,” Journal of Bahá’í Studies 24, no. 1–2, (June 2014): 47–82, doi:10.31581/jbs-24.1-2.4.

‘Abdu’l-Bahá also gave as His reasons for taking this stance the fact that the Bahá’ís weakened the Constitutionalist cause by supporting it, since it gave the reactionary clerics an opportunity to claim that the Constitution was the work of the Bahá’ís and anti-Islamic, and that the Bahá’ís were in danger because each side was accusing them of supporting the other.¹³ ‘Abdu’l-Bahá quoted in Browne, Persian Revolution, 426–9. There is evidence that news of this new stance by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá reached Iran in February–March 1907.¹⁴Marzieh Gail, Arches of the Years (George Ronald, 1991), 31; Mírzá Ḥábíbu’lláh Afnán, “Táríkh-i Amrí-yi Shíráz,” 556, afnanlibrary.org/tarikh-amri-shiraz/ seems to indicate a similar date.

Parallel to this was the situation in the 1970s when Mohammad Reza Shah was attempting to force everyone in Iran to join a single political party he had created. Bahá’ís refused, even though for many it meant the loss of their jobs and social position. More recently, the Bahá’ís have not backed groups that seek to overthrow the Islamic government of Iran, although they have, alongside many other groups, appealed peacefully for justice and for the rights of oppressed groups. 

The position of the Bahá’í leadership regarding political activity has varied over the years, depending on local factors, usually related to whether certain actions would lead to Bahá’í social objectives, achieve greater degrees of unity and not occasion conflict and violence. There was, for example, a brief period of national unity after the restoration of the Constitution in 1909 when ‘Abdu’l-Bahá appears to have contemplated encouraging certain Bahá’ís to seek election to the national parliament,¹⁵ Yazdani, “‘Abdu’l-Bahá,” 66. but this soon ended with the re-emergence of political wrangling and conflict. During the ministry of Shoghi Effendi (from 1921 to 1957), the policy of avoiding political involvement was strengthened such that all such activity, including holding political positions in government, was prohibited and even penalized. However, even with this, certain lines of social action, such as seeking racial justice and integration in the United States, which within the context of that country is highly political, have been pursued by the United States Bahá’í community over many decades where these have not involved confrontation with the state or violence.¹⁶Richard Thomas, “The Bahá’í Response to Racial Injustice and Pursuit of Racial Unity (Part 1): 1912–1996,” The Bahá’í World, 16 January 2021, bahaiworld.bahai.org/library/the-bahai-response-to-racial-injustice-and-pursuit-of-racial-unity/. More recently certain limited moves have been permitted by the Universal House of Justice, such as when the British Bahá’í community joined with another organization in the “Action for Children” campaign and campaigned successfully for national legislation to allow sexual offences against minors committed by British residents outside the United Kingdom to be prosecuted in Britain.¹⁷ United Kingdom House of Commons, “Child Protection,” debated on 12 March 1997, Hansard, hansard.parliament.uk/commons/1997-03-12/debates/cf2d06e1-f08e-48e8-b387-f8b40ccac6cd/ChildProtection. The campaign resulted in the passing of the Sex Offenders Act 1997. Another example was when the worldwide Bahá’í community launched a campaign “Our Story is One,” in parallel to the “Woman, Freedom, Life” movement in Iran.¹⁸ “Our Story is One,” Bahá’í International Community, ourstoryisone.bic.org; “Launch of the Our Story Is One Campaign,” United Kingdom Parliament, 11 July 2023, edm.parliament.uk/early-day-motion/61199.

For the Bahá’í community, the present world political order, based as it is on competition and conflict, is part of the problem, and so it cannot be part of the solution. To participate would inevitably pull the Bahá’ís ever deeper into a system that is inherently competitive, conflictual, hierarchical, and corrupt—the very opposite of what the Bahá’ís are aiming for. For this reason, the Bahá’í leadership has, on most occasions, steered the Bahá’í community away from political involvement.

And so, the Bahá’í model for society does not set itself up as a competitor within the present political system. It is working to set up an alternative space outside the conventional political sphere: where a different style of social and political activity can take place, where the present social dynamics of competition is decentered, where the dominant motifs of power and wealth as the central values of society are changed, where the socialization that perpetuates the present dominant culture is disrupted through an educational process that creates a new ethos, and where the culture of monologue (where ordinary people are lectured and told what to think and do) is transformed into a culture in which the capacity of all to engage in dialogue is fostered and becomes the foundation of community life.¹⁹For more on this aspect of the Bahá’í teachings, see Michael Karlberg, Beyond the Culture of Contest (George Ronald, 2004). This alternative space is built on the basis described above of participatory democracy, elected institutions, consultative decision-making, and collaborative grassroots social action.

In addition, in Iran there was tension between the intense nationalism of most of the modernist reformers and Bahá’u’lláh’s aim of orienting His followers towards internationalism—here meaning peace and cooperation among nations as indicated by such statements as “The earth is but one country and mankind its citizens”;²⁰Bahá’u’lláh, Gleanings, CXVII. E. G. Browne heard Bahá’u’lláh say: “Let not a man glory in this, that he loves his country; let him rather glory in this, that he loves his kind,” [‘Abdu’l-Bahá], Traveller’s Narrative, xl. and beyond that, towards globalism—here meaning an organic vision of humanity as one interconnected global whole, as implied by such statements as “Regard ye the world as a man’s body, which is afflicted with divers ailments, and the recovery of which dependeth upon the harmonizing of all of its component elements.”²¹Bahá’u’lláh, The Summons of the Lord of Hosts, bahai.org/r/516098430. And so, while the reformers were advocating for “what is good for Iran”, the Bahá’ís considered that “what is good for humanity as a whole” is actually what is good for Iran in the long run. 

This globalism and the position taken by the Bahá’í community for over a century of not participating in partisan and polarizing politics has led to some misunderstandings and distortions of the Bahá’í position. Since most journalists, commentators, and scholars are focused on the political sphere, they have missed what is happening within the Bahá’í community, because it is not operating in that sphere. In addition, the Bahá’í stance frustrated and angered some Iranian reformers and progressive thinkers because it seemed to them that the Bahá’ís were indifferent to the problems of Iran, and therefore they questioned the patriotism of the Bahá’ís.²²E. G. Browne voiced similar sentiments, Persian Revolution, 429. Shoghi Effendi refuted this contention by pointing out that the Bahá’í position was not a “repudiation” of “a sane and intelligent patriotism” but rather a realization that it must operate within a “wider loyalty” to the human race.²³Promised Day, bahai.org/r/784142005. And indeed, through the global spread of the Bahá’í Faith, the Iranian festival of Naw-Rúz is celebrated, the land of Iran is revered, and there are even individuals learning the Persian language in order to read the Bahá’í scriptures in their original language in almost every country in the world.

Apart from these tensions with the modernist reformers, Bahá’u’lláh’s vision also challenged aspects of traditional Iranian culture. The Shi’íh culture of nineteenth-century Iran envisioned humanity as divided into believers and unbelievers (the concept of kufr), and this division was accentuated by the belief that the unbelievers were unclean (the concept of nijásat). This meant that all contact with unbelievers was to be avoided, and the traditionalists extended this to adopting the ideas and innovations of the unbelieving Europeans. The Bahá’í leaders expressly abolished both these concepts among their followers.²⁴‘Abdu’l-Bahá, The Promulgation of Universal Peace, 454; Bahá’u’lláh, The Kitáb-i-Aqdas, bahai.org/r/301255873. See also Houchang E. Chehabi, “Anatomy of Prejudice: Reflections on Secular Anti-Baha’ism in Iran,” in The Bahá’ís of Iran: Socio-historical studies, ed. Dominic Parviz Brookshaw and Seena B. Fazel (Routledge, 2008), 192. This attitude goes back to the Báb and His openness to trade, ideas, and innovations from Europe that would benefit Iran, see The Báb, The Persian Bayán, vahid 4:16; 7:16, afnanlibrary.org/inba-volume-62/; Stephen Lambden, “QA XLVI [46] Sūrat al-Huwa,” hurqalya.ucmerced.edu/node/438/. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá expressly argues in His 1875 treatise against the close-mindedness that blocked everything from the rest of the world, The Secret of Divine Civilization, pp. 25–7. Western observers, such as Professor Edward G. Browne and the European missionaries in Iran, noted this change among the Bahá’ís as compared to other Iranians.²⁵Edward Granville Browne, A Year among the Persians (Adam and Charles Black, 1893), 223–31; Moojan Momen, “Early Relations between Christian Missionaries and the Bábí and Bahá’í Communities,” In Studies in Bábí and Bahá’í History 1, ed. Moojan Momen (Kalimat Press, 1982), 49–82, esp. 64–6, 70–72. But perhaps the most compelling evidence for this change of ethos in the Bahá’í community was the reports by some members of Iran’s Jewish and Zoroastrian communities of how they were attracted to the Bahá’í Faith by observing that Bahá’ís of Muslim background (some of them formerly Muslim clerics) treated them with kindness and as equals, deliberately rejecting the concept of impurity by eating and drinking from the same vessels as them. The abandoning of such long-held traditions was, however, shocking to the conservative elements in the population.²⁶Moojan Momen, The Baha’i Communities of Iran 1 (George Ronald, 2015), 337.

There was a third area in which the Bahá’í community and its leadership differed from what was going on in Iranian society and among the Iranian reformers. This arose because some of the reformers, seeing the strong hold that the senior religious leaders had on the people and impressed by the way that these clerics had been able to successfully mobilize the masses against a disadvantageous agreement that the Shah had signed with a European entrepreneur in 1890, sought over the next few years to co-opt the senior religious leaders into the reform movement. At exactly this time, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá wrote a treatise, the Treatise on Politics, warning against involving the clerics in politics. He pointed out that every time religious leaders had entered the political arena, the result had been disastrous, leading to defeat, death, and destruction, and He gave several examples of this from the recent history of Iran and the Ottoman Empire. Unfortunately, the reformers failed to heed this advice, and the result was that many of the reforms envisaged by those who instigated the Constitutional Revolution in the 1900s were annulled at the insistence of the clerics and much of the vision of the reformers failed to materialize. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s advice was again ignored by those who pressed for change in Iran in the 1970s, and the Islamic religious leadership was again allowed into the political process.

In the first part of this article, certain lines of social action such as the establishment of modern schools and the advancement of the social role of women were described. It should now be clear that, although what the Bahá’ís were advocating and doing appeared superficially to be similar to the program of the modernist reformers, the Bahá’í activity was cultivating a culture that was radically different from that of traditional Iranian society. The children in the Bahá’í schools, for example, were becoming patriotic Iranians but within a context of also envisioning themselves as world citizens. 

It should also be appreciated that Bahá’u’lláh did not present a plan for human development that was to be implemented uniformly across the world. He and His successors as leaders of the Bahá’í community presented certain social principles (such as the equality of women and men) that humanity should aim for and certain means of social functioning (such as consultative decision-making) that would assist in achieving these aims. But the exact details of how all this would evolve has been left to the Bahá’ís to work out in a reciprocal relationship of dynamic interdependence between the individual, the institutions, and the community. And of course, it may be that these details will work out differently in each part of the world according to local culture. 

THE WORLD OF RELIGION 

One aspect of society in which Bahá’u’lláh made the greatest change was in the field of religion. The religious leadership in Iran in the late nineteenth century, as in many parts of the world, wielded great power and influence, and thereby accumulated great wealth. The people were expected to live their lives and pay certain religious taxes according to a Holy Law (the Sharí`ah) as interpreted by the religious leadership. Even the shah and the local governors had to be wary of offending religious leaders who could stir up the population against them. 

The teachings of Bahá’u’lláh were a great challenge to the religious leaders. Bahá’u’lláh, and the Báb before Him, were respectful towards the Qur’án and the Prophet Muḥammad.²⁷For the Báb, see B. Todd Lawson, Tafsir as Mystical Experience: Intimacy and Ecstasy in Quran Commentary (Brill, 2018), esp. 9–47. For Bahá’u’lláh, see The Kitáb-i-Íqán, bahai.org/r/540143739. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, the successor of Bahá’u’lláh, defended Islam and the Prophet Muḥammad in churches and synagogues during His travels in Europe and North America.²⁸See for example, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Promulgation, 200–1, 346–7, 409–10. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s successor, Shoghi Effendi, called on the Bahá’ís of the West to learn about Islam and defend its fundamentals against attacks in the West.²⁹Shoghi Effendi in Hornby, Lights, 495–6.

However, Bahá’u’lláh and the Báb decried the learning that was taught in the Islamic religious colleges in much the same way that Jesus Christ decried the learning of the Pharisees.³⁰The Báb, Bayán, 4:10; Bahá’u’lláh, Íqán, 186–7; cf Matthew 23:1–34. To emphasize His dismissal of abstruse clerical learning, Bahá’u’lláh declares that understanding holy scriptures depends “solely upon purity of heart, chastity of soul, and freedom of spirit,” Íqán, bahai.org/r/643779013. And since the prestige of the Iranian religious leaders was based on their learning, this was effectively undermining their position. The Bahá’í leaders also condemned the hypocrisy, fanaticism, and corruption of some Muslim religious leaders.³¹ ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Secret, 37–8, 56–7. Shoghi Effendi, Bahá’í Administration (Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1995), 132, 172; Shoghi Effendi, The Advent of Divine Justice, 4; Shoghi Effendi, The Unfolding Destiny of the British Bahá’í Community: The Messages of the Guardian of the Bahá’í Faith to the Bahá’ís of the British Isles (Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1981), 68. But their criticism was not exclusively reserved for the Muslim clerics. They pointed out that each of the founders of the main religions of the world had experienced opposition and persecution from the religious leaders of their time.³²Báhá’u’lláh, Íqán, 15–16; see also 29–31, 182–4. And it was no different this time with the hostility of the Iranian clerics towards the new religion. In view of these criticisms, it is not surprising that Bahá’u’lláh introduced an innovation that would have a profound effect on the ethos of the Bahá’í community: the prohibition of religious professionals.³³See for example the Lawḥ-i-Ittiḥád in Ad‘iyyih-yi Ḥaḍrat-i Maḥbūb (Bahá’í-Verlag, 1980), 388–406, esp. 396–9. See also Shoghi Effendi’s authoritative interpretation of the Kitáb-i-Aqdas, God Passes By, p. 241.

The change that the Bahá’í leaders sought to bring about was, however, much more radical and wide-ranging than just the abolition of religious professionals. Bahá’u’lláh sought to bring about a profound change in the way that religion is imagined and thus in the religious ethos of the Iranian nation. True religion is not, according to the Bahá’í teachings, about believing in the correct doctrine, carrying out correct rituals, or the correct following of a Holy Law. Just the act of calling on a holy figure will not bring salvation, nor will special chants or entering states of ecstasy or trance, nor, in particular relation to the Iranian religious scene, will following the directives of a senior Shi’íh cleric (mujtahid) or Sufi shaykh, or participating in the ritual commemorations of the sufferings of the Imáms. These are the trappings that religious professionals have overlaid onto the true core of religion in order to enhance their role and insert themselves into the relationship between the believer and God. True religion has, according to the Bahá’í leadership, two fundamental purposes: the improvement of the character of the individual through developing moral and spiritual qualities (such as love, justice, trustworthiness, etc.); and the betterment of society (leading to more peaceful, united, and coherent communities). And so, religion functions as it ought to function when such transformed individuals come together and consult in order to create ways of improving society, the overall purpose being “to effect a transformation in the whole character of mankind, a transformation that shall manifest itself both outwardly and inwardly, that shall affect both its inner life and external conditions.”³⁴Bahá’u’lláh, Íqán, bahai.org/r/501261243. Indeed, the Bahá’í leaders assert that this has always been the main purpose of the founders of all the world’s religions and, on this level, the religions are all one.

In place of the passivity of listening to the sermons of clerics, obeying their rulings and putting off working for improvements in society in anticipation that all would be put right with the promised return of the Hidden Twelfth Imám, who according to Shi’íh Islamic belief would return at the end of time to fill the world with justice, Bahá’u’lláh declared that the time had come, the Promised Imám had appeared (in the person of the Báb), and that the time for passive religiosity was ended. What was needed now was for all people to take an active role in working towards the implementation of the laws and teachings (as laid down in His Writings) that would bring about the promised world filled with justice.³⁵Bahá’u’lláh, Gleanings, X.

Thus, for Bahá’ís, religious activity is being of service to others, not just the Bahá’í community but the whole of society. And examples of Iranian Bahá’ís doing this have been given above. Furthermore, the society-building activities of the Bahá’í community are open to all. People do not have to become Bahá’ís in order to participate in these; all like-minded people are welcome to join in both the meetings at which such activities are planned and the carrying out of them.

CONCLUSION

In summary then, the Bahá’í community in Iran over the last 150 years or so has been building up gradually, almost imperceptibly, a radically new type of community life: one in which women can contribute more effectively, one in which the education of children is a central focus, one based on moral values, consultation, and collaboration. Its advocacy and efforts for modern education, the advancement of the social role of women and the broad global vision that it cultivates are only the superficial signs of a deeper revolutionary change in the structure and functioning of the community. Over this period, Bahá’ís have been building up a community that is not run by individuals who hold power but rather which functions through consultative decision-making. It could be called a counterculture in the sense that it runs counter to many of the norms and values that have been holding Iran back over the last century or more. It seeks to break down the hierarchical, patriarchal, and polarized nature of society and create a more cohesive and collaborative functioning of society. And in creating such a community, it is in effect acting as a model, demonstrating to Iranians that it is possible to have a different sort of society based on different values, social structures, and ways of functioning. And all are welcome to join in this society-building project. It is not that Bahá’ís are holding up a final blueprint and saying: “This is the new society.” They are offering a vision of what could be and certain principles and ways of getting there, and they are saying to others: “Let us together explore this path and jointly build a new society.”

The process of change has, however, been slow because changing the way people see the world, changing the values of society, changing culture is difficult. The Bahá’í community has proceeded in the last quarter century through an educational process that seeks to start with fundamentals and build in such a way as to carry everyone with it. It focuses on developing consultation skills, reading social reality, changing values, and building capacity. And the process is far from over. As it develops, it engages with ever greater numbers in lines of social action of ever greater complexity identified through the consultation process, all evolving towards what Bahá’u’lláh envisaged when He declared the present order to be “lamentably defective” and set out the framework for a “new World Order”:

The world’s equilibrium hath been upset through the vibrating influence of this most great, this new World Order. Mankind’s ordered life hath been revolutionized through the agency of this unique, this wondrous System—the like of which mortal eyes have never witnessed.³⁶Bahá’u’lláh, Gleanings, LXXIX.

Iran is the birthplace of both the Bahá’í Faith and its predecessor, the Bábí movement. Although the Bahá’í Faith has now spread worldwide, establishing itself in almost every country, the role it has played in the development of its homeland is insufficiently recognized by both the people of Iran and by scholars. 

At no time during the history of the Bahá’í community in Iran have there been articles in newspapers, journals, books, or academic publications in Iran that have presented the Bahá’í viewpoint, nor have Bahá’ís been able to publish refutations in Iran in response to numerous attacks and false information. The result is that the general population in Iran is ignorant of even the most basic facts about the Bahá’í Faith, and what it thinks it knows is actually the misinformation that has been fed to it. A number of well-known scholars in Iran have participated in these attacks on the Bahá’í community, even to the extent of fabricating evidence.¹For example, the prominent historian Fereydun Adamiyat fabricated a relationship between the Báb’s first disciple, Mullá Ḥusayn Bushrú’í, and the British military intelligence officer Arthur Connolly (a relationship that could not have occurred), giving as his reference Connolly’s book (in which there is no mention of the matter); see Fereydun Vahman, 175 Years of Persecution: A History of the Babis and Baha’is of Iran (Oneworld Publications, 2019), 82–5. Houchang Chehabi, a well-known Iranian scholar, has described the resulting situation in Iran:

It is only a slight exaggeration to say that until very recently any discussion of the Baha’is and their religion that did not use abusive, disparaging, or at least sarcastic language was suspected of being an apologia, and that any writer or speaker who talked about Baha’is in respectful or even in a merely matter-of-fact way was suspected of being a Baha’i.²Houchang E. Chehabi, “Anatomy of Prejudice: Reflections on Secular Anti-Baha’ism in Iran,” in The Baha’is of Iran: Socio-historical studies, ed. Dominic Parviz Brookshaw and Seena B. Fazel (Routledge, 2008), 185. The late Heshmat Moayyad and the late Shapour Rassekh reported to the present writer that in the academic, intellectual, and government circles which they frequented in the 1960s and 1970s, their close Iranian friends and colleagues would even refrain from uttering the word “Bahá’í.” They would refer obliquely to “your group” or “your friends.”

With little information available to them, scholars outside Iran have often ignored the Bahá’í Faith in their analyses or reproduced the misinformation about the religion that abounds within Iran. Commonly, the Bábí movement is regarded as a failed rebellion, while the Bahá’í community is treated as though it played no significant role in the country’s development. There has been an improvement in this situation in recent decades, but there is still an insufficient appreciation of the extent of the influence of the Bahá’í community. 

In this first of a series of two articles, the specific contributions that the Bahá’í community has made to the development of Iran will be described. The second article will attempt to portray just how revolutionary the concepts and changes in social structure within the Bahá’í community have been, the potential implications of these for the wider Iranian society, and the way that the ideas of the religion address many of the problems and issues that face Iran (and indeed other countries).³This and the following article are based on the academic paper: Moojan Momen, “The Bābī-Bahā’ī Revolution in Iran,” Iranian Studies 58, no. 2 (2025), 235–58.

In the mid-nineteenth century, following a series of damaging and humiliating military defeats at the hands of European powers, Iran was just becoming aware of the extent to which it had fallen back from being one of the most advanced countries in the world two hundred years earlier. The initial response of the government was to attempt to copy European military training and tactics by bringing European army instructors to Iran. 

In the second half of the nineteenth century, however, the thoughts of progressive Iranians moved beyond just the military. Reports from Iranians who traveled abroad, reforms that were instituted in the Ottoman Empire, and the works written by Iranians living outside Iran began to focus the attention of some Iranians towards bringing social, educational, and governmental reforms to Iran. Thus, a cohort of reformers gradually emerged in Iran (and among Iranians living outside Iran), who wrote works suggesting what changes would benefit Iran and help to bring it up to the level of progress and prosperity that Europe had achieved. 

The Iranian modernist reformers were making proposals across various areas of social life, and, in particular, they were looking at law, the governance of society, modern education, and, to a lesser extent, the position of women in society. The Bahá’í leaders were making proposals about the same areas of social life, and so, there was a common area of discourse between these two groups. What this article sets out to demonstrate is that the ideas in the writings of the Bahá’í leaders were put forward earlier and were more progressive than what was being advanced by the modernist reformers, that these reformers were in close contact with the Bahá’í leaders and the community, and therefore, that it is not unreasonable to suggest that the reformers may have been influenced by the Bahá’ís in what they wrote and did, although of course, they would have carefully concealed any such borrowing of ideas from what was regarded in Iran as a heretical and misguided sect.

THE GOVERNANCE OF SOCIETY

A good example of the way that the Bahá’í leaders were earlier and more progressive in their proposals about reform is in the area of the governance of society. In the late 1860s and early 1870s, Iranian reformers, such as Mírzá Ḥusayn Khán Mushíru’d-Dawlih and Mírzá Malkam Khán, were advocating that the autocratic Shah should move away from being the sole decision-maker in the governance of Iran and that he should appoint a cabinet and give them responsibility.⁴Hamid Algar, Mīrzā Malkam Khān: A Biographical Study in Iranian Modernism (University of California Press, 1973), 30–31, 34–5, 105–6; Guity Nashat, The Origins of Modern Reform in Iran (University of Chicago Press, 1982), 79–82, 105–7. At this same time, Bahá’u’lláh went much further, commending democracy and constitutional monarchy in His writings, and His son who was later to succeed Him, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, specifically wrote in an 1875 treatise about the need for Iran to adopt a representative democracy.⁵In about 1870, Bahá’u’lláh wrote to Queen Victoria commending the British system of democracy, see The Summons of the Lord of Hosts (Bahá’í World Centre, 2002), 90; He predicted in about 1873 that democracy would soon come to Iran, see The Kitáb-i-Aqdas, par. 91–3. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá recommended representative democracy in His 1875 treatise, see The Secret of Divine Civilization, trans. Marzieh Gail (Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1990), 23–4. This is all the more remarkable given that the majority of European nations were ruled by autocratic regimes at the time, so such ideas were progressive even for Europe, let alone the Middle East. 

And the Bahá’í community in Iran gradually, as circumstances allowed, put these teachings into effect. Thus, Bahá’u’lláh and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá directed the community to have leadership councils, which became called Spiritual Assemblies, and encouraged the Bahá’ís to turn to these councils and abide by the consultative decision-making process that was instituted in them. Eventually these Spiritual Assemblies became elected bodies that guided the community in the area under their jurisdiction. In this way, the ideas about representative democracy from the Bahá’í scriptures became realized in the Bahá’í community. 

In addition, Bahá’u’lláh called for world peace at a time when almost no one was talking about this, neither in Iran nor in the West. And He made practical suggestions as to how this may be achieved. In about 1888, He called for a world congress at which all territorial and similar disputes would be settled (by arbitration if necessary) and a treaty signed whereby all the nations would agree to arise collectively against any nation that attacked another nation. This collective guarantee of security would allow all nations to reduce their expenditure on arms and spend the savings on measures that would benefit their citizens. Furthermore, the Bahá’í teachings foresee that a world government and a world security force would be needed to regulate this so that weaker nations would not be disadvantaged.⁶Tablets of Bahá’u’lláh revealed after the Kitáb-i-Aqdas (Bahá’í World Centre, 1978), 165; see also Gleanings from the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, trans. Shoghi Effendi (Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1983), 160–1; ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Secret, 64–5; Selections from the Writings of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá (Bahá’í World Centre, 1978), 306–7; Shoghi Effendi, The World Order of Bahá’u’lláh (Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1991), 203–4. Thus, the Bahá’í leaders were envisioning world peace, multilateral disarmament, collective security, a global peace treaty, and global institutions many decades before it was within the conceptual world of anyone in Iran or most of the rest of the world.

There was also an important difference between the Iranian modernist reformers and the Bahá’í leaders in the means by which these aims were to be achieved. The Iranian reformers of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries looked to political reform as the best way to introduce modernization into Iran and were therefore focused on achieving political power. The Bahá’í leaders, however, specifically advocated against political involvement and confrontation (the reasons for this will be discussed in the next article), and so theirs was a nonviolent, grassroots movement, aiming to transform the social order and the value system upon which it was based, initially within the Bahá’í community but eventually across society as a whole. Since it did not operate at the political level and, apart from a turbulent Bábí period (1848–52), proceeded quietly and slowly, its revolutionary nature remained largely hidden from the populace, from observers and scholars, and perhaps even from many Bahá’ís.

Among the Iranian modernizers, there were some who advocated a wholesale adoption of Western ideas and practices. The Báb, Bahá’u’lláh, and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá rejected this attitude that set the West up as the reference point and standard for progress and modernization. They called for the adoption of those aspects of Western development that would be beneficial to Iran: democracy, modern education, some of the West’s technology, as well as advances in communication such as newspapers and a postal service, as long as the benefits of these were available to all. However, they rejected certain aspects of Western culture. Bahá’u’lláh was critical of the colonialism, militarism, and hypocrisy shown by some of the European powers. Thus, when the British professor Edward G. Browne visited Bahá’u’lláh in 1890, he heard Him criticize the expenditure on the arms race among the European powers. In some of His writings, Bahá’u’lláh expressed His disapproval of Britain’s colonialist campaign in Egypt leading to the bombardment that destroyed much of the city of Alexandria in 1882. He also criticized the hypocrisy of European governments that proclaimed liberal values but allowed pogroms against the Jews.⁷Edward G. Browne in [‘Abdu’l-Bahá], A Traveller’s Narrative, written to illustrate the Episode of the Báb 2 (Cambridge University Press, 1891), xl; Bahá’u’lláh, in Iranian National Bahá’í Archives 27, 317–8; 22, 323–5, afnanlibrary.org/inba/; Bahá’u’lláh, Tablets, 170. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá praised the scientific and technological advances He witnessed in Europe, while at the same time decrying the materialism of the West⁸‘Abdu’l-Bahá, The Promulgation of Universal Peace (Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1982), 16, 261. and warning against the use of science and technology to build ever more destructive weapons: “the malignant fruits of material civilization” as He called them.⁹‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Selections, 303. He also criticized the Eurocentric arrogance that led to the lives of other people being regarded as without value and unworthy of ethical concern.¹⁰See His comments regarding a rail disaster in France, “Let There be Peace,” Star of the West 7, no. 11 (27 Sept 1916): 106–7. In His 1875 treatise, He presented His reasons for regarding the West as “morally uncivilized.”¹¹‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Secret, 62.

The next Bahá’í leader, Shoghi Effendi, who succeeded ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in 1921, took much the same attitude as his predecessors. Shoghi Effendi has been criticized by some Western scholars for being “orientalist.”¹²One who pigeon-holes the East in a one-dimensional and patronizing manner that pictures it as exotic, backward, and inferior. In fact, Shoghi Effendi’s criticism of the East was mainly directed towards its religious and secular leaders whom he regarded as the main obstacles to progress there. But this is no different from his view of the leadership of most of the rest of the world. While praising certain aspects of the West and appreciative of such advances as the Western educational system, he criticized the hypocrisy, war-mongering, corruption, racism, and colonialism of the leadership of the West that led eventually to the Second World War.¹³Effendi, World Order, 182; Shoghi Effendi, The Promised Day is Come, rev. ed. (Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1980), 113. In the opening years of that war, Shoghi Effendi wrote of the three “false gods” of “Nationalism, Racialism and Communism” that were corroding and destroying governments and peoples.¹⁴Effendi, Promised Day, 113. In his last general letter to the Bahá’ís of the United States of America in 1957, he wrote of the “all-pervasive materialism” and “the cancerous growth of militant racialism, political corruption, unbridled capitalism, wide-spread lawlessness, and gross immorality” affecting that country.¹⁵Shoghi Effendi, Citadel of Faith: Messages to America 1947–1957, 154, see also 124, 155; Effendi, Promised Day, 66–9, 113; Effendi, World Order, 182; Shoghi Effendi, The Unfolding Destiny of the British Bahá’í Community: The Messages of the Guardian of the Bahá’í Faith to the Bahá’ís of the British Isles (Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1981), 460.

MODERN EDUCATION

One of the major factors that impeded the development and progress of Iran was the fact that the only education available to almost the whole population was in small schools run by a single religious leader, usually in his own home with a religiously-oriented curriculum that did not prepare children for any useful occupation and was of little relevance to the needs of the country—and this only for the small number of families who were able to pay the fees.¹⁶David Menashri, Education and the Making of Modern Iran (Cornell University Press, 1992), 39–43. The military defeats at the beginning of the nineteenth century had led to the inauguration in 1851 of a single educational establishment in Tehran, the Dar al-Funun, but this was primarily focused on the ancillary needs of the army. The modernist reformers did write about the need for modern education and opened some schools,¹⁷In particular, Mírzá Fatḥ-‘Alí Ákhúndzádih appears to have had an interest in modern education. but they generally considered that the most important objective was achieving political power and then such goals as modern education could be achieved, but these were of secondary importance; they could be implemented once political power was gained. There were some schools opened by European missionaries teaching modern subjects, but these catered almost exclusively to children from Christian families. Many of the Muslim clerics were, moreover, opposed to modern schools, considering them an importation of ideas from the infidel West.¹⁸Menashri, Education, 19–22, 38–9.

Bahá’u’lláh gave great importance to education, stating: “Regard man as a mine rich in gems of inestimable value. Education can, alone, cause it to reveal its treasures, and enable mankind to benefit therefrom.”¹⁹Bahá’u’lláh, Tablets, 161–2, see also 90, 128. In His 1875 treatise, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá called for universal education and the establishment of modern schools throughout Iran, calling this the “primary” and “most urgent requirement.”²⁰‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Secret, 109, see also 14, 91, 97–8, 105–7, 109–12, 115. The Bahá’ís responded, as soon as it was possible to do so, given the intense persecution and pressure to which they were subjected, by establishing modern schools. One difference between the schools that the Bahá’ís were establishing and the schools that the Iranian reformers were establishing was that these latter were only in the major cities of Iran, while Bahá’í schools could also be found in small towns and even villages where there was a sufficient number of Bahá’ís. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá encouraged a number of American Bahá’ís who were experienced educators to go to Iran in order to assist with the running and curriculum of Bahá’í schools.²¹Soli Shahvar, The Forgotten Schools: The Baha’is and Modern Education in Iran (Tauris Academic Studies, 2009); Moojan Momen, “Baha’i Schools in Iran,” in The Baha’is of Iran, 94–121. For more on the American Bahá’ís who came to Iran, see R. Jackson Armstrong-Ingram, “American Bahá’í Women and the Education of Girls in Tehran, 1909–1934” in In Iran: Studies in Bábí and Bahá’í History 3, ed. Peter Smith (Kalimat Press, 1986), 181–210.

The following passage records what the district governor said to Shaháb Shahmírzádí, a Bahá’í educator, who was trying to set up a school in the village of Ivel in Mazandaran in 1922. It gives an indication of how difficult this task was and how revolutionary the idea of a village school was for the people of Iran:

How do you hope, here in the middle of the jungle, to convince these wild and ill-behaved people, who are a hundred centuries removed from education and civilisation and spend their days from dawn to dusk in the paddy-fields up to their waists in mud and water accompanied by cows, of the benefits of education and knowledge or that Moses or Jesus or Muhammad or Bahā’u’llāh has commanded this or forbidden that? They are not able to understand such matters . . . What an optimist you are! I have been to Īvil. There is no possibility of a school there. Governors have come to the Chahārdānga district and tried to set up a school here in Kiyāsar which is the centre of the district and has almost 500 families, most of them having wealth and land, and they have failed. Two years ago, A‘ẓam al-Vuzarā was the governor here. He really tried hard in this regard and spent fifty tūmāns of his own money for the furniture of the school. They constructed tables and benches. But he was not able to get the children to come to school for even a day. After he left, they used the furniture of the school for firewood . . . What do these people know of education and training?’²²Momen, “Baha’i Schools in Iran,” 100–1; see also 104 for a similar story regarding the Bahá’í girls’ school in Abadeh.

The Bahá’í schools were also different from the other schools in Iran in the extent to which corporal punishment was used. While the beating of children was a routine daily occurrence in Iran (and largely continues to be so to the present day), ‘Abdu’l-Bahá strongly advised against this, and the practice died out in the Bahá’í schools.²³ ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Selections, 125; see for example Shaqáyiq Íqání, “Taríkhchih-yi madáris-i Bahá’í dar Mázandarán” (Graduation thesis, Institute for Advanced Bahá’í Studies, Iran, 2001), 83; Moojan Momen, The Baha’i Communities of Iran 2 (George Ronald, 2021), 301–2.

The Bahá’í schools were closed on government orders in 1934. The impact of the Bahá’í schools on Iran was probably quite considerable. Because Bahá’í schools were open to everyone, they must have had an impact in reducing the hostility towards modern education that had been instilled in the population by many of the Muslim clerics. People could begin to see the benefits of it for themselves. In many smaller localities, the Bahá’í school was the only modern school available; therefore, many children from Muslim or other backgrounds attended. Even in the larger towns and cities where other schools were available, many families who were not Bahá’í preferred to send their children to the Bahá’í schools because of their good reputation. In this way, many who became prominent ministers, politicians, scholars, and writers in the second half of the twentieth century had attended Bahá’í schools as children.²⁴For a partial list, see Shahvar, Forgotten Schools, 179–182.

THE WORLD OF WOMEN

Women in Iran were confined and constrained by a heavy burden of religious and traditional laws and customs, leading to a lack of education and limited social options. While the reform movement and the Constitutional Revolution resulted in some discussion of women’s issues, this did not lead to much in the way of social change. It did not result, for example, in giving women the right to vote, and only a handful of girls’ schools were set up by private individuals in some large cities. The reign of Reza Shah Pahlavi (1925–41) appeared to bring some improvement for women, but the prohibition of the veil was forced on all women and, as one Iranian historian has commented, initiatives that appeared to favor women were actually a means for Reza Shah’s efforts to subdue the religious leadership and transfer their patriarchal authority to himself.²⁵Hamideh Sedghi, Women and Politics in Iran: Veiling, Unveiling, and Reveiling (Cambridge University Press, 2009), 62–98, esp. 67. By the mid-1930s, all women’s organizations were closed down and replaced by a single state-sponsored institution.²⁶Haideh Moghissi, Populism and Feminism in Iran: Women’s Struggle in a Male-Defined Revolutionary Movement (MacMillan, 1996), 40–1.

Women in the Bahá’í community in Iran took much of their inspiration from the Bábí heroine, Táhirih Qurrat al-ʿAyn. She disrupted all the norms that constrained the women of her society. She tore up the script that every woman in her society was given at birth, that of an obedient, submissive and silent daughter, wife, and mother, and wrote her own script. Although she came from a traditional clerical family, she challenged the religious orthodoxy of her family by adopting first the heterodox teachings of the Shaykhí school and later the revolutionary new teachings of the Báb. She upended gender norms by refusing to be submissive to her husband and going off to Karbala to pursue her religious quest, even facing the social opprobrium consequent to being divorced by her husband. She defied religious conventions by joyously celebrating the holy day of the Birth of the Báb during the time of year when Shi’íh Muslims traditionally were in mourning. She disrupted social norms by being appointed to the highest echelon among the followers of the Báb and teaching and leading a large cohort among His male disciples, by preceding the other leading Bábís in realizing the full import of the claims of the Báb, and most famously of all, by appearing unveiled and daring to raise her voice and be heard in a gathering of the leading disciples of the Báb, raising the call announcing the end of the Islamic Dispensation. She did all this knowing that it would lead to the loss of her family, children, social standing, liberty, and even of life itself. In thus claiming agency and making her own choices, Táhirih was not just instituting the women’s movement in Iran; she was the dawn of modernity for both women and men, breaking the shackles of traditional society. 

The Bahá’í community continued the work of Táhirih by giving agency to women and advancing their position in the community. Bahá’u’lláh encouraged this, writing that He had “lifted distinctions from between His servants and handmaidens, and… hath conferred upon all a station and rank of the same plane,” and had thus “broken the back of vain imaginings (in other words, disrupted the social constructs that maintain the patriarchy).”²⁷From a Tablet of Bahá’u’lláh, in Compilation of Compilations 2 (Bahá’í Publications Australia, 1991), 357. See also Juan R. I. Cole, Modernity and the Millennium: The Genesis of the Baha’i Faith in the Nineteenth-century Middle East (Columbia University Press, 1998), 171–7.

Of course, the pronouncement of equality by the Founder of the religion did not immediately lead to full equality for women in the Bahá’í community. This was a lived, negotiated, and developing outcome, experienced within the cultural expectations and social constraints of a patriarchal society. But, as early as the 1870s, outside observers were noticing the improving position of women in the Bahá’í community. A Polish journalist visiting Baghdad and an Irish doctor born in Iran both wrote of this in the 1870s.²⁸Jan Jasion, “‘A.J.’ and the Introduction of the Bahá’í Faith into Poland,” Bahá’í Studies 4 (1978), 31–7. Jablowonski calls the individuals he met “Babis” but that was the name by which the Bahá’ís were known throughout the nineteenth century. Edward Granville Browne, Materials for the Study of the Bábí Religion (Cambridge University Press, 1918), 262. The words that Professor Browne of Cambridge University heard in 1888 from a street peddler in Isfahan who was a Bahá’í demonstrated that this ethic of promoting women’s emancipation had penetrated all levels of the Bahá’í community: “We believe that women ought to be allowed to mix more freely with men, and should not be compelled to wear the veil.”²⁹Edward Granville Browne, A Year among the Persians (Adam and Charles Black, 1893), 236. Individual Bahá’í women, such as Táyirih Khánum, contributed to the public discourse on women’s emancipation in the period before and after the Constitutional Revolution, writing articles for newspapers.³⁰Dominic Parviz Brookshaw, “Women Poets,” in Literature of the Early Twentieth Century: From the Constitutional Period to Reza Shah, ed. Asghar Seyed-Gohrab (I.B. Tauris, 2015), 247–58. Afsaneh Najmabadi, “Ṭāyirih,” Nīmeh-ye Dīgar 2, no. 3 (Winter 1997), 146–95.

When the Bahá’ís began to establish a community administration at the beginning of the twentieth century, one of the first committees to be set up was a Committee for the Advancement of Women,³¹ Moojan Momen, “Role of Women in the Iranian Bahá’í Community during the Qajar Period,” in Religion and Society in Qajar Iran, ed. Robert M. Gleave (RoutledgeCurzon, 2005), 366, photograph, 360. and the advancement of women has remained a goal of the community up to the present. But perhaps the greatest contribution that the changes in the Bahá’í community made to the advancement of women is the progress that it made and continues to make towards the dismantling of the hierarchical social order that buttresses the patriarchy (see Part 2 of this article).

Bahá’u’lláh made it clear that His advocacy for modern education included girls as well as boys.³²Bahá’u’lláh, Tablets, 128. Although urged by Western Bahá’í women to promote the unveiling of Eastern Bahá’í women (which was also a feature of the Iranian modernist discourse), ‘Abdu’l-Bahá judged that the more effective and sustainable way to promote the social advancement of women was through education. As the Bahá’í community began to build schools, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá made sure that they built girls’ schools alongside the boys’ schools, even saying that the education of girls took precedence over that of boys since they were the first educators of the next generation.³³Compilation 1, 284; Compilation 2, 374. One result of this was that Iranian Bahá’í women were, in general, more educated than other women. By 1973, the Bahá’í community was able to announce a 100% literacy rate among women under 40 years of age at a time when nationally only 40% of Iranian women in this age range were literate.³⁴Momen, “Role of Women,” 366.

It is noticeable that almost all of the Western Bahá’ís whom ‘Abdu’l-Bahá encouraged to settle in Iran to help to develop the Bahá’í community in the fields of education and health were women, who were then able to serve as role models for the Iranian Bahá’í women on how to claim agency and take on social roles.³⁵Armstrong-Ingram, “American Bahá’í Women.”

There were other areas of life where the Bahá’ís were making innovative and radical changes ahead of what was happening in the rest of Iran, especially in agriculture and rural development, and in health and hygiene. But since the Iranian modernist reformers did not concern themselves much with these areas, there is little to compare these Bahá’í activities with and they will not be discussed here.³⁶On agriculture, see Moojan Momen, “Social and Economic Development in an Iranian Village: The Bahá’í Community of Saysan,” Baha’i Studies Review 15 (2009): 67–81; on health and hygiene see, Seena B. Fazel and Minou Foadi, “Baha’i health initiatives in Iran: a preliminary survey,” in The Baha’is of Iran, 122–40.

CONTACTS BETWEEN THE REFORMERS AND BAHÁ’ÍS

As well as the evidence presented above that the Bahá’í leaders were ahead of the Iranian modernist reformers in the reforms they were advocating, there is also strong evidence that these reformers were in close contact with the Bahá’í leaders and the Bahá’í community. In the 1860s, two of the leading Iranian reformers were Mírzá Malkam Khán and Sayyid Jamálu’d-Dín Asadábádí (“Afghání”). The first of these was exiled to Baghdad in 1861 and is known to have met Bahá’u’lláh there. Later in 1866, he represented himself as being knowledgeable about the new religion to French scholar Ernest Renan, who encouraged him to write an article on the subject.³⁷Hasan Balyuzi, Bahá’u’lláh: King of Glory (George Ronald, 1980), 151–3; Ernest Renan, Oeuvres Complètes 10, ed. Henriette Psichari (Calmann-Lévy, 1947–61), 453. See also Moojan Momen, The Bábí and Bahá’í Religions, 1844–1944: Some contemporary Western accounts (George Ronald, 1981), 23. Similarly, Asadábádí is said to have met Bahá’u’lláh in Baghdad, and he also represented himself as knowledgeable about the new religion such that Butrus al-Bustani asked him to contribute an article on the subject for his Arabic encyclopedia.³⁸Nikki Keddie, Sayyid Jamāl ad-Dīn “al-Afghānī.”(University of California Press, 1972), 20–22. He tried to remain in close touch with the Bahá’í leadership, sending them copies of his newspaper al-Urwah al-Wuthqá from Paris in the 1880s.³⁹Bahá’u’lláh, Tablets, 95.

The most consequential reformer from the next decade, the 1870s, was Mírzá Ḥusayn Khán Mushíru’d-Dawlih (Sipahsalár), who succeeded in becoming Prime Minister of Iran and began a reform agenda but was thwarted by the reactionary Iranian elite. He had at first been antagonistic to the Bahá’ís and, as Iranian ambassador to the Ottoman Government, was responsible for Bahá’u’lláh’s successive exiles from Baghdad to Istanbul, to Edirne, and to Acre. But after reading some of the letters addressed to Bahá’u’lláh by His followers after Bahá’u’lláh’s courier had been arrested in Aleppo in 1870, he realized that he had been wrong about Bahá’u’lláh. When he returned to Tehran and later became Prime Minister, he openly praised Bahá’u’lláh and protected the Bahá’ís on more than one occasion.⁴⁰Ḥájí Mírzá Ḥaydar ‘Alí quoted in Balyuzi, Bahá’u’lláh, 441–4; See also Mina Yazdani, Awḍá‘-yi Ijtimá‘í-yi Írn dar ‘Ahd-i Qájár az khilál-i Áthár-i Baháʾí (Association for Bahā’ī Studies, 2003), 118–121. Information about the Bahá’í Faith probably came to him from his close friend Malkam Khán or one of his relatives who was a Bahá’í.⁴¹Moojan Momen, The Baha’i Communities of Iran 1 (George Ronald, 2015), 26, 498. Another close friend of Mushíru’d-Dawlih was Mírzá Yúsif Khán Mustasháru’d-Dawlih, who wrote the first reformist treatise to be published, Yik Kalamih. The Bahá’í scholar Mírzá Abu’l-Faḍl Gulpáygání records that he was passing through Tabriz where Mustasharu’d-Dawlih lived, and that the latter was present at a meeting where Gulpáygání debated with Reverend Robert Bruce, a British missionary, about the Bahá’í Faith.⁴²Abu’l-Faḍá’i Gulpáygání, Rasá’il va Raqá’im (Mu’assih-yi-Milli-yi Maṭbú‘át-i Amrí 134 BE/1977), 210; Rúḥu’lláh Mihrábkhání, Zindigání-yi Mírzá Abu’l-Faḍl Gulpáygání (Bahá’í-Verlag, 1988), 125–31.

By the 1880s, there was an increasing debate about reform in Iran, fueled by newspapers and books printed outside Iran but circulated within the country. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá wrote an important treatise, the Risálih-yi Madaniyyih (The Secret of Divine Civilization), as a contribution to this debate. It was published in Bombay in 1882 and was probably only the second reform treatise (after Yik Kalamih) to be thus printed and circulated. It was published anonymously and with no overt reference to the Bahá’í Faith in it, so that prejudice against the new religion would not prevent it from being circulated and widely read. In this book, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá enters into the discourse that was going on among Iranian reformers about governmental reform and modern education, but, in contrast to these reformers, He emphasizes the need to develop a sound moral basis in society, upon which these other reforms could be established and develop. 

One important focus of reform activity in the 1890s was the city of Isfahan. Here a group of modernist reformers gathered, calling themselves the Progress Society (Anjuman-i Taraqqí). It was one of the earliest such societies in Iran and did not just meet to discuss reform but carried out lines of social action, such as establishing a modern school. Almost all of the leading members of this group, which included such figures as Ḥájí Mírzá Naṣrulláh Maliku’l-Mutakallimín, Sayyid Jamál Vá`iz, Majdu’l-Islám Kirmání, Mírzá Asadu’lláh Vazír, and Mírzá Aḥmad Khán Fátiḥu’l-Mulk were at that time either Bahá’ís or closely associated with the Bahá’í community.⁴³Momen, Baha’i Communities 2, 2:31–6. The first three named individuals moved to Tehran in 1902–3 and then became associated with the Azalí Bábís, but during the time they were in Isfahan there is no evidence that they were in contact with Azalís. Further details including evidence of these individuals being Bahá’ís or closely associated with the Bahá’í community in Isfahan can be found in Moojan Momen, “The Reform Movement in Isfahan, Iran: the role of Bábís and Bahá’ís,” Religions 17(6), (2026), 717; mdpi.com/2077-1444/17/6/717.

In the next decade, the 1900s, similar to the situation in Isfahan in the 1890s, almost all of the leading members of the reform movement in Sari in Mazandaran were either Bahá’ís or closely associated with the Bahá’í community. They set up the Anjuman-i Ḥaqíqat (The Truth Society) and undertook such activities as establishing a modern school.⁴⁴Moojan Momen, “The Baha’is and the Constitutional Revolution: The Case of Sari, Mazandaran, 1906–1913,” Iranian Studies 41, no. 3 (2008), 343–363. Elsewhere in Iran, leading Constitutionalists such as Ḥájí Abu’l-Ḥasan Mírzá Shaykhu’r-Ra’ís were known to have been Bahá’ís,⁴⁵Juan R. I. Cole, “Autobiography and Silence: The Early Career of Shaykh al-Ra’īs Qājār,” in Iran im 19. Jahrhundert und die Enstehung der Bahā’ī Religion, ed. Christoph Bürgel and Isabel Schayani (Georg Olms, 1998), 91–126; Juan R. I. Cole, “The Provincial Politics of Heresy and Reform in Qajar Iran: Shaykh al-Rais in Shiraz, 1895–1902,” Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East 22, nos.1–2 (2002): 119–126; Momen, Baha’i Communities 1, 128–31. while Muḥammad Valí Khán Tunukábuní (Naṣru’s-Salṭanih, Sipahsalár-i A‘ẓam) and ‘Alí Qulí Khán Sardár As‘ad Bakhtiyárí, the two military leaders who led the Constitutionalist forces in their capture of Tehran in 1909, thus ending Muḥammad `Alí Sháh’s attempt to overthrow the Constitution, were both in close touch with the Bahá’í community, and both met ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in Paris.⁴⁶Moojan Momen, “Who Was a Bahā’ī in the Upper Echelons of Qājār Iran?” Religions, 14, no. 4 (2023): 469, mdpi.com/2077-1444/14/4/469. Published in The Bahā’ī Faith: Doctrinal and Historical Explorations, ed. Moojan Momen and Zachery Heern (MDPI, 2024), 119–31.

Also of great interest and demonstrating the extent to which the modernist reformers looked to and may in some measure have modelled themselves on the Bahá’í community is the report by Náẓimu’l-Islám Kirmání, a historian who was closely involved with the reform movement, of the discussion at a meeting in March 1905 of the leading reformers at which he was present and where it was suggested that the reformers should look to the successful methods and tactics of the Bahá’ís for inspiration.⁴⁷ Náẓimu’l-Islám Kirmání, Táríkh-i Bídárí-yi Írániyán (Amír Kabír, 1387/2008), 1:189. The text reads “Bábís,” but this is what the Bahá’ís were called at this time and it is unlikely that this refers to the Azalí Bábís, since they dissimulated their beliefs and were not known as an active group by this name.

There were also other factors that made it likely that the Bahá’ís may have been influencing Iranian society much more effectively than is often appreciated. In explaining their ideas, drawn as they were from European writings, the modernist reformers were introducing into their texts European terms and thus using words and concepts that were not immediately understandable to most Iranians and appeared as a rupture with Iranian culture. But the Bahá’í texts used words and ideas that were rooted in Iranian culture and therefore easily understood.⁴⁸Ghazaleh Faridzadeh and Raed Faridzadeh, “Negotiating Freedom: Mostašār od-Doule’s Yek kalame and the Iranian Constitutional Experience,” Die Welt des Islams 61 (2021): 390–91; Algar, Malkam Khān, 27, 29; Nashat, Origins, 162–3. Indeed, the concept of the progressive revelation of religious truth, introduced by the Báb and developed by Bahá’u’lláh, created a pathway for a gradual organic modernization, in keeping with the culture of the nation and granting agency to all individuals in society.⁴⁹Abbas Amanat, Iran: A Modern History (Yale University Press, 2017), 239–40.

Moreover, it should be borne in mind that the number of people engaged in the project of the Iranian reformers was very small, the readership for the writings they produced was very limited, and the ability of this small group to carry out any of their suggested changes was very constrained. Mahdí Malikzádih, who was himself part of the reform movement, suggests that the number in the reform circle in the last decades of the nineteenth century was only a few hundred,⁵⁰Malikzádih, Tarikh, 1:69. and these reformers were operating within secret societies and only in a handful of large cities. By contrast, the Bahá’í community had a much greater membership (estimated to be 100,000 or more),⁵¹Peter Smith, “A Note on Babi and Baha’i Numbers in Iran,” Iranian Studies 17, no. 2/3 (Spring-Summer, 1984), 295–301. was distributed across the country, even in small towns and villages, and the Bahá’ís were trying to put these ideas into practice insofar as circumstances allowed. 

The above evidence demonstrates that in decade after decade from the 1860s onward, the ideas put forward in the Bahá’í texts were presented earlier, more developed, and more easily understood than what appeared in the discourse and texts of the modernist reformers, and the Bahá’ís were implementing these changes in their communities scattered across the whole of Iran. Given this and the evidence presented above that many of the leading modernist reformers were in close touch with the Bahá’í leaders and the community, it is not unreasonable to suggest that Bahá’í ideas had some influence on the thinking of the reformers. The extent to which this may have occurred requires further research, as it would be hidden by these reformers to forestall opposition and persecution. 

ATTACKS AND SETBACKS

Inevitably, the radical changes that the Bahá’í community was trying to make were either misunderstood or deliberately misrepresented to the people of Iran. And so, for example, the Bahá’í endeavor to advance the social role of women led to allegations of sexual immorality. The efforts of the Bahá’í community to introduce modern education led to claims that the Bahá’ís were trying to introduce foreign ideas into Iran. The ethos of modernity and progress cultivated within the Bahá’í community gave rise to accusations that the Bahá’ís were trying to undermine Iran’s culture and even, in later years, to conspiracy theories, which continue to the present day, that the Bahá’ís are agents of foreign powers. The global vision inculcated in the Bahá’í scriptures led to accusations that the Bahá’ís did not care about the welfare and progress of Iran. All of this led to persecution of the Bahá’í community by the religious leaders of Iran, who then recruited the intellectuals and politicians in their campaign against the Bahá’ís.

Although the Bahá’í community was striving to advance all of these areas of social progress, the constant persecution and the consequent social constraints that the community suffered did limit their efforts and cause setbacks. The hostile environment created by the opposition of the religious leadership in the country, and often the government, led to a situation in which the only public discourse about the community was hostile attacks. Even many of the secular nationalist reformers, whom one might have thought would have welcomed the Bahá’í social agenda, were contributing to these attacks by the time of Reza Shah’s reign.⁵² Mohammad Tavakoli-Targhi, “Anti-Baha’ism and Islamism in Iran,” in The Baha’is of Iran, 200–231; Chehabi, “Anatomy.”

The most public face of the Bahá’í community was its schools, and these were vehemently opposed by the Islamic religious leaders, many of whom were opposed both to all modern education and to any Bahá’í initiatives. In several instances, these schools were wrecked or closed down by the authorities, until finally the national government closed all of them permanently in 1934.⁵³Shahvar, Forgotten Schools, 107–30. Another area where the efforts of the Bahá’í community were held back was in the social advancement of women. Thus, although women were able to vote for the Bahá’í leadership councils from 1923, it took until 1954 before conditions were right for them to be elected to these councils.⁵⁴ Momen, “Role of Women,” 366. In all, there was a constant barrage of black propaganda against the community. 

CONCLUSION

At no time since its founding in the latter part of the nineteenth century has the Bahá’í community been free to pursue its agenda for social reform or to enter into Iranian public discourse. The people of Iran have received only falsified facts and fanciful conspiracy theories about the Bahá’ís.⁵⁵ See the examples provided by Chehabi in “Anatomy,” 186–94 of false allegations that Bahá’ís were enemies of the Iranian nation, tools of Russian and British imperialism, and prominent in the Shah’s regime; see also Reza Afshari, “The Discourse and Practice of Human Rights Violations of Iranian Bahaʾis in the Islamic Republic of Iran,” in The Baha’is of Iran (Routledge, 2008); Tavakoli-Targhi, “Anti-Baha’ism”; Vahman, 175 Years. As a result, Iranians have remained widely ignorant of the achievements of the Bahá’í community and the extent to which it has assisted the development of Iran. 

In the mid-nineteenth century, Iran was in urgent need of reform and modernization. Two possible routes presented themselves: that of the modernist reformers and that of the Bahá’í community. In this article, we have traced the earliest suggestions made by the Iranian modernist reformers and pointed out that, in most instances, the Bahá’í leaders were making suggestions that were earlier and more progressive than those of the modernist reformers. It should not surprise us, however, that evidence for a direct influence of the Bahá’í teachings on the reformers is difficult to find, since it would have resulted in rejection and even danger for the reformers to admit to being influenced by a persecuted and reviled religious community. Given the evidence presented here that these modernist reformers were in many cases in close contact with the Bahá’í community and in some cases with the Bahá’í leadership, it would seem likely that at least some of the discourse of the modernist reformers was influenced by the Bahá’í teachings.