equality of men and women Archives

By Moojan Momen

Dr. Moojan Momen is an independent scholar who was born in Iran, but was raised and educated in England, attending the University of Cambridge. He has a special interest in the study of the Baha'i Faith and Shi`i Islam, both from the viewpoint of their history and their doctrines. His interests also extend to the role of religion in society. His principal publications in these fields include: Introduction to Shi`i Islam (Yale University Press, 1985); The Babi and Baha'i Faiths 1844‑1944: Some Contemporary Western Accounts (George Ronald, Oxford, 1982); The Phenomenon of Religion (OneWorld, Oxford, 1999, republished as Understanding Religion, 2008) and The Baha'i Community of Iran (2 volumes, George Ronald, Oxford, 2015, 2021). He has contributed articles to encyclopedias such as Encyclopedia Iranica and the Oxford Encyclopedia of the Modern Islamic World as well as papers to academic journals such as International Journal of Middle East Studies, Past and Present, Iran, Iranian Studies, Journal of Genocide Research and Religion. He is a Fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society.

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.¹ 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.”² 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.³ Whereas He, “the true Physician,” was “debarred from administering the remedy.”⁴

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 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.”⁶ 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.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.⁸ 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.

Convention to elect the National Spiritual Assembly of Iran, May 1951

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 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 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

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.¹²

‘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 There is evidence that news of this new stance by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá reached Iran in February–March 1907.¹⁴

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 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.¹⁶ 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 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

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.¹⁹ 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”;²⁰ 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.”²¹ 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.²² 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.²³

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 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.²⁵ 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.²⁶

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.

Protestors who sought sanctuary at the British Embassy during the Constitutional Revolution, 1906

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.²⁷ ‘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.²⁸ ‘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.²⁹

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.³⁰ 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 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.³² 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.³³

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.”³⁴

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.³⁵

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.³⁶

By Moojan Momen

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.¹ 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.²

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).³

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.⁴ 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.⁵ 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.⁶ 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.⁷ ‘Abdu’l-Bahá praised the scientific and technological advances He witnessed in Europe, while at the same time decrying the materialism of the West⁸ 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 He also criticized the Eurocentric arrogance that led to the lives of other people being regarded as without value and unworthy of ethical concern.¹⁰ In His 1875 treatise, He presented His reasons for regarding the West as “morally uncivilized.”¹¹

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.”¹² 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.¹³ 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.¹⁴ 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.¹⁵

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.¹⁶ 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,¹⁷ 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.¹⁸

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.”¹⁹ 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 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.²¹

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?’²²

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

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.²⁴

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.²⁵ By the mid-1930s, all women’s organizations were closed down and replaced by a single state-sponsored institution.²⁶

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.

Ilkhani garden, the location in Tehran where Tahirih was killed

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).”²⁷

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.²⁸ 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.”²⁹ 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.³⁰

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 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).

Committee for the Advancement of Women in 1916

Bahá’u’lláh made it clear that His advocacy for modern education included girls as well as boys.³² 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.³³ 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.³⁴

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.³⁵

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.³⁶

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.³⁷ 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.³⁸ 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.³⁹

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.⁴⁰ 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.⁴¹ 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.⁴²

Mírzá Ḥusayn Khán Mushíru’d-Dawlih, c. 1870

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.⁴³

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.⁴⁴ Elsewhere in Iran, leading Constitutionalists such as Ḥájí Abu’l-Ḥasan Mírzá Shaykhu’r-Ra’ís were known to have been Bahá’ís,⁴⁵ 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.⁴⁶

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

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.⁴⁸ 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.⁴⁹

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,⁵⁰ 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),⁵¹ 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.

Takeover of the Ḥaẓíratu’l-Quds (Bahá’í Center) in Tehran during the Islamic Revolution

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

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 1934.⁵³ 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 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 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.

By The Bahá'í World

The equality of women and men is a spiritual reality asserted by Bahá’u’lláh and a pillar of Bahá’í belief, as evidenced by many statements in the Bahá’í writings. This spiritual reality, Bahá’ís believe, must be manifested today in its fullness in social reality.

Equality is an indispensable element for the progress of humanity, a principle which requires that women and men move forward together in dynamic partnership. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá has stated that “As long as women are prevented from attaining their highest possibilities, so long will men be unable to achieve the greatness which might be theirs.”¹ Reiterating the principle in a statement to the United Nations in 2015, the Bahá’í International Community described the equality of women and men as “a facet of human reality” and asserted, “That which makes human beings human—their inherent dignity and nobility—is neither male nor female. The search for meaning, for purpose, for community; the capacity to love, to create, to persevere, has no gender,” concluding that “Such an assertion has profound implications for the organization of every aspect of human society.”²

The Bahá’í community has, as a matter of faith, pursued the application of this principle over the entire span of the Faith’s history, basing its actions on Bahá’u’lláh’s statement “Praised be God, the Pen of the Most High hath lifted distinctions from between His servants and handmaidens, and, through His consummate favours and all-encompassing mercy, hath conferred upon all a station and rank of the same plane”³—an assertion that was reinforced and elaborated upon in many statements and writings of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, such as the following: “… in the sight of Bahá, women are accounted the same as men, and God hath created all humankind in His own image, and after His own likeness. That is, men and women alike are the revealers of His names and attributes, and from the spiritual viewpoint there is no difference between them.”⁴ In their efforts to realize this vision, Bahá’í individuals, institutions, and communities around the world have striven to understand more deeply its implications and have engaged in discourses and actions to promote gender equality ranging from grassroots initiatives to contributions at international fora.⁵

Since the Bahá’í writings emphasize both the importance of women as equal partners in the advancement of civilization and the key role of mothers as the first educators of the next generation, it was natural that the earliest endeavors in Persia focused on encouraging families to provide for the education of their girl children and on establishing schools for girls. Throughout the past century and a half, the geographical scope and range of activities related to gender equality have both broadened, and over the past 25 years, in particular, the training and community-building endeavors in which Bahá’ís in all parts of the globe are engaged have given further momentum to, and provided additional settings for, the practical expression of this principle.

DEVELOPING WOMEN’S CAPACITIES AT THE GRASSROOTS

The Bahá’í community recognizes that, while tremendous efforts in the areas of policy have been made at the international level by organizations such as the United Nations, the advancement of women cannot be brought about or sustained merely through legislation or policy directives that give women additional power within existing, unbalanced structures and systems. And even if attempts to change those social structures are made, such changes will not be sufficient to create conditions that allow women and girls to develop fully; unhealthy values may continue to be held by men and women, as well as boys and girls, sustaining exploitative behaviors.⁶ To effect the profound changes needed, educational processes that help to develop spiritual as well as intellectual capacities, that uphold the oneness of humanity, and that promote the equality of women and men play a pivotal role in establishing patterns of relationships that meet the needs of this age.⁷

Women play a key role in community banking in Mongolia.

At the most basic level, the home is the nurturing ground of values such as truth or dishonesty, justice or injustice, kindness or violence. And from the home, behaviors rooted in these values radiate through society. For example, when boys are allowed to dominate their sisters within the family, what deters them from doing the same at their school or place of work—or even in national or international arenas? If, instead, sons and daughters are raised so that both participate in household duties and both participate in decision-making, these are the habits they will take out into the world as they grow to adulthood.⁸ Efforts to nurture values that promote gender equality at the roots of community life are clearly key to change.

The purpose of the institute process which the Bahá’í community has been developing since 1996 (see “A New Institution of Learning,” in this volume) is to develop capacities in participants—women and men, boys and girls—to contribute to the spiritual and material advancement of their societies. The first quotation in the first book of the curriculum invites them to reflect on a statement of Bahá’u’lláh regarding their role as individuals: “The betterment of the world can be accomplished through pure and goodly deeds, through commendable and seemly conduct.”⁹ The materials train participants to engage in behavior and facilitate activities that contribute directly to the advancement of the communities in which they live. Beyond the basic activities, participants acquire knowledge, skills and insights that equip them to participate in the discourses prevalent in their society and to engage in social action endeavors. Women have been at the heart of all these efforts. What is especially remarkable is that, in the aggregate, despite the vast inequalities between women and men in most societies, globally, women comprise half of those who have completed the first sequence of courses of the training institute—and in all except the first book, women outnumber men. This is also more dramatically the case in the higher sequence of courses where the ratio of women to men is around 60 percent. These remarkable statistics reflect the emphasis that the worldwide Bahá’í community places on the equality of women and men and the essential part that women play in social transformation.

Women in Lundu, Sarawak, participate in a study circle.

Professor Hoda Mahmoudi, Bahá’í Chair for World Peace at the University of Maryland

The percentage of women engaged in the educational processes of the institute reveals the central role they have played in promoting it in their own communities and in its dissemination to other parts of the world. Many of those who complete institute courses continue on to serve as tutors, teachers of children’s classes, and animators in the junior youth spiritual empowerment program. One example illustrating the level of female empowerment that has been achieved originates in the Central African Republic: In 2014, while only 20 percent of primary teachers in the national educational system were women, the percentage of primary teachers in community schools raised up through the training institute was 55 percent—rising to 60 percent in rural areas. Around the world, the level of women’s participation as animators and coordinators in the junior youth program is comparable. Such a level of engagement is a strong indicator of the effectiveness of the training institute in the enfranchisement of women and girls.

Specific attention is given to identifying, training, and accompanying women in their efforts, including practical actions related to program delivery. These include the decentralization of training seminars to allow women to participate close to home and the provision of childcare to mothers. Furthermore, the training institute materials themselves, as well as those developed for the junior youth spiritual empowerment program and other Bahá’í-inspired education programs, such as the Preparation for Social Action and community schools programs, all promote the principle of gender equality, whether explicitly or implicitly. For example, of the nine texts developed for the junior youth program by 2017, seven mention the equality of women, the advancement of women, or the education of girls, while more than half of the units in the Preparation for Social Action program make explicit reference to the theme.

In study circles around the world, as shown in London, United Kingdom, the sharing of insights by every participant is encouraged and valued.

Assisting women to develop capacities through collaborative study, action, and reflection helps change culture by breaking down prejudices of sex and gender. Experience with community schools in Africa and Asia has shown that those starting with female teachers are more sustainable over the first few years than those starting with men. Women have been better able to persevere through this unstable period with little remuneration, while pressure on men to provide for their families makes it difficult for them to sacrifice to that level. Beyond the obvious benefits of sustainable educational opportunities, village councils are now beginning to appoint women teachers to serve on community development and administrative committees—positions that were previously filled only by men.

Clearly, when women and men and boys and girls all become advocates for gender equality, everyone benefits. Sometimes the steps towards such change are dramatic, and sometimes they are incremental. For example, the holding of gatherings to join with others in prayer may seem like a simple activity, but in a village in India, these gatherings have provided rare community acceptance for women to leave their houses. As a result, the “long-standing system requiring women to seclude and isolate themselves is starting to give way” as participants realize that long-established customs are less important than educating children, consulting with each other to solve problems together—and allowing women to participate in community activities.¹⁰

An experimental agricultural plot at the University Center for Rural Well-Being in Jamundi-Robles, Colombia

The proliferation of such efforts worldwide is helping to advance the creation of social environments and structures capable of meeting the needs of this age. Challenges such as social inequities, climate change, and global health emergencies, to mention a few, show in starker and starker relief the inadequacy of current outmoded customs and systems to deal with them. Advancing the role of women will undoubtedly serve to better equip humanity to address the ordeals it faces. As the Bahá’í International Community stated in 2021:

Against the backdrop of a world undergoing profound change, there is a growing recognition of the indispensable role that women in leadership play. In the early days of the coronavirus pandemic, nations in which women contributed more prominently to the leadership of society were seen to have generated a degree of stability across a variety of short-term indicators, including public health and economic security. At the community level, women continue to play an indispensable role—and often lead—in caring for the sick, educating the young, tending to the needy, and sustaining the social and economic fabric more broadly. Never has it been more clear how much humanity benefits when women’s leadership is embraced and promoted at every level of society, whether in the family or the village, the community or local government, the corporation or the nation.¹¹

With regard to the issue of climate change, while it is true that women are greatly impacted by its negative effects on the natural environments from which they earn their living in many parts of the world, they are also equipped to respond to it. Experience is proving that participation in the institute courses has provided women with skills to deal with this issue at the grassroots level. For example, when a major cyclone hit Dili, in Timor-Leste, and cut off external assistance, participants in the training institute courses used the skills and networks they had formed through their collaborative study to assist more than 7,000 people across 13 villages and neighborhoods with access to food and other essentials. And in Okcheay, Cambodia, a tree-planting project that had been devised by youth participants protected roads in the area from soil erosion when severe flooding occurred several years later.

Eight members of the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of Belize cast their votes in the election of the Universal House of Justice.

Bani Dugal, Principal Representative of the Bahá’í International Community to the United Nations; Mary Power, former Director of the BIC Office for the Advancement of Women; and Representative Saphira Rameshfa

While difficult to live through, unstable periods provide humanity with opportunities to examine our collective values. Women, the Bahá’í writings assert, must have their rightful place as equals to men in every sphere of human endeavor, contributing at every level of decision making and bringing their capacities to bear on the fortunes of their communities, societies, and all of humankind.

DEVELOPING CAPACITIES AND ADMINISTRATIVE MEMBERSHIP

At the global level, experience has shown that increased emphasis on the education of women and girls results in a corresponding rise in the level of their participation in public life and community affairs.¹² Likewise, the Bahá’í community has witnessed, as a result of its efforts to develop the capacities of participants through its worldwide training institute process, a substantial increase in the membership of women on institutions within the Bahá’í community and their shouldering of administrative responsibilities.

The administrative order of the Bahá’í world community is composed of both elected and appointed arms. As of 20 April 2021, some 42 percent of those elected to serve on the 174 National Spiritual Assemblies around the world were women, rising from about 30 percent in 1994–95. The ratio of women serving as office-bearers rose to 35 percent, compared to 19 percent in 1983, and some 53 percent of those serving as the principal executive officer (titled “National Secretary”) were women. Membership of women on Regional Bahá’í Councils was about 46 percent. When considered in the global context of women’s representation in governing institutions, such a high percentage of membership is impressive. These figures are worldwide results, including numerous societies where equality may not yet be accepted even in principle. It indicates a growing embrace of the spiritual principle of gender equality by the men and women who elect their institutions through secret ballot as well as confidence in women’s administrative capacities.

On the appointed institutions, the percentage of women members is even higher—an indication of the attention given to identifying women of capacity and enlisting them to serve. As of April 2020, of the nine members comprising the International Teaching Centre, 56 percent were women, rising from 29 percent in 1973, when it was established. Of the 90 members of the Continental Boards of Counsellors, 47 percent were women (up from 19 percent in 1968 when the Continental Boards were created, and 52 percent of the 1,059 members of the Auxiliary Boards around the world were women.¹³

The education of girls is central to all Bahá’í initiatives, as shown in Mongolia.

While there are variations among the continents in the percentage of women members, particularly on the elected institutions, the steady move towards more gender-balanced membership indicates an increased understanding of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s statement “Not until the world of women becomes equal to the world of men in the acquisition of virtues and perfections, can success and prosperity be attained as they ought to be.”¹⁴

ON THE INTERNATIONAL FRONT: PARTICIPATION IN DISCOURSES AT THE UNITED NATIONS

At the international level, the Bahá’í International Community (BIC) has advocated for the equality of women and men since the inception of the United Nations, making its first statement on gender equality in 1947. Shortly after it became an accredited non-governmental organization (NGO) in 1970, it began to advocate for the girl child. In 1974, as an NGO member of the UN Commission on the Status of Women, the BIC made a statement to the twenty-fifth Session of the Commission that recommended greater emphasis on the importance of educating girls. With regard to this topic, the Bahá’í International Community was ahead of its time. Over the decades, as the UN gave greater attention to the issue of the girl child and many other international organizations focused on it as a strategy for development, the BIC has continued to advocate for girls’ education and has made numerous official statements about it. The BIC has also collaborated with other NGOs and entities such as the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and continues to serve on UNICEF’s NGO Working Group on Girls. The BIC was also one of the earliest proponents at the United Nations of the idea that men and boys play an important role in promoting gender equality, particularly that their full development depends upon the advancement of women, since a society based on gender equality serves the interests of both women and men.¹⁵

In its statements and in discourses at the United Nations, the BIC has addressed topics as diverse as gender and leadership, violence against women and girls, the climate crisis as a catalyst for nurturing a more gender-balanced culture, the role of women as well as men in establishing a flourishing world civilization, transforming the structures of society, and religion and gender equality.

On this last theme, while acknowledging that religion has often been seen as a negative force, the Bahá’í International Community has urged the open examination of religion as “a basis for social and political mobilization” and has advocated for a discourse centered around three themes: the role of religious leaders in supporting gender equality, the role of men and boys in demonstrating “new understandings of masculinity,” and religious interpretations that discriminate against women and thus serve as an impediment to peace.¹⁶

While it has always related its contributions to UN discussions on gender equality to spiritual principle, by 2008, the BIC began to draw as well on the rich experience of the Bahá’í community to contribute to the advancement of civilization. The film Glimpses into the Spirit of Gender Equality, produced on the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Beijing conference, combines footage from the United Nations, tracing the BIC’s efforts to advocate for the education of girls and for gender equality, with stories from the grass- roots.¹⁷ It showcases the experiences and initiatives of individuals, families, community members, and village leaders in Colombia, India, Malaysia, the United States, and Zambia, to illustrate how even small steps can contribute to change in a culture. The film offers insights gleaned from efforts made over the past 25 years to apply Bahá’u’lláh’s teachings regarding equality in different communities and settings. It conveys how the lessons being learned at the grassroots reinforce efforts being made in international fora for the advancement of women, providing a view of what has been learned thus far about building a civilization that values and nurtures both material and spiritual qualities in all its members.

CONCLUSION

In the long process of building a global civilization, sustained and coordinated action to establish gender equality is vital. While the Bahá’í community can take stock of its progress in this regard and the insights it has gleaned over almost 200 years in a growing variety of settings, the work is far from done. Efforts to nurture strong, vibrant communities in which women and men strive in dynamic partnership to build an equitable society must be extended and deepened.18 In this work, the community derives its vision and its impetus from statements such as the following, made by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in 1912, during His travels in North America: “… until woman and man recognize and realize equality, social and political progress here or anywhere will not be possible. For the world of humanity consists of two parts or members: one is woman; the other is man. Until these two members are equal in strength, the oneness of humanity cannot be established, and the happiness and felicity of mankind will not be a reality.”¹⁸

By The Bahá'í World

By the closing decade of the twentieth century, the Bahá’í Faith was the second-most widespread religion in the world, with adherents in virtually every country and territory on the planet.

As the community developed and spread geographically, Bahá’ís, in nearly every land, promoted fundamental spiritual principles: the oneness of the human race, the equality of women and men, the eradication of all forms of prejudice, the harmony of science and religion, freedom from imitation and superstition, and the need for universal education, to name a few. To the best of their ability and available resources, they gave practical expression to these principles in vastly different societies and labored to build communities liberated from the barriers that have historically divided humanity.

As their numbers and resources increased, Bahá’ís were further able to direct their energies toward the betterment of the world. They initiated hundreds of social and economic development projects in areas ranging from health to education to the advancement of women. They championed the cause of peace on the international stage through the United Nations Offices of the Bahá’í International Community. And around the world, they were vigorous promoters of interfaith dialogue.

In 1992, some 27,000 people attended the second Bahá’í World Congress in New York City, enabling the community, by then more than five million people, to appreciate the extent to which the Faith had grown and flourished in just over a century.

What had been accomplished to that point was, in many respects, remarkable. Under the stewardship of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá and, subsequently, Shoghi Effendi, a relatively small and courageous band of Bahá’ís had established communities around the planet and laid the basis of a unique network of institutions. By the second half of the century, periods of large-scale growth in certain parts of the world revealed the degree to which many people and populations found a reflection of their highest aspirations in the teachings of Bahá’u’lláh.

As the new millennium approached, there was every indication that growing numbers would see in the Bahá’í Faith hope for the future of humanity and would dedicate themselves to laying the foundations of the world civilization envisioned in the Bahá’í writings. Yet, rapid growth had raised substantial questions for which there were no clear answers at the time: How could the Bahá’í world—in response to the great receptivity it was encountering virtually everywhere—learn to establish communities that would continuously grow in size and embrace people of all walks of life? At the same time, how could such communities learn to create the conditions in which more and more people would be empowered to apply Bahá’í principles and teachings to their individual development as well as for the progress of their communities?

A TURNING POINT

The year 1996 would prove to be pivotal. With the launching of a series of global plans, the Universal House of Justice set the Bahá’í community on a 25-year journey of learning in action that would enable it to address the questions before it and lead to hard-earned development and maturation.

Over that time, there were six global plans in sequence: a Four Year Plan in 1996, a One Year Plan in 2000, and four subsequent Five Year Plans, ending in 2021. Each plan built upon the achievements of the previous plan and opened new horizons in the next.

No one, at the outset, could have anticipated just how profound the global community’s transformation would be or the many insights that its experience would yield. By the close of the period, a community had emerged whose boundaries were more porous, whose understanding of the implications of oneness and justice were deeper, and whose conception of the power of religion to transform individuals and communities was more profound. Its capacity to take action and to learn in systematic ways corresponded with a rise in humility born of the recognition that it aspires to achieve something that humanity does not yet know how to build.

THE GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE BAHÁ’Í COMMUNITY

The series of plans began by calling on the Bahá’í world to focus on its own growth and development and on strengthening its ability to share and apply the Bahá’í teachings for the betterment of the world. This focus proved highly generative. As the community advanced and gained new insights and capacities, it was able to apply them to other areas of activity oriented toward social transformation.

The period began with the establishment of a new institution of learning—the training institute. Over time, Bahá’ís developed and progressively refined the institute’s unique system of education that has enabled millions of people to study the sacred writings in small groups and to take practical actions that help advance both the community and the wider society. The institute enabled the community to vastly multiply core activities that had proven fundamental to serving the spiritual needs of a population. In places where such activities were open and accessible to all, these, together with other activities, began to be woven into an increasingly rich pattern of community life. The Bahá’í community came to see and describe its efforts more explicitly and clearly in terms of community building.

Whereas prior to 1996, many of the largest local Bahá’í communities comprised several hundred individuals with varying degrees of participation in community life, by the close of the period, the largest communities were learning to integrate and work with tens of thousands of people connected in varying degrees to community-building processes.

Growth, it should be plainly stated, has never been an end in and of itself. Bahá’ís see in the teachings of Bahá’u’lláh a path towards a global civilization unlike anything humanity has been able to achieve at earlier stages in its collective life. Their own institutions and communities are early contributions in humanity’s efforts to establish the foundations of that civilization. And the spread of the Bahá’í Faith has, in accordance with Bahá’u’lláh’s explicit admonitions, always been through peaceful means and free of any form of coercion, proselytization, or manipulation. One’s sacred duty, Bahá’u’lláh taught, is to see with one’s own eyes and to pursue truth and reality proactively.

The aim of expansion, then, has been to create a pathway for people who believe in the oneness of humankind to work together for a world which reflects that fundamental principle. How could Bahá’í communities more effectively open and widen that pathway?

In 2010, just past the midway point of the series of plans, the Universal House of Justice described the relationship between the growth of the community and its ability to contribute to social transformation:

What should be apparent is that, if the Administrative Order is to serve as a pattern for future society, then the community within which it is developing must not only acquire capacity to address increasingly complex material and spiritual requirements but also become larger and larger in size. How could it be otherwise. A small community, whose members are united by their shared beliefs, characterized by their high ideals, proficient in managing their affairs and tending to their needs, and perhaps engaged in several humanitarian projects—a community such as this, prospering but at a comfortable distance from the reality experienced by the masses of humanity, can never hope to serve as a pattern for restructuring the whole of society. That the worldwide Bahá’í community has managed to avert the dangers of complacency is a source of abiding joy to us. Indeed, the community has well in hand its expansion and consolidation. Yet, to administer the affairs of teeming numbers in villages and cities around the globe—to raise aloft the standard of Bahá’u’lláh’s World Order for all to see—is still a distant goal.¹

The progress made by the Bahá’í world after 1996 enabled it to better appreciate how, as its resources increased, it could contribute to the civilization-building process envisioned in the Bahá’í writings. It came to understand this contribution as having two dimensions: the growth and development of the community itself, and its involvement in society at large.

INVOLVEMENT IN SOCIETY AT LARGE

By the second half of the series of plans, the Universal House of Justice encouraged the Bahá’í community to draw on the many insights and capacities it had gained in community building and to apply these to its efforts to contribute to social transformation more broadly.

Already for many decades, the Bahá’í community had undertaken numerous initiatives in the arena of social and economic development. With an enhanced capacity at the grassroots and with clarity about the conceptual framework governing Bahá’í endeavors, efforts in social action multiplied around the world.

Initiatives of fixed duration—for example, to preserve and revive the physical environment, promote community health, or enhance literacy and education—became a natural outgrowth of community-building processes in neighborhoods and villages. Such initiatives became a regular feature of Bahá’í educational programs for youth and junior youth. In many dynamic, outward-looking Bahá’í communities, the active participation of hundreds and thousands of people in efforts to enhance the spiritual and intellectual life of the community was complemented by efforts to address social and material progress. Animating these efforts was a conviction that every population should have ownership of its own development—that development is not something one group does for another.

This conviction shaped the approaches of a growing number of Bahá’í-inspired organizations that initiated programs which were complementary to, integrated with, and mutually supportive of community-building processes at the grassroots. Programs focusing on the moral and spiritual empowerment of junior youth, on the promotion of community schools through teacher training, and on the training of young people as promoters of community well-being flourished. More broadly, the Bahá’í world experienced an efflorescence of activity in areas such as agriculture, education, arts and media, health, the local economy, and the advancement of women.

In parallel with such developments was the growing involvement of Bahá’ís in the broad conversations focused on social well-being and progress. From the workplace or school to the local community, and to the international stage, Bahá’ís sought to make a contribution in the many social spaces where thinking evolves and gives meaning and direction to action in society. Their efforts secured in many societies the trust and friendship of those who, like Bahá’ís, were striving to advance the cause of peace, justice, and social well-being.

Notably, at the international level, the Bahá’í International Community expanded its presence—opening new regional offices in Addis Ababa, Brussels, and Jakarta—and refined and intensified the involvement of its United Nations offices in New York and Geneva in prevalent discourses. Further, scores of National Spiritual Assemblies’ Offices of External Affairs emerged, many of them engaged vigorously in public discourse, making remarkable strides and helping to consolidate the Bahá’í community as a recognized contributor to social progress in their countries. All such efforts were directed at those discourses that have a significant bearing on the well-being of humanity, such as peace, religious coexistence, social cohesion, racial justice, the role of religion in society, and migration.

By seeking to foster unity and consultation; by establishing distinctive consultative spaces for respectful dialogue aimed at consensus and collective understanding; by infusing the often chaotic landscape of discourse with hope; by selflessly contributing human, material, and intellectual resources for the advancement of vital causes; by learning with others in the context of addressing the vital issues of the day—by each of these and other features of Bahá’í participation in discourse, the Bahá’í world witnessed in many societies the power of spiritual principles to effect change. In some societies, meaningful contributions to public discourse helped change the fortunes of the Bahá’í community, lifting it out of obscurity and opening the way for it to offer a greater share to the progress of society.

REFLECTIONS ON PROGRESS MADE

Today, the Bahá’í community numbers about eight million. In the progress made over the past quarter century can be found evidence of humanity’s capacity to transcend division and polarization and to give expression to unity, cooperation, and the inherent nobility and goodness of people.

Certain qualities and characteristics have become the ideals toward which this growing community strives and has made progress: a posture of learning; dedication to the long-term process of action and reflection about how to translate the ideals of the Faith into reality; a sustainable and systematic approach to social change; a consciousness of oneness that transcends any sense of “us” and “them”; a long-term effort to create a new pattern of essential social relationships among the individual, the community, and the institutions; a desire to learn with and from people of goodwill everywhere; a spirit of intergenerational cooperation, with young people in many ways at the forefront; a dedication to the spiritual and intellectual development of all children; a commitment to overcoming prejudice; a pursuit of justice in unifying ways; and a perspective that seeks to harmonize faith with reason and religious conviction with scientific truth.

To work toward the realization of such ideals, of course, does not mean that the community has achieved them. Its efforts are, and no doubt will continue to be, a work in progress. The community, explains the Universal House of Justice,

makes no claims to perfection. To uphold high ideals and to have become their embodiment are not one and the same. Myriad are the challenges that lie ahead, and much remains to be learned.… However idealistic the Bahá’í endeavour may appear to some, its deep-seated concern for the good of humankind cannot be ignored. And given that no current arrangement in the world seems capable of lifting humanity from the quagmire of conflict and contention and securing its felicity, why would any … object to the efforts of one group of people to deepen its understanding of the nature of those essential relationships inherent to the common future towards which the human race is being inexorably drawn?²

At this writing, millions inspired by the teachings of the Faith, in a wide range of settings, are participating in grassroots activities that strengthen the spiritual and social fabric of community life. Many are not formally enrolled as Bahá’ís but are increasingly identifying themselves with the Faith’s ideals and exploring its prescription for the world.

A community is emerging that does not divide the world but rather encourages growing numbers of people, of various faiths and of none, to build together the elements of a more just and peaceful society—working, for instance, through its educational system to raise a generation of children whose hearts are free from prejudice and whose spiritual qualities are cultivated together with their rational and scientific faculties.

At the administrative level, the national communities with an elected governing council (National Spiritual Assembly) currently number 174. There are 228 Regional Councils in 61 countries. Nearly 330 training institutes administer a novel system of distance education that enables people to study sacred writings in small groups and to discover practical and meaningful ways to apply spiritual principles to their individual lives and in service to their locality and society.

Of the millions who have participated in at least one of the training institute courses, the majority are women—a startling fact in light of the widespread disparities that continue to define women’s experience throughout most of the world. Women also comprise the majority of those serving in the appointed arm of Bahá’í administration, which includes members of the International Teaching Centre, the Continental Boards of Counsellors, and Auxiliary Board members and their assistants.

Among National Spiritual Assemblies, women make up 42 percent of the membership and 53 percent of their principal executive officers—another significant indicator of movement toward greater equality and a statistic that stands out dramatically when compared with society at large. Nonetheless, the community is keenly aware that the goal of a world in which women and men are regarded as equals in every sphere of society and contribute together to the advancement of civilization is still, as yet, a distant one. There is much that remains to be learned and achieved.

In the area of social and economic development, progress has also been stark. The number of social action initiatives has multiplied from around 2,000 to more than 70,000, most of which are activities of limited duration. Sustained endeavors in social and economic development have increased from around 300 to more than 1,500. The number of Bahá’í-inspired organizations has correspondingly risen to support such efforts, from around 30 to more than 160.

THE UNIVERSAL HOUSE OF JUSTICE

The election of the Universal House of Justice in 1963 was arguably humanity’s first global democratic election. Since that time, the House of Justice has guided the Bahá’í community and ensured its dynamic unity. The flow of its encouragement and guidance was a major feature of the period under review. Through letters, the House of Justice supported the global community, harmonized thought and action, cultivated a stronger orientation toward learning, called on Bahá’ís to adopt a posture of humility, and encouraged them to be courageous in forging new pathways of service and action.

The House of Justice emphasized that development is not something one group does for another. Humanity, it asserted, is on a path toward building a global civilization that is unlike anything known to it today. Every soul, indeed every population, must therefore have the opportunity to contribute to, and benefit from, the lessons learned throughout the planet.

The Bahá’í administrative system evolved to enable the Bahá’í institutions to support and cultivate learning and to allow for new insights and experience at the grassroots to be shared appropriately for the benefit of other communities. A dynamic flow of communication traveled from small pockets and unassuming settings to the regional, national, and international levels, and those insights and approaches that were universally helpful were distilled and shared in a manner that vastly extended the worldwide community’s capacity to learn.

The election of the Universal House of Justice in April 2018 opened a window onto the vast diversity of the Bahá’í community and the distance the global community has traversed. Members of the National Spiritual Assemblies, representing the divers peoples of the world, gathered at the Bahá’í World Centre. The delegates sat side by side as one family. Some arrived after weeks of travel—beginning in remote villages, traveling by foot, by bus, by car, by boat, by plane—to represent their respective national communities. Some came from the major cosmopolitan centers of the planet.

Delegates at the Twelfth International Bahá’í Convention, Haifa, April 2018— a remarkable demonstration of the oneness of humankind

Some represented historically ostracized or oppressed populations. Some were from among the indigenous people of their land. Some were refugees. This most diverse of groupings of the human family was united as one people with shared convictions and aspirations.

————

“The earth is but one country, and mankind its citizens,” wrote Bahá’u’lláh over a century and a half ago. “Ye are the fruits of one tree, and the leaves of one branch.” “So powerful is the light of unity that it can illuminate the whole earth.” With such evocative images and concepts, He set in motion a process which is releasing humanity’s spiritual potential in ever greater measure. In the series of plans from 1996 to 2021, a community of millions—a cross section of the peoples of the world—took a great leap forward in its efforts to make that vision a reality. Today, the global community stands at the start of yet another series of plans that will carry it 25 years into the future, the scope of another generation.

THE WORLD OF RELIGION

CONCLUSION

The Bahá’ís and Reform and Renewal in Iran (Part 1)

Part 1: Bahá’í Contributions to the Development of Iran

THE GOVERNANCE OF SOCIETY

MODERN EDUCATION

THE WORLD OF WOMEN

CONTACTS BETWEEN THE REFORMERS AND BAHÁ’ÍS

ATTACKS AND SETBACKS

CONCLUSION

The Bahá’ís and Reform and Renewal in Iran (Part 2)

Part 2: Building a New Society in Iran

DEVELOPING WOMEN’S CAPACITIES AT THE GRASSROOTS

DEVELOPING CAPACITIES AND ADMINISTRATIVE MEMBERSHIP

ON THE INTERNATIONAL FRONT: PARTICIPATION IN DISCOURSES AT THE UNITED NATIONS

CONCLUSION

A TURNING POINT

THE GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE BAHÁ’Í COMMUNITY

INVOLVEMENT IN SOCIETY AT LARGE

REFLECTIONS ON PROGRESS MADE

THE UNIVERSAL HOUSE OF JUSTICE