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The Baháʼí Faith is a religion founded in the 19th century that teaches the essential worth of all religions and the unity of all people. Established by Baháʼu'lláh, it initially developed in Qajar Iran and parts of the Middle East, where it has faced ongoing persecution since its inception. The religion is estimated to have 5 to 8 million adherents, known as Baháʼís, spread throughout most of the world's countries and territories.
Charles Mason Remey was a prominent member of the early American Baháʼí community, and served in several important administrative capacities. He is well-known for an attempted schism of 1960, in which he claimed leadership and was rejected by the overwhelming majority of Baháʼís, who regard him as a Covenant-breaker.
William Bernard Sears was an American writer and a popular television and radio personality in various shows culminating in the 1950s with In the Park but left television popularity to promote the Baháʼí Faith in Africa and embarked on a lifelong service to the religion, for some 35 years as Hand of the Cause, the highest institution of the religion he could be appointed to. He wrote many books about the religion, with Thief in the Night and God Loves Laughter being his most popular.
The Baháʼí Faith was formed in the late 19th-century Middle East by Baháʼu'lláh, and teaches that an official line of succession of leadership is part of a divine covenant that assures unity and prevents schism. There are no major schisms in the Baháʼí Faith, and attempts to form alternative leadership have either become extinct with time or have remained in extremely small numbers that are shunned by the majority. The largest extant sect is related to Mason Remey's claim to leadership in 1960, which has continued with two or three groups numbering at most 200 collectively, mostly in the United States.
Louis George Gregory was a prominent American member of the Baháʼí Faith who was devoted to its expansion in the United States and elsewhere. He traveled especially in the South to spread his religion as well as advocating for racial unity.
Helen Elsie Austin, known as H. Elsie Austin as an adult, was an American attorney, civil rights leader, and diplomat from the Midwest. From 1960 to 1970, she served for 10 years with the United States Information Agency (USIA) on various cultural projects in Africa. The first African-American woman to graduate from the University of Cincinnati School of Law, Austin was appointed in 1937 as an assistant attorney general in Ohio. She was the first black and the first woman to hold this position.
The Baháʼí Faith in Kenya began with three individuals. First, Richard St. Barbe Baker took a constructive engagement with the indigenous religion of Kenyans to a United Kingdom conference on religions, where, in sympathy with his efforts, he was presented with the Baháʼí Faith and became a convert. The second individual was Enoch Olinga who traveled to Kenya when he served in the British Royal Army Educational Corps. The third came twenty-one years after the first and marked the arrival of the Baháʼí Faith in Kenya. In 1945 Mrs. Marguerite Preston arrived in Kenya. She had been a member of the National Spiritual Assembly of the United Kingdom from 1939 through 1945 when she married a Kenyan tea grower and moved to Kenya where the couple had three children within two years and she was the only Baháʼí in the nation. The Association of Religion Data Archives estimated about 429,000 Baháʼís in Kenya in 2005.
Oothout Zabriskie Whitehead was an American stage and film character actor. He was born in New York City and attended Harvard University. Called "O.Z." or "Zebby", he also authored several volumes of biographical sketches of early members of the Baháʼí Faith especially in the West after he moved to Dublin, Ireland in 1963.
The Baháʼí Faith in Samoa and American Samoa begins with the then head of the religion, ʻAbdu'l-Bahá, mentioning the islands in 1916. This inspired Baháʼís on their way to Australia in 1920 to stop in Samoa. Thirty four years later another Baháʼí from Australia pioneered to Samoa in 1954. With the first converts the first Baháʼí Local Spiritual Assembly was elected in 1961, and the Baháʼí National Spiritual Assembly was first elected in 1970. Following the conversion of the then Head of State of Samoa, King Malietoa Tanumafili II, the first Baháʼí House of Worship of the Pacific Islands was finished in 1984 and the Baháʼí community reached a population of over 3,000 in about the year 2000.
The Baháʼí Faith in Uganda started to grow in 1951 and four years later there were 500 Baháʼís in 80 localities, including 13 Baháʼí Local Spiritual Assemblies, representing 30 tribes, and had dispatched 9 pioneers to other African locations. Following the reign of Idi Amin when the Baháʼí Faith was banned and the murder of Baháʼí Hand of the Cause Enoch Olinga and his family, the community continues to grow though estimates of the population range widely from 19,000 to 105,000 and the community's involvements have included diverse efforts to promote the welfare of the Ugandan people. The Association of Religion Data Archives estimated about 78,500; however, National Population & Housing Census, 2014 recorded only 29,601.
The Baháʼí Faith first arrived in Scotland during the first decade of the 20th century, and in 1913 'Abdu’l-Bahá made a three-day visit to Edinburgh at the invitation of Mrs Jane E. Whyte, wife of Dr Alexander Whyte, Moderator of the General Assembly Free Church of Scotland. Over the following decades the Baháʼí Faith spread across Scotland, with Baháʼi communities now established in most cities across the country and many of the Scottish islands, including Orkney, Shetland, Skye and Isle of Lewis.
The first mentions of the Baháʼí Faith in the Netherlands were in Dutch newspapers which in 1852 covered some of the events relating to the Bábí movement which the Baháʼí Faith regards as a precursor religion. Circa 1904 Algemeen Handelsblad, an Amsterdam newspaper, sent a correspondent to investigate the Baháʼís in Persia. The first Baháʼís to settle in the Netherlands were a couple of families — the Tijssens and Greevens, both of whom left Germany for the Netherlands in 1937 as business practices were affected by Nazi policies. Following World War II the Baháʼís established a committee to oversee introducing the religion across Europe and so the permanent growth of the community in the Netherlands begins with Baháʼí pioneers arriving in 1946. Following their arrival and conversions of some citizens the first Baháʼí Local Spiritual Assembly of Amsterdam was elected in 1948, with around 11 Baháʼís in the country. By 1962, at the election of its first national spiritual assembly, there were 110 Baháʼís and nine local spiritual assemblies, by 1973 there were 365 Baháʼís and 16 spiritual assemblies, and by 1979 there were 525 Baháʼís and 27 spiritual assemblies. An estimate from 1997 put Baháʼís in The Netherlands at 1500. In 2005 the Netherlands had 34 local spiritual assemblies.
The Baháʼí Faith is a world religion that was founded in the 19th century Middle East. Its founders and the majority of its early followers were of Iranian heritage, and it is widely regarded as the second-largest religion in Iran after Islam. Though most Baháʼís in Iran are of a Muslim background, the 19th century conversions of sizeable numbers of individuals from Judaism and Zoroastrianism in the country are also well documented.
The Baháʼí Faith in Egypt has existed for over 150 years. The first followers of the Baháʼí Faith arrived in Egypt in 1863. Baháʼu'lláh, founder of the religion, was himself briefly in Egypt in 1868 when on his way to imprisonment in ʻAkká. The first Egyptians were converts by 1896. Despite forming an early Baháʼí Local Spiritual Assembly and forming a National Assembly, in 1960 following a regime change the Baháʼís lost all rights as an organised religious community by Decree 263 at the decree of then-President Gamal Abdel Nasser. However, in 1963, there were still seven organized communities in Egypt. More recently the roughly 2000 or 7000 by ARDA Baháʼís of Egypt have been embroiled in the Egyptian identification card controversy from 2006 through 2009. There have been homes burned down and families driven out of towns.
The Baháʼí Faith in Ethiopia began after ʻAbdu'l-Bahá wrote letters encouraging taking the religion to Africa in 1916. Probably the first Baháʼí to settle in the country came in early 1934 and with further pioneers by mid-1934, the first Baháʼí Local Spiritual Assembly of the country was elected in November in Addis Ababa. In 1962, Ethiopia Baháʼís had elected a National Spiritual Assembly. By 1963 there were seven localities with smaller groups of Baháʼís in the country. The Association of Religion Data Archives estimated some 27000 Baháʼís in 2005. The community celebrated its diamond jubilee in January 2009.
The Baháʼí Faith was first mentioned in the United States in 1893 at the World Parliament of Religions in Chicago. Soon after, early American converts began embracing the new religion. Thornton Chase was the most prominent among the first American Baha'is and made important contributions to early activities. One of the first Baháʼí institutions in the U.S. was established in Chicago and called the Baháʼí Temple Unity, incorporated in 1909 to facilitate the establishment of the first Baháʼí House of Worship in the West, which was eventually built in Wilmette, Illinois and dedicated in 1953. As of 2020 the Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies noted the Baháʼí Faith was the largest non-Christian religion in the majority of US counties.
The Baháʼí Faith in Trinidad and Tobago begins with a mention by ʻAbdu'l-Bahá, then head of the religion, in 1916 as the Caribbean was among the places Baháʼís should take the religion to. The first Baháʼí to visit came in 1927 while pioneers arrived by 1956 and the first Baháʼí Local Spiritual Assembly was elected in 1957 In 1971 the first Baháʼí National Spiritual Assembly was elected. A count of the community then noted 27 assemblies with Baháʼís living in 77 locations. Since then Baháʼís have participated in several projects for the benefit of the wider community and between 2005 and 2010 various sources report near 1.2% of the country, about 10,000–16,000 citizens, are Baháʼís.
Linda Marshall is an American actress. She started her television career in the 1963 situation comedy My Three Sons, and in 1965 appeared in her first movie, The Girls on the Beach.
Richard Walter Thomas is a retired African-American professor of Michigan State University known for his work in black issues and race relations. He has published a number of scholarly works, his poetry has been gathered in various anthologies, and he has given a variety of talks, workshops, and interviews on issues of race and race relations.
Janet Khan née Griffith is an Australian author who has published on the history and teachings of the Bahá’í Faith and the correlation of Bahá’í thought with contemporary social issues. Khan completed a doctorate in counselling at the University of Michigan and worked as an academic at the University of Michigan and the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia. From 1977 to 1984 Khan served as a member of the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’í Faith in Australia and as its Chair for several years. Khan served in the Research Department in the Holy Land, Haifa, Israel from 1983 to 2000 and was also a member of the International Advisory Board for the Bahá’í Chair for World Peace at the University of Maryland.
References
- ↑ "Baha'is participate in march on Montgomery". Baha'i News. June 1965. p. 13. Retrieved November 4, 2020.
- ↑ "Nashville YOW conference – Seven declare". National Bahá'í Review. No. 19. July 1969. p. 14. Retrieved November 4, 2020.
- ↑ Catherine Martindale (August 18, 1969). "Blacks, Whites grope, then unite -- in Baha'i". The Journal Herald. Dayton, Ohio. p. 26. Retrieved November 4, 2020.
- ↑ "Baha'i Week continues with teach-in tonight" (PDF). The Daily Collegian. University Park, PA. November 14, 1969. p. 4. Retrieved November 5, 2020.
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