The Canon · No. 090
Bahá'í Faith
Bahaism
1863 CE – present · Abrahamic · Living · India, Iran, US, Africa, Latin America; present in nearly every country
VII. THE MODERN AGE — 1800 – 1945
How many
Roughly 5–8 million. By some measures the most geographically widespread religion after Christianity, though small in absolute numbers.
Who began it
Bahá'u'lláh (Mírzá Ḥusayn-'Alí Núrí, 1817–1892), a Persian nobleman, who declared in 1863 that he was the promised one foretold by the Báb (Siyyid 'Alí Muḥammad, 1819–1850), whose own movement had been crushed with enormous loss of life.
What it is for
The unification of humanity. Bahá'u'lláh's stated aim is a single global civilisation with one auxiliary language, universal education and the abolition of prejudice.
What it worships
One God, unknowable in essence, known through his Manifestations.
What it holds
Progressive revelation: God has sent a succession of Manifestations — Abraham, Krishna, Moses, Zoroaster, Buddha, Jesus, Muhammad, the Báb, Bahá'u'lláh — each bringing the teaching suited to the age, and more will come after roughly a thousand years. Religion is therefore one, unfolding. Unity of God, unity of religion, unity of humanity. Independent investigation of truth, with no clergy to mediate it. Equality of women and men, stated explicitly and unusually early. Harmony of science and religion. Elimination of extremes of wealth and poverty. Universal compulsory education. Non-involvement in partisan politics.
What it does
Daily obligatory prayer, chosen from three forms. A nineteen-day fast from sunrise to sunset in March. A calendar of nineteen months of nineteen days. The Nineteen Day Feast for worship, consultation and community. No clergy at all: administration is by elected nine-member Spiritual Assemblies at local and national level, chosen without nomination or campaigning, and by the Universal House of Justice in Haifa. Consultation as a formal decision-making method. Pilgrimage to Haifa and Acre. Continence outside marriage; abstention from alcohol and drugs.
After death
The soul comes into being at conception and is eternal, but does not reincarnate. After death it continues to progress through spiritual worlds toward God, and prayers by the living assist it. Heaven and hell are states, not places — nearness to God and remoteness from him. There is no eternal damnation; every soul retains the capacity to advance. The soul's condition after death is compared to a child born from the womb: what was developed in this life becomes the faculties it needs in the next.
Its texts
Kitáb-i-Aqdas (the Most Holy Book); Kitáb-i-Íqán (the Book of Certitude); Hidden Words; Seven Valleys. The Báb's Bayán. Writings of 'Abdu'l-Bahá and Shoghi Effendi.
Its branches
Essentially none. The provisions for succession were explicit and the faith has stayed unified to a degree almost unmatched among religions of its age; small groups such as the Orthodox Bahá'ís are negligible.
Of note
The Bahá'í Faith is the most recent religion to originate independently and grow to global scale, and it is the only one on this list whose founding programme was explicitly the unification of the world's religions rather than the replacement of them.
Its timeline
- 1844 CE The Báb declares his mission in Shiraz; the Bábí movement spreads rapidly and is violently suppressed, with perhaps 20,000 killed.
- 1850 CE The Báb executed by firing squad in Tabriz at 30.
- 1852 CE Bahá'u'lláh imprisoned in the Síyáh-Chál, the Black Pit, in Tehran, where he reports his first intimation of his mission.
- <strong>1863 CE</strong> He declares himself in the garden of Riḍván outside Baghdad.
- 1868–1892 CE Exiled by the Ottomans to the prison city of Acre, where he writes the bulk of his work and dies in 1892.
- 1892–1921 CE 'Abdu'l-Bahá leads the faith and travels to Europe and North America in 1911–13.
- 1921–1957 CE Shoghi Effendi builds the administrative order.
- 1963 CE The Universal House of Justice first elected.
- <strong>1979–present</strong> Systematic persecution in Iran. More than 200 Bahá'ís executed after the revolution, including the entire elected national assembly twice over; property confiscated; young people barred from university. The community responded by creating the underground Bahá'í Institute for Higher Education, whose teachers have themselves been imprisoned.
- 2018–present Continued arrests in Iran and Yemen; the Lotus Temple in Delhi is among the most visited buildings on earth.
Sources
Not yet checked against named sources. This entry is the house's reading; until it is checked, treat each claim as unverified. Correct it, with a source.