History

The Baha’i religion actually derives from another one, the Babis. The Babis are the followers of Siyyid Ali-Muhammad of Shiraz, Iran, who in 1844 proclaimed to be the “Bab” (which means the “Gate” in Arabic). The writing of the Bab introduced the concept of “He whom God shall make manifest” the one meant to unit all word’s great religion. In 1863, one of the Bab’s follower, Husayn `Alí of Nur, claimed to be this messiah, and took the name of Bahá'u'lláh. The baha’I religion was born.

Baha’u’llah and his followers were quickly persecuted and still are in some parts of the world. According to the Wikipedia encyclopedia, only in Iran, “200 believers were executed between 1978 and 1998. Bahá'ís have been banned from attending university and holding government jobs since the Islamic Revolution of 1979, and many Bahá'ís were imprisoned during the early 1980's. Bahá'í cemeteries have been desecrated and property seized and occasionally demolished including the House of Mírzá Burzurg, Bahá'u'lláh's father. The House of the Báb in Shiraz has been destroyed twice, and is one of three sites to which Bahá'ís perform pilgrimage. As of mid-2005, arrests and persecutions of Bahá'ís by the Iranian government have continued.”