# Bahá'í Faith The youngest of the world religions tracked in this folder — a monotheistic Abrahamic religion founded in 19th-century Persia by Bahá'u'lláh (1817–1892), centered on the principles of the unity of God, the unity of religion (all major prophets including Abraham, Moses, Buddha, Jesus, Muhammad, and Bahá'u'lláh as successive divine teachers), and the unity of humanity. The Bahá'í Faith teaches the abolition of all prejudice, the equality of women and men, universal education, the harmony of science and religion, and the establishment of a global federation as the foundation of lasting peace. With roughly 5–8 million adherents (estimates vary), it is small but globally distributed — present in nearly every country and recognized as the most geographically diffuse religion after Christianity by some measures. The religion is persecuted in Iran (where Bahá'ís are the largest non-Muslim religious minority and are subject to systematic state discrimination), which makes the persecution of Iranian Bahá'ís a recurring object of US foreign-policy reference. ## Founding and core beliefs The religion emerged from the Bábí movement in 19th-century Persia. The Báb (Siyyid `Alí Muḥammad Shírází, 1819–1850) declared himself in 1844 to be the gate (*báb*) to a forthcoming greater divine teacher; he was executed by Persian authorities in 1850 after his movement was suppressed. Bahá'u'lláh, an early follower of the Báb, declared in 1863 that he was the divine teacher the Báb had foretold. He spent the rest of his life in successive exiles — Baghdad, Constantinople, Adrianople, finally the Ottoman penal colony at Akka (in modern Israel) — composing the sacred texts that constitute the Bahá'í scriptural corpus. His son 'Abdu'l-Bahá (1844–1921) and great-grandson Shoghi Effendi (1897–1957) led the community after his death and structured its global institutional life. Core teachings: progressive revelation (all major religions are stages of one divine plan); the unity of humanity (all races, nations, classes are one family); the equality of women and men; the elimination of extreme wealth and poverty; the harmony of science and religion; a universal auxiliary language; world federation as the foundation of peace; the abolition of priesthood (the religion has no clergy — local communities are governed by elected nine-member Spiritual Assemblies). Practices include daily obligatory prayer, the annual Nineteen-Day Feast, the Nineteen-Day Fast (sunrise-to-sunset fast during the Bahá'í month of `Alá', March 2–20), pilgrimage to the Bahá'í World Centre in Haifa, Israel (where the Shrines of the Báb and Bahá'u'lláh are located). ## Major divisions The Bahá'í Faith is institutionally unified to a degree unusual among major religions. The Universal House of Justice — elected every five years and headquartered in Haifa — serves as the supreme governing body. Small breakaway groups (Orthodox Bahá'í Faith, BUPC, Bahá'ís Under the Provisions of the Covenant) exist but are very small relative to the mainstream community. ## Demographic footprint ~5–8 million adherents globally (estimates from Bahá'í community sources skew higher; independent estimates skew lower). Most concentrated in: India, the United States, Iran (despite persecution), Kenya, Bolivia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Zambia, Vietnam, and many other countries. The US Bahá'í community is roughly 175,000 adherents. ## Right-wing politics tributaries The Bahá'í Faith has minimal direct US right-wing political footprint, but appears in two contexts: **Iran persecution as US foreign-policy reference point.** The Iranian government's systematic persecution of Bahá'ís — denial of higher education, arbitrary arrest, property confiscation, occasional executions — is a recurring object of US bipartisan human-rights advocacy and a frequent reference in US right-wing Iran-policy framing. The US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) and the State Department's annual religious-freedom reports document Bahá'í persecution as a major Iranian human-rights issue. **As model for "universal religion."** The Bahá'í commitment to the unity of all religions and to universal world governance sits awkwardly with US right-wing political theology, which generally emphasizes the particular truth claims of specific religious traditions. The Bahá'í Faith is occasionally referenced by US right-wing critics as an example of "globalist" religion to be opposed — though the engagement is rarely sustained or substantive. ## See also - [[Islam]] — the religious context out of which the Bahá'í Faith emerged; Iranian Islamic authorities have consistently treated Bahá'ís as apostates rather than as a separate religious community - [[Judaism]] · [[Christianity]] — sibling Abrahamic religions explicitly recognized in Bahá'í doctrine of progressive revelation