Baha’is of Iran

          
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          The Baha'is of Iran
          By Martin, Douglas
          September 30, 1983 i Cultural Survival Quarterly I Issue 7.3
          On the night of June 18th, 1983, the Islamic revolutionary
          authorities in Shiraz, Iran, hanged ten women and teenage girls for
          refusal to deny their belief in the Baha'i Faith. For three days
          before their deaths the victims had endured barbarous treatment at
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          Quarterly Details
          Continent: Asia
          Country: Iran
          Issue: Conflict
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          the hands of Shi'ih Muslim clergymen and revolutionary guards who, on June 15th, had
          similarly executed the husbands, father and son of four of them. These new deaths brought to
          160 the number of Baha'is in Iran who have been shot or hanged by the Islamic regime. The
          great majority of the persons executed have been members of the elected local and national
          governing bodies of the Baha'i community, the Spiritual Assemblies. The other victims were
          principally persons who held high rank in the teaching institutions of the Faith or who were
          otherwise prominent in its service. Tens of thousands of Iranian Baha'is have lost homes, jobs,
          pensions, savings and businesses, have seen their shrines and cemeteries desecrated, and their
          children driven from school. The entire community, over 300,000 persons, the largest
          religious minority in Iran, live as pariahs in their own country.
          Initially, it was assumed that these outrages were an integral part of the political upheaval
          which was occurring. It is now generally recognized that political developments in Iran have
          little or no relevance to the subject. Independent forums such as the United Nations Human
          Rights Commission, the national legislatures of several states, the European Parliament, and
          Amnesty International, as well as some of the most respected figures in the journalistic world,
          have repeatedly charged that the attacks on the Iranian Baha'is represent nothing other than a
          systematic campaign of religious persecution.
          Nor is the persecution a recent phenomenon. Virtually from the moment of its inception in
          mid-nineteenth century Iran, this religion has been the object of intense hostility by the Shi'ih
          Muslim clergy and the target of successive waves of attacks against its membership. One of
          the two founders of the Faith, known to his followers as the Bab (the “Door” or “Gate”), was
          executed in 1850 at the urging of Shi'ih clerics, and some 20,000 of the early believers
          perished in massacres also incited by the latter. Over the next seventy years the Baha'i
          community intermittently experienced persecution of one kind or another; a proscribed
          minority, it survived only by keeping a very low profile, and by adhering strictly to the Baha'i
          principle of not engaging in partisan political activity. The Baha'i Faith began in 1844 with the
          announcement of the Bab that his mission was to prepare the way for the Messenger of God
          for this age. Baha'is believe that Baha'u'llah, who announced his own mission in 1863, was
          that Messenger. It was Baha'u'llah who elaborated the teachings of the Faith and founded—the
          Baha'i community. -BP000595
          The mainspring of the hostility to the Baha'i minority has been the Islamic clergy's rejection of
          the idea that there could be a revelation from God after that of Muhammad, who is regarded
          by them as “the last of the Prophets.” This theological objection is immeasurably strengthened
          by ecclesiastical fear of the Baha'i social teachings. Essentially, the new Faith teaches that 3 26
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