Bahá'í
BAHÁ'Í
BAHÁ'Í. The Bahá'í religion developed out of the Bábí movement, which in turn sprang from Shi'ite Islam. Bahá'u'lláh, born in Tehran in 1817, became a Bábí in 1844 (the year the Bábí movement began) and in 1863 announced that he was the divine messenger awaited by the movement. Within a few years virtually all Bábís accepted Bahá'u'lláh's messianic claim, thereby becoming Bahá'ís. Bahá'u'lláh gave his religion shape through fifteen thousand letters and about one hundred essays and books, which form the core of Bahá'í scripture. In them he described the nature of God, revelation, humanity, and physical creation; delineated the path of individual spiritual development, involving prayer, scripture study, fasting, pilgrimage, material sacrifice, and service to humanity; defined the holy days and governing institutions of the Bahá'í community; and described a spiritual civilization in which war would be abolished, humanity would be unified, and all would have access to education, opportunity, and prosperity. Before Bahá'u'lláh died in 1892 he appointed his son, 'Abdu'l-Bahá (1844–1921), as head of the religion.
In 1892 the Bahá'í religion was brought to the United States by Middle Eastern immigrants. The first American, Thornton Chase (1847–1912), converted in 1894 in Chicago; by 1900 there were some 1,500 Bahá'ís in the United States, with the largest communities in Chicago, New York, and Kenosha, Wisconsin. The first Bahá'í temple in the Western world was built in Wilmette, a Chicago suburb, from 1912 to 1953. American Bahá'ís played a major role in taking the religion to Europe (1899), East Asia (1914), South America (1919), Australia (1920), and sub-Saharan Africa (1920). They helped organize many of the earliest Bahá'í local and national "spiritual assemblies" (governing councils); the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá'ís of the United States dates back to 1926, with a predecessor institution dating to 1909. The religion has seen steady membership growth in the United States, from 3,000 in 1936 to 140,000 in 2000. Worldwide in 2000 it had more than 5 million members.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Smith, Peter. The Bábí and Bahá'í Religions: From Messianic Shi'ismto a World Religion. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1987.
Robert Stockman