The Bahais / Babis-Why were they persecuted

Becuase they're viewed as heretics (particualarly in Shiism, I can't remmber the deatils though).  They teach that Baha'ullah, their 19th century prophet was the messiah.  You can get more details from google on them.

We have a grand Bahai temple in India.

The Bahai began as a messianic movement within Shi'ism in the Safawid state, and eventually grew into its own religion. They consider their religion to be the summation of all previous religious traditions perfected for the modern age. They were exiled into the Ottoman state where their leader was eventually executed as a heretic and rebel against the state in the province of Palestine.

Originally posted by Omar There are two streams of thoughts on Bahais, either they are heretics, or they are muslims

Neither Bahai themselves nor any branch of the Muslims consider them to be Muslims, this is perhaps a misconception which exists due to the fact their beginnings were within Shi'a Islam.

Bahaism is clearly a genuine religion indigenous to the area.

Why do you believe it is genuinely indigenous? It only began around the time that Western colonial interest in the region began, so I think there's clearly a good case for the claim it's a British invention.

actaully thanks for the clarification.

 though i did question that story, whom am i, to question an old iranian about his country

Why would the British need such an invention?    The British had colonies all over the world without resorting to creating new religons to facilitate colonization.

Most other British colonies didn't face much of a threat from local inhabitants. Only those in Islamic lands, so there was no need for instance to create a deviant version of the dreamtime in Australia, as the Aborigines there posed next to no threat at all.

This is because most lands the British colonised didn't have very advanced populations, with ideologies and civilisations of their own, which would allow them to rise up with ideas of resisting and reversing the occupation.

It would have been far easier to simply favor existing religous minorities in Iran.  (Christians, Sunni Moslems, Zorastarians etc).

Christians were nowhere near big enough a minority for this to be feasible, and besides Muslims would never adopt Christianity (as we consider to be paganism).

Sunni Muslims are the vast majority in the Muslim lands, Shi'a only make up about 10% of the population overall. You must remember in this time, there was no Iran, it was part of the Safawi empire, which bordered both the Ottoman empire and the British ruled Indian sub-continent. So one of these heresies arose in India and another next door in Safawi Persia. Backing the Sunni Muslims would be the last thing Britain would have been doing. Her mission was to corrupt and neutralise the Sunni Muslims (as they are 90% of all Muslims).

Also, the Bahai Faith has survived well after British Colonial interest in the region ended.  Why would it not have collapsed once British support was withdrawn?

Amongst hippies and few native Persians only. Very few other people have bothered with this breakaway religion, it is as good as dead.



Edited by Qutuz - 22-Oct-2006 at 10:16

Originally posted by Cryptic Are you sure that Moslems view Christians as pagans?  This appears to be in contrast the the concept of  "Peoples of the Book".

(qutuz wrote)

Sunni Muslims are the vast majority in the Muslim lands, Shi'a only make up about 10% of the population overall. You must remember in this time, there was no Iran, it was part of the Safawi empire,





Baha'i faith was founded in Qajar times ( 1856 ) not safavid era


Edited by sirius99 - 23-Oct-2006 at 16:12

Cryptic,

No chance that many believers are Native Persions is because Bahai Faith is a native religion of Iran?

The fact that a few natives adopted it doesn't therefore make it native in the sense that it is "home grown". It could still be an invention of the British.

The British colonized Moslems in Egypt, Sudan, Jordan, Palestine,  India/Pakistan/Bangladesh, Sub Sahara Africa, and Malaysia

I'm sure we're quite aware not that one of our lands was spared their ravaging occupation.

Are you sure that Moslems view Christians as pagans?  This appears to be in contrast the the concept of  "Peoples of the Book"

Christians are officially afforded the status of "Ahl al-Kitab" (People of the book), but those for instant who actually worship Jesus (pbuh) as God would most definitely be considered mushrikin (pagans). In the time of the revelation of the Qur'an there still existed a schism in Christianity between monotheists and tritheists, this was known as Arianism. Also a lot of the Christians of the Middle East did not adopt the Nicean creed, but instead were closer to monotheism in their beliefs.

But as far as the standard view of the Catholic, Orthodox & most Protestant denominations go, most of them would be classed as mushrikin. The condition of them being granted Ahl al-Kitab status and not being classed as mushrikin is that they do not take a piece of the creation as their object of worship, and claim something else is God, beside God himself alone.

This is not dissimilar to the injunctions in the Qur'an which permit Muslims to eat the meat of Ahl al-Kitab saying it is Halal (permissable, clean) for us.  This applies to those Christians who used to slaughter their meat according to the rites mentioned in their books (ie. Kosher), but for the vast majority of Christians today, no such concept exists, and their meat is not Halal for us. They only fall under these categories whilst they fulfil the conditions for that category.

Originally posted by Qutuz Christians are officially afforded the status of "Ahl al-Kitab" (People of the book), but those for instant who actually worship Jesus (pbuh) as God would most definitely be considered mushrikin (pagans).

Yes, that is all Christians.  Even the non Nicean Coptic, Armenian and Ethiopian Churches are included.    

Edited by Cryptic - 23-Oct-2006 at 10:42