| The Bahá'í Faith was founded in 1863 by Bahá'u'lláh (an Arabic title which means
"The Glory of God"), a member of the Persian nobility who suffered a lifetime of
exile and imprisonment for His claim to be the bearer of a divine revelation.
Bahá'u'lláh was ultimately exiled to the prison city of 'Akká in Palestine, in the
environs of which He passed away in 1892. Through a written testament, direction of the
affairs of His Faith passed to His son, 'Abdu'l-Bahá (1844-1921), and then to His
great-grandson, Shoghi Effendi (1896-1957). Today the Bahá'í community is administered
by democratically elected, consultative bodies at the local, national and international
levels. There are no clergy in the Bahá'í Faith; all decision-making power devolves upon
the elected assemblies. The early Bahá'í community survived intense persecution in its Iranian homeland (which continues to this day) to spread worldwide, where, a century and a half after its inception, it claims some six million adherents in 188 countries, and according to the Encyclopedia Britannica is second only in geographic spread to Christianity. Embracing people from more than 2,100 ethnic, racial and tribal groups, it is quite likely the most diverse organized body of people on the planet. |
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