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Iran
Non-Muslim Minorities
Bahais
The largest non-Muslim minority in Iran is the Bahais. There
were an estimated 350,000 Bahais in Iran in 1986 (see table 4,
Appendix). The Bahais are scattered in small communities throughout
Iran with a heavy concentration in Tehran. Most Bahais are urban,
but there are some Bahai villages, especially in Fars and Mazandaran.
The majority of Bahais are Persians, but there is a significant
minority of Azarbaijani Bahais, and there are even a few among
the Kurds.
Bahaism is a religion that originated in Iran during the 1840s
as a reformist movement within Shia Islam. Initially it attracted
a wide following among Shia clergy and others dissatisfied with
society. The political and religious authorities joined to suppress
the movement, and since that time the hostility of the Shia clergy
to Bahaism has remained intense. In the latter half of the nineteenth
century, the Bahai leader fled to Ottoman Palestine--roughly present-day
Israel--where he and his successors continued to elaborate Bahai
doctrines by incorporating beliefs from other world religions.
By the early twentieth century, Bahaism had evolved into a new
religion that stressed the brotherhood of all peoples, equality
of the sexes, and pacifism.
The Shia clergy, as well as many Iranians, have continued to
regard Bahais as heretics from Islam. Consequently, Bahais have
encountered much prejudice and have sometimes been the objects
of persecution. The situation of the Bahais improved under the
Pahlavi shahs when the government actively sought to secularize
public life. Bahais were permitted to hold government posts (despite
a constitutional prohibition) and allowed to open their own schools,
and many were successful in business and the professions. Their
position was drastically altered after 1979. The Islamic Republic
did not recognize the Bahais as a religious minority, and the
sect has been officially persecuted. More than 700 of their religious
leaders were arrested, and several of them were executed for apostasy;
their schools were closed; their communal property was confiscated;
they were prohibited from holding any government employment; and
they were not issued identity cards. In addition, security forces
failed to protect Bahais and their property from attacks by mobs.
Data as of December 1987
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