How can a community as significant as the Baha’is in Iran be absent from histories of their own country? Prejudice on the part of Iranian scholars? Ignorance on the part of Iranian historians? An unwillingness in an Islamic country to acknowledge a faith community’s part in helping to develop a modernize Iran in the late 19th century and early 20th century just because that community’s religion is post-Islamic?

Last night the UK Baha’i community’s Office of External Affairs hosted the launch of a pioneering academic book that starts to set this omission right. The Baha’is of Iran: Socio-Historical Studies, edited by two UK Baha’is, Dr Dominic Brookshaw and Dr Seena Fazel and published by Routledge.

Central to this study is the pioneering character of the Baha’i community in the late 19th and early 20th century, with chapters examining the role of women in the Baha’i community; the impact of Baha’i-run schools on Iranian society, Baha’i contributions to public health initiatives; and the influence of Baha’i thought and the actions of individual Baha’is on the Constitutional Revolution of 1906-1911.

Conversion to the Baha’i Faith is another important theme, as contributors investigate the phenomenon of large scale conversion to the Baha’i Faith from the Jewish and Zoroastrian communities.

Finally, although persecution of the Baha’is has drawn the attention of the Western media, until now few scholars working in the field of Iranian studies have chosen to write on the history or details of this persecution. Here, five prominent figures in the field redress this balance and look at different aspects of this persecution, including its historical background, the attitude of secular Iranians, persecution before and after the Islamic Revolution of 1979, and human rights perspectives.

This is an important volume, particularly at a time when the Iranian Baha’i community faces increasing persecution from the Iranian regime and threats of worse to come should the Iranian parliament pass a new law that will mandate the death penalty for those who convert from Islam to another religion, not to mention a slew of other gross human rights violations that would become legal, should this penal code become law.

You can read about Iran’s draft penal code here.

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