Equality of women and men - a challenge for Bahá’ís in Iran

The Bahá’í community’s international governing council, the Universal House of Justice, has just written another wonderful letter to the Bahá’ís in Iran. The letter is both compassionate and challenging.

Equality of women and men

It calls on the beleaguered Bahá’ís in the land where the Bahá’í Faith originated in the 19th century to help “remove the barriers hindering the progress of women in society” in Iran.

For you, the equality of men and women is not a Western construct but a universal spiritual truth about an aspect of the nature of human beings, promulgated by Bahá’u’lláh nearly one hundred and fifty years ago in His homeland, Iran. It is, above all, a requirement of justice. This principle is consonant with the highest rectitude of conduct, its application strengthens family life, and it is essential to the regeneration and progress of any nation, the peace of the world, and the advancement of civilization.

The House of Justice reminds the Iranian Bahá’ís of their considerable achievements in emancipating women and calls on them to do more to “transcend those cultural practices that impede the progress of women”.

The goal of true equality is not easily attained; the transformation required is difficult for men and women alike. To this end, we warmly encourage you to continue to enhance your understanding of this principle and to strive to uphold it more fully in your families and in your community.

The letter closes by encouraging the Bahá’ís to work with their country-people who aspire to the same universal ideal of equality.

Responding to persecution

This is not the first letter written in recent months by the Universal House of Justice to the Bahá’ís in Iran. The letters remind the Iranian Bahá’ís of their great heritage as a faith community and as being in the forefront of social and economic development in Iran. And they call on the Bahá’ís to rise above the appalling persecution they are suffering and to put their energy and love into doing good for their fellow Iranians - and to work with their compatriots of any faith (or none) in doing so.

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