Islam & minorities
The case of the Bahais

Christopher Buck
June 28, 2005
iranian.com

Of all religious minorities in the Middle East, Bahais are typically the least able to practice their religion freely. With several notable exceptions, the current situation throughout the modern Middle East and in Muslim countries generally is that Bahais cannot openly promote their faith.

However, the governments of Pakistan and Bangladesh allow the Bahais to hold public meetings, publicly teach the Faith, establish Bahai centers, as well as elect Bahai administrative councils (known as local and national “spiritual assemblies”). In Pakistan, moreover, government officials have occasionally attended events at Bahai centers. And in Indonesia, after several decades of quiet growth, the Faith is now legally recognized and its adherents free to elect spiritual assemblies (Bahai
councils).

In Turkey, the Bahai Faith has been legal for decades. The Bahai community enjoys legal status in Albania and in most Central Asian nations as well. Over the past few years, a groundswell of articles and dialogue on this subject has appeared. Persian-language media in the United States have begun to openly talk about the plight of the Bahais in Iran, with some predicting that, in Iran’s future civil society, even the Bahais must be given freedom of religion. Moreover, several non-Bahai Iranian academics are beginning to speak out about the conspiracy of silence against the Faith.

Evidence, in the form of listener feedback, indicates that a wide-ranging audience in Iran is listening to daily Persian-language Bahai shortwave and satellite broadcasts.1 Speaking out on the state of affairs with respect to governments that have implemented anti-Bahai measures, however, is sensitive and has to be approached with a certain degree of delicacy.

To criticize an Islamic state in which a small Bahai enclave exists could literally imperil that community. What freedom of religion they may enjoy is precarious. At best, Bahais continue to lead a virtually clandestine existence. At worst, in those extreme cases in which its institutions were proscribed by law, Bahais have simply dissolved their elected administrative councils in keeping with the Bahai principles of loyalty to “just governments” and compliance with the rule of law.

Since Bahais are forbidden to act against their respective governments in any way, it is imprudent -- even dangerous -- to inventory the situation country by country. The Islamic Republic of Iran is a special case, however, because its anti-Bahai policies are notorious and have been openly condemned by the international community for nearly a quarter of a century. This notoriety has, like the Salman Rushdie affair, resulted in much negative press for both Iran as a country and, more unfortunately, for Islam as a religion, even though Iran’s practice of Islam is peculiar to its own form of Shi‘ism.

This paper will argue that “the Bahai question” raises serious questions in the West over just how“ tolerant” Islam really is. One may say that popular perceptions of Islam will increasingly be shaped by how Muslim countries treat their minorities, especially religious minorities. The Bahai case, with the possible exception of the Ahmadiyyah in Pakistan, is the premier test case of Islamic claims to religious tolerance >>> Full text English -- Persian

About
Christopher Buck teaches in the Department of Religious Studies, the Department of Writing, Rhetoric and American Cultures, and the Center for Integrative Studies in the Arts and Humanities at Michigan State University.