One Hundred and Sixty Years

expanding Baha’i educational institutions in order to appease the Islamic clerics’ opposition to the banning of hijab and other traditional practices. Finally, Chapter Five considers “Anti- Baha’ism during the reign of Muhammad Reza Shah Pahlavi”, recounting incidents of hate propaganda as a joint clergy-State undertaking. This includes a discussion of the falsified evidence of Baha’i collaboration with the Russian Empire and other incidents of incitement to violence that resulted in murders and destruction of Baha’i properties with impunity. The emergence of the Hojjatiye anti-Baha’i movement and the role of eminent clerics such as Ayatollah Boroujerdi and Hojatolislam Falsafi in inciting hatred can also be traced to this period. The development of the conception of Baha’is as unpatriotic and traitorous agents of foreign interests rather than an enlightened and progressive community worthy of equal rights is also discussed in light of Iran’s rapid modernization and nation-building during this period. In short, Part One explains the historic roots and political function of anti-Baha’i scapegoating which was at the foundation of the Islamic Republic’s more virulent persecution after the collapse of the Pahlavi dynasty. Part Two explores the recent history of Baha’i persecution beginning with the establishment of the Islamic Republic in 1979. Chapter One demonstrates that anti-Baha’i hatred and violence was integral to the early policies of the Islamists in the final days of the Shah’s reign, even before they assumed power. Chapter Two traces these early incidents of murder and mob violence to discuss the Baha’is as the first victims of persecution in the newly established Islamic Republic under the Provisional Government of Mehdi Bazargan followed by the administrations of Bani-Sadr and Rajaee. Chapter Three sets forth the enshrinement of anti-Baha’i ideology in the Constitution of the Islamic Republic which systematically deprived them of all human rights solely on account of their religion. Chapter Four recounts the arrest, torture, and execution of