One Hundred and Sixty Years

P R E F A C E Throughout contemporary Iranian history, the followers of the Baha’i religion in Iran have been the victims of persecution. Beginning with the pogroms of the nineteenth century under the Qajar dynasty, continuing with more subtle discrimination during the Pahlavi dynasty, and consummating in the attempt of the Islamic Republic to eradicate this community, Baha’is have been a constant scapegoat, the subject of hatred based on false accusations of disloyalty to Iran and Islam, and imaginary conspiracies linking them to everything from Russian and British Imperialism to American and Israeli dominance, and most recently, the source of sedition in the “anti-revolutionary” Green Movement of 2009. The pages of Keyhan and other Government newspapers and sites are disproportionately filled with slanderous allegations and those deemed to be enemies of the Islamic Republic, ranging from Shirin Ebadi, the renowned human rights lawyer to Hadi Khorsandi, satirical political writer are either accused of being Baha’is or having close relations with this community. In short, in the eyes of the current leadership of Iran, to belong to the Baha’i community is to belong to a criminal conspiracy. In recent years, with the gradual transformation of social consciousness in the Iranian community, many scholars and commentators and emerging leaders have come to question the demonized historical portrayal of Baha’is and called for their equal rights as fellow citizens of Iran. An important consideration always is to discover a truthful account of the history and teachings of the