The campaign centres around the fact that Iran’s government stops Baha’is from teaching or studying at public universities, so the Baha’i Institute for Higher Education (BIHE) was established in 1987 as an informal university to give young Baha’is a chance to learn. Continue reading
On October 1st, 2014, the Universal House of Justice published a letter to the Baha’is of Iran and the authorised English translation is now available as well.
Since the 1979 Islamic Revolution took place in Iran, the Baha’is there continue to face systematic and institutionalised persecution, which includes execution, imprisonment, harassment and the denial of education. You can read more about the background to the persecution of the Baha’is in Iran here, and you can also read a previous letter from the Universal House of Justice to the Baha’is of Iran dated 2 March, 2013, and some of their other letters and statements here.
For your convenience, we’ve included a copy of the authorized English translation of the 1st October 2014 letter to the Baha’is of Iran in the body of this post below. Continue reading
As most of you know, bahai.org is the official website of the worldwide Baha’i community, and whenever someone asks me what website they should use to find out more about the Baha’i Faith, I always give them the bahai.org address.
bahai.org has just gone through a beautiful redesign with new menu options and catagories to choose from. It’s still in its final stages of testing and development, and you can choose to revert to the old design as well, but the new design is refreshing and straightforward, helping you and your friends easily find out What Baha’is Believe, What Baha’is Do and making the Baha’i Reference Library easily accessible.
Have a look at the new bahai.org site by clicking here.
The design for the local Baha’i House of Worship to be built in the Norte del Cauca region of Colombia was unveiled on Sunday 14 September to an audience of 500 people from the region and other visitors.
The Baha’i World News Service explained that a small team from the Colombian architectural firm, CUNA, presented the approved plans, and Eduard Lopez, one of the architects working on the project, described the process by which the team developed the design for the Temple:
“Mr. Lopez explained that its members spent many hours, over the course of months, visiting different communities and groups in Norte del Cauca, listening to their ideas and thoughts about the House of Worship, coming to understand their aspirations, and participating in their community-building activities.”
The Universal House of Justice has just sent an exciting new letter to the Baha’i world community on August 1st, 2014, about the progress of the seven new Baha’i Houses of Worship scheduled to be built over the next several years.
The Universal House of Justice wrote:
Over two years have elapsed since our announcement at Ridvan 2012 of projects to raise two national and five local Houses of Worship, to be pursued in conjunction with the construction in Santiago, Chile, of the last of the continental Mashriqu’l-Adhkars.
Baha’i Houses of Worship are sometimes referred to as “Baha’i Temples” or by the name of “Mashriqu’l-Adhkar” which in Arabic means “Dawning-place of the remembrances of God”, and there are currently seven Houses of worship in the world today located in the nations of Panama, Uganda, the United States of America, Samoa, Australia, India and Germany, with an eighth one currently under construction in Chile. Continue reading
In a new letter dated July 10, 2014, The Universal House of Justice has called upon the Baha’is of the world to universally adopt the Baha’i calendar — known as the Badi calendar — effective from the upcoming Naw-Ruz.
Rather than paraphrase or quote certain parts of the letter, I’ve decided it would be best to include this significant and exciting new letter below. The letter can also be viewed on the official website of the Universal House of Justice here.
Here is the letter: Continue reading
The U.S. Baha’i Office of Public Affairs has just released a video on the Baha’i International Community’s United Nations Office in New York and its approach to sustainable development.
The Baha’i International Community (BIC) is an international non-governmental organization with offices in New York, Geneva and Brussels, with representation to the UN and the European Union, and affiliates in over 180 countries, which together represent over 5 million members of the Baha’i Faith. Continue reading
Sixty years ago, individual Baha’i volunteers left their jobs and homes and emigrated to distant lands.
They were responding to a call by the head of the Baha’i Faith at the time, Shoghi Effendi, to take the faith into every corner of the globe.
This phenomenon led to the doubling of the number of countries with a Baha’i presence within a decade. It was an astounding event in world religious history.
It had all started the year previously but by 1954 there were still many countries without a Baha’i available to offer local people the world-embracing teachings of their faith.
And so ordinary folk bravely set off, often with little information about their destination and not knowing if they could land a job. Continue reading
The website provides general information about the Universal House of Justice and it also provides selected statements and letters that have been written by, or prepared under its supervision, such as Who Is Writing the Future? and the 2002 Letter to the World’s Religious Leaders. Continue reading
It was three Fasts ago that we first launched Baha’i Blog to the world. With our third birthday right around the corner, we’ve been preparing for a big update to the site’s look and feel. And today we’re very excited to announce it to our community of readers!
Thanks to our relentlessly committed editor Naysan, and our talented group of contributors, we have some of the best Baha’i content on the web. The new design is designed to emphasize that great content. We’ve simplified the interface right down, and put the focus on our articles.
The new site is mobile friendly, providing a beautiful reading experience from your phone or tablet. In the years since we launched Baha’i Blog, mobile reading has really taken off and now represents about 40% of our readership. With the change to a mobile friendly experience we’re aiming to take that number even higher in the months to come. Continue reading