9789042911093 / 9042911093

Starting with an assassination attempt on the life of the Shah, the restoration of Dutch-Iranian trade relations, and the first Dutch eyewitness accounts on the emergence of the Baha'i religion in 19th-century Iran, this study presents a detailed and illustrated description of the introduction of a new religious identity in a Western country. Being one of the very few successful, international and independent new religious movements of the last two centuries the Baha'i Faith offers the student of comparative religion - in the words of the British orientalist Edward G. Browne - a unique opportunity to 'examine by the light of concurrent and independent testimony one of those strange outbursts of enthusiasm, faith, fervent devotion, and indomitable heroism - or fanaticism, if you will - which we are accustomed to associate with the earlier history of the human race; he may witness, in a word, the birth of a faith which may not impossibly win a place amidst the great religions of the world.' The Babi Question You Mentioned... has seized that opportunity