On November 17th, we issued a call for short essays for ideas towards reform and improvement of life in the Middle East. We’re pleased to share below one such essay by one of our readers, Prof. Khalil Khavari. We’re grateful to Prof. Khavari and hope his thoughts would encourage others to contribute to this important [...]

About a year ago, 54 Baha’i youth were arrested in Shiraz, Iran, on charges of serving the poor in dispossessed areas surrounding the city by carrying out social-economic assistance. It was announced that three of them, Raha Sabet, Sasan Taghva and Haleh Rouhi, were sentenced to prison for four years. The remaining youth were sentenced [...]

The Third Committee of the UN General Assembly on Tuesday, 20 November 2007, passed a resolution (A/C.3/62/L.43) condemning Iran’s appalling human rights record. In this resolution, the General Assembly expressed “its very serious concern” at a whole range of egregious human rights violations, including torture, flogging, amputations, public executions, stoning, execution of minors, violent action [...]

The Baha’i Faith in Egypt reports that “Identity Crisis” is now available for download: The documentary film produced by the independent filmmaker, Mr. Ahmed Ezzat, has been just made public for free viewing in its entirety on an internet site. The 34-minutes film, “Identity Crisis: My Religion or My Country,” documents in vivid details the [...]

Earlier today it was learned that Feizollah Roshan [Faydu‘llah Rushan] was imprisoned yesterday in the town of Sari, Iran. He was arrested last November and subject to intense interrogations spanning two months. Eventually, in spring of 2007, he was freed on bail, but had received a sentence of 1-year imprisonment and 4-years of exile. The [...]

We like to invite our readers to share ideas about initiatives that will bring about improvements to quality of life and establishment of peace, happiness and prosperity across the Middle East. There is no other region on earth that has the richness of religious heritage and God-given natural resources as the Middle East. Yet, there [...]

Egypt should end discriminatory practices that prevent Baha’is and others from listing their true religious beliefs on government documents, said Human Rights Watch and the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights in a major report released this week. The 98-page report, titled “Prohibited Identities: State Interference with Religious Freedom,” focused on the problems that have emerged [...]

We first reported on the destruction of the Baha’i Cemetery of Najaf-Abad (just outside of the central town of Isfahan) on a September 17 posting. This was followed with more details on September 21 and October 1 postings. And more recently, on November 2, we shared a write up and pictures of this destruction under [...]

The Baha’i Faith in Egypt blog provides links and summaries from international media outlets that recently reported on what the author considers a “deplorable situation facing the Egyptian Baha’is.” The author also addresses several crucial issues: 1) These cases concern real people whose rights are being violated and who continue to suffer on a daily [...]

Baha’u’llah was born in Tehran, Iran, on November 12, 1817. His given name was Husayn-‘Ali. His father was Mirza Abbas of the province of Nur, and often referred to as Mirza Buzurg. He was a prominent and wealthy man who had been a minister at the court of Fath-’Alí Shah and subsequently the governor of [...]