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There is a fundamental doctrinal reason for such enmity. Islam proclaims that Muhammad was the "Seal of the Prophets," God's final messenger to mankind. But the Baha'i faith—an offshoot of Shi'ism, which is itself a minority branch of Islam—asserts that two prophets came after Muhammad. To Muslims this constitutes a new, perverted faith. The first prophet was Mirza 'Ali Muhammad, who declared in 1844 that he was the Bab (gate), the pathway to God. He was executed in 1850 as a heretic. When Persian authorities tried to wipe out his disciples, the Babis fought back; as many as 20,000 were slain.
One of the Babis adopted the name Baha'u'llah (Glory of God) and proclaimed himself the Promised One, or Messiah, in 1863; his followers became known as Baha'is. He replaced the Babis' militant zeal with strict nonviolence. Baha'u'llah spent many of his final years in a Turkish prison or under house arrest near present-day Haifa, Israel. There the Baha'is built his tomb and established their world headquarters. This tenuous connection with Israel further inflames Muslim suspicions.
Baha'is advocate world peace and the unification of all peoples and religions. They respect the Koran and holy books of other faiths. The Baha'is have no clergy class and elect their leaders to limited terms of office. The Baha'is also champion world government and the use of an unspecified universal language. But unity, say members, will come only by worshiping God through Baha'u'llah, the prophet who is his "Manifestation" and who revealed God's message in 100-odd books, which were translated from Arabic and Farsi as the creed spread. The Old Testament messianic predictions and New Testament passages on Christ's second coming are seen as references to Baha'u'llah. In contrast to Islam, the Baha'i faith believes in equal treatment for men and women and teaches that modern science is compatible with true religion.
The policy of peace applies even to current enemies. Vahid Alavian, an engineering teacher at the University of Illinois whose father was tortured and executed in Iran in 1981, seeks to be forgiving toward the anti-Baha'i mobs, although he doubts that the Almighty will be as tolerant. "They are mostly pawns who believe they are working for the elimination of the ungodly from the earth," he says. "But those who plan all this know better, and they will pay a high price before God." —ByRichard N. Ostling. Reported by Raji Samghabadi/New York and Don Winbush/Chicago