Baha\'ism, Pahlavi Regime and the Positions of Clerics

By: Ruhollah Husseinian

The Shia clerics have always been fronting with the Baha’ism as a heretic cult. This confrontation can be observed in Pahlavi era much more than the previous era, the Qajars, because of the expansion of this cult in this era. The Shia clerics and followed authorities, have always looked at problems, evidences, people, cults, parties, nations and sects from the view point of religion during the history. The confrontation of clerics and Baha’ism have been occurred during 1940s and 50s by considering the Baha’i attempts in the last years of the first Baha’i century, which resulted in murdering a number of Muslims in Abarqou in 1949, and the vast attempts by Ayatollah Borujerdi against this cult. When Ayatollah Boroujerdi passed away, Pahlavi and Baha’i ties entered a new phase. Approving new laws on behalf of the Baha’is and rising Baha’i elites up to the premiership (Amir Abbass Hoveyda) showed that the previous impediments have been removed. But the opposition of Imam Khomeini to these efforts showed another page of Shia clerics’ confrontation with this cult and in greater view with the Pahlavi regime.