Destruction of prominent Báhá’í historic sites Turn ON your sound & turn OFF your screen saver. You can just let the slides run automatically after pressing F5 to start, or you can press the right and left cursor keys to change slides. But… you will lose some animation effects (fade, music, etc.) if you advance the slides manually. The very next slide becomes a “cue” slide after it fades into black. You must click mouse or cursor key to start the presentation after the next slide. (Music may start in the black -- BEFORE photos begin. Therefore, press the key only once.) Click mouse or cursor key NOW to continue.

Cue slide. Do not delete it. For public presentations, pause here until you are ready to start the show. (Version 2: Public) The text on this slide will fade into black within a few seconds and then the show will wait for your command. When ready (after fade), click mouse or any other key (only once) to start show. All other black slides are intentional and will advance automatically.

Do not remove this slide. It starts the music.

FOR TWENTY-FIVE YEARS the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran has persecuted the Bahá’ís, a peaceful, law-abiding religious minority.

In the last 25 years, more than two hundred leading Bahá’ís have been put to death, tens of thousands have lost their jobs, tens of thousands more have felt compelled to leave their homeland…

In the last 150 years of systematic persecution more than 20,000 killed.

An Austrian officer, Captain Von Goumoens, in the employ of the Shah at that time, was, it is reliably stated, so horrified at the cruelties he was compelled to witness that he tendered his resignation. "Follow me, my friend," is the Captain's own testimony in a letter he wrote two weeks after the attempt in question, which was published in the "Soldatenfreund," "you who lay claim to a heart and European ethics, follow me to the unhappy ones who, with gouged-out eyes, must eat, on the scene of the deed, without any sauce, their own amputated ears; or whose teeth are torn out with inhuman violence by the hand of the executioner; or whose bare skulls are simply crushed by blows from a hammer; or where the bazaar is illuminated with unhappy victims, because on right and left the people dig deep holes in their breasts and shoulders, and insert burning wicks in the wounds. I saw some dragged in chains through the bazaar, preceded by a military band, in whom these wicks had burned so deep that now the fat flickered convulsively in the wound like a newly extinguished lamp. Not seldom it happens that the unwearying ingenuity of the Oriental leads to fresh tortures. They will skin the soles of the Bábí's feet, soak the wounds in boiling oil, shoe the foot like the hoof of a horse, and compel the victim to run. No cry escaped from the victim's breast; the torment is endured in dark silence by the numbed sensation of the fanatic; now he must run; the body cannot endure what the soul has endured; he falls. (Shoghi Effendi, God Passes By, p. 65) continued next slide…

Give him the coup de grace! Put him out of his pain! No! The executioner swings the whip, and -- I myself have had to witness it -- the unhappy victim of hundredfold tortures runs! This is the beginning of the end. As for the end itself, they hang the scorched and perforated bodies by their hands and feet to a tree head downwards, and now every Persian may try his marksmanship to his heart's content from a fixed but not too proximate distance on the noble quarry placed at his disposal. I saw corpses torn by nearly one hundred and fifty bullets." "When I read over again," he continues, "what I have written, I am overcome by the thought that those who are with you in our dearly beloved Austria may doubt the full truth of the picture, and accuse me of exaggeration. Would to God that I had not lived to see it! But by the duties of my profession I was unhappily often, only too often, a witness of these abominations. At present I never leave my house, in order not to meet with fresh scenes of horror... Since my whole soul revolts against such infamy... I will no longer maintain my connection with the scene of such crimes." Little wonder that a man as far-famed as Renan should, in his "Les Apotres" have characterized the hideous butchery perpetrated in a single day, during the great massacre of Tihran, as "a day perhaps unparalleled in the history of the world!“ (Shoghi Effendi, God Passes By, p. 65)

Mona, a high school girl, taught children classes when Baha’is had been denied access to schools. For this, and because Baha’i meetings had been banned by the government, she was arrested. They told her she could go free if she would but deny her faith. She said a prayer for unity and prosperity of mankind before she was hung. 16 yr. old Mona was executed in 1983.

Bahá’í youth have been denied access to higher education, and retired workers have had their pensions summarily canceled.

In 1991 an official government document signed by Supreme Leader Khamenei spelled out measures aimed at strangling the Bahá’í community.

A photocopy of the 1991 memorandum from the Iranian Supreme Revolutionary Cultural Council on “the Bahá'í question.”

Members of the Iranian army participating in the destruction of the National Bahá'í Center, Teheran, Iran, May 1955.

One of the Bahá'í Cemeteries destroyed, soon after the 1979 revolution in Iran. Many were completely bulldozed.

The hatred of the extremist mullahs for the Bahá’ís is such that they, like the Taliban of Afghanistan who destroyed the towering Buddhist sculptures at Bamiyan, intend not only to eradicate the religion, but even to erase all traces of its existence in the country of its birth.

It was for this reason they demolished the House of the Báb in Shiraz, center of pilgrimage for the Bahá’ís of the world and a gem of the city’s cherished past.

The Bahá’í Faith began here in 1844 with the Báb’s declaration

Destroyed: The House of the Báb in Shiraz one of the holiest shrines in the Bahá'í world

Also: House of the Báb’s maternal uncle, connected to the Báb’s house. (destroyed)

House of the Báb’s maternal uncle, where the Báb was raised.

Room where the Báb was born

Upper room where the Báb declared His Mission

His own house was in a complex of houses belonging to His uncle and other relatives.

Seeds from this orange tree in the Báb’s courtyard have born offspring on Mt. Carmel (in Haifa, Israel).

Resting place of the Báb — martyr Prophet Mt. Carmel, Haifa Israel

Room above courtyard, where the Báb declared His Mission

The upper room

“Enter therein in peace, secure.” (The Báb’s words to Mulla Husayn, to whom He declared His mission)

Stairs leading to the Declaration Chamber

Upper room where the Báb declared His Mission to mankind.

Upper room

His sitting room

His bedchamber

The House of the Báb was demolished by Iranian authorities soon after the Islamic revolution.

The House of the Báb in Shiraz

Destroyed: House of Mirza Buzurg in Takur, Mázindarán Bahá'í holy site

…………………………………………………

Interior of Bahá’u’lláh’s room kept in its original condition

Exterior of Bahá’u’lláh’s room

Interior of room occupied by Abdu’l-Bahá

Exterior of room occupied by Abdu’l-Bahá

Inscription over front door, placed by Bahá’u’lláh’s father

In their determination to rid Iran of the Bahá’í community and obliterate its very memory, the fundamentalists in power are prepared even to destroy the cultural heritage of their own country, which they hold in trust for humankind.

Destroyed: House of Mirza Buzurg in Tehran, Iran Bahá'í holy site

The demolished building was the house of a great nineteenth-century statesman, calligrapher and literary figure, Mirza Abbas Nuri. Although he was born and died a Muslim, his son, Bahá’u’lláh, founded the Bahá’í Faith.

In June, 2004, a wrecking crew descended upon a historical monument, a precious example of Islamic-Iranian architecture, “a matchless model of art, spirituality, and architecture.” “How is it,” a brave Tehran newspaper article asked, “that in the middle of the day... The very essence of our cultural heritage is being destroyed?”

Destroyed: Sacred Gravesite of Quddus, prominent apostle of the Faith. Destroyed in April, 2004, by the Islamic Clergy in Iran

“The destruction and desecration of this holy place were carried out with the knowledge of the national government to which appeals had been made beforehand.”

The house-like structure marked the resting place of Mulla Muhammad-'Ali Barfurushi, known as Quddus (The Most Holy). Quddus was the foremost disciple of the Bab, Prophet-Herald of the Faith. "It would be the least that the Government could do at this point to return to the Baha'i community his sacred remains." Stated by Bani Dugal, the principal representative of the Bahá'í International Community to the United Nations.

Baha’i House of Worship in Ashkabad, Turkmenistan Cornerstone laid: December 2, 1902 Completed: 1908 Seized by government: June, 1928 Damaged by an earthquake: 1948 Demolished by government: 1962 Source:

“In the East the light of His Revelation hath broken; in the West have appeared the signs of His dominion. Ponder this in your hearts, O people, and be not of those who have turned a deaf ear to the admonitions of Him Who is the Almighty, the All-Praised... Should they attempt to conceal its light on the continent, it will assuredly rear its head in the midmost heart of the ocean, and, raising its voice, proclaim: ‘I am the life-giver of the world!’” Bahá'u'lláh

Samoa — Pacific Ocean

Australia

Panama

Uganda

Chile

Europe

North America

India

Baha’i World Center — Haifa, IsraelHaifa, Israel The Holy Land

“Today the light of Truth is shining upon the world in its abundance; the breezes of the heavenly garden are blowing throughout all regions; the call of the Kingdom is heard in all lands, and the breath of the Holy Spirit is felt in all hearts that are faithful.”

Produced by Greg Kagira-Watson For more information contact: Or click here>>