The recent arrest and imprisonment of Bahá’í leaders in Iran is disconcerting and further underscores the plight of the believers in the Cradle of the Faith. Such news causes pain in the hearts of the believers around globe given the history and increased up tick of persecution against the Iranian Bahá’í community. The Bahá’í Faith aims to eliminate such acts of religious persecution and teaches the unity of humankind. In fact, Bahá’u’lláh states:
That which the Lord hath ordained as the sovereign remedy and mightiest instrument for the healing of all the world is the union of all its peoples in one universal Cause, one common Faith.
Such treatment of Bahá’ís who’s teaching promote standards which are the very antithesis to the actions visited upon them is perhaps the most disheartening aspect of this recent news. However, solace can be found in the writings of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá:
Indeed, the attacks and the obstructiveness of the ignorant but cause the Word of God to be exalted, and spread His signs and tokens far and wide. Were it not for this opposition by the disdainful, this obduracy of the slanderers, this shouting from the pulpits, this crying and wailing of great and small alike, these accusations of unbelief levelled by the ignorant, this uproar from the foolish—how could news of the advent of the Primal Point and the bright dawning of the Day-Star of Bahá ever have reached to east and west? How else could the planet have been rocked from pole to pole?…All these blessings and bestowals, the very means of proclaiming the Faith, have come about through the scorn of the ignorant, the opposition of the foolish, the stubbornness of the dull-witted, the violence of the aggressor. Had it not been for these things, the news of the Báb’s advent would not, to this day, have reached even into lands hard by. Wherefore we should never grieve over the blindness of the unwitting, the attacks of the foolish, the hostility of the low and base, the heedlessness of the divines, the charges of infidelity brought against us by the empty of mind.
All around the globe at this time Bahá’ís are engaged in teaching efforts to spread the message of unity as delivered by Bahá’u’lláh and to proclaim his name. Shortly after news of the arrests were publicized on the Bahá’í News Service, the story was published on CNN’s world news page, reaching untold numbers of readers and acquainting them with the purpose of the Faith, augmenting the activity of Bahá’í teaching worldwide. While there is much cause for sorrow in the recent reported events, we must console ourselves that there is much for which to be thankful in these episodes as well.