The Conversion of Religious Minorities
to the Bahá'í Faith in Iran

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The Armenian situation was similar in many respects. Although an urban minority, they were not subject to all the disabilities suffered by Jews and Zoroastrians. The Armenians had been forcibly settled in New Julfa in the early part of the seventeenth century as a result of Shah Abbas' policy of depopulating the border areas between Persia and the Ottoman Empire. Shah Abbas greatly admired the craftsmanship and merchant abilities of his Armenian subjects, and so he settled them next to the Safavid capital, Isfahan, in hopes that their activities would stimulate the Persian economy. Like Armenians elsewhere in the Middle East, they played an intermediary role between Europe and the Muslim world, both in trade and ideology. Yet, as the fortunes of the Safavid dynasty waned, so did the privileged position of the Armenians. They frequently became scapegoats and were subjected to persecutions and heavy taxation. The decline of the silk trade added to their misfortunes. Still, the high level of education, culture, and ethnic pride that they attained during the Safavid period carried over into the nineteenth century. With an ingrained sense of superiority over other Persians, Armenians jealously guarded their language and culture. Often they knew only enough Persian to engage in their trade relations. Like Assyrians, Armenians could look to the West for political protection and for models of reform. 

Persecution and Shí'í Paradigms
Through the centuries, Jews and Zoroastrians in Iran had few contacts with their co-religionists outside the country and lived in closer contact with the Muslim majority. Because of this, the identity of Jews and Zoroastrians and the boundaries that distinguished their communities from others were determined by their relationship with the Shí'í Muslims. As anthropologist Judith Goldstein discovered in her study of religious groups in Yazd, Muslims and minorities "use similar forms from what can be seen to be one cultural repertoire to define themselves as different and as mutually exclusive" (Interwoven Identities 44). The cultural repertoire from which their distinctive identity was drawn was largely determined by the categories established by the Shí'í majority.

Among the values which Jews and Zoroastrians adopted from Shí'í Muslims was the attitude they held towards suffering, persecution, and oppression. The Shí'ís perceived of themselves as dispossessed. They maintained that selfperception despite their dominance in Iran by representing the meaning of their sacred history in terms of the sufferings endured by Muhammad's descendants, the Imams, at the hands of the oppressive Sunni state. The Shí'í rejected the triumphalism sometimes associated with Sunni Islam and instead regarded persecution in the path of God as an indication of legitimacy. The Jews and Zoroastrians found this motif uniquely suited to their own situation and came to interpret their own sacred history in similar terms, for if suffering and persecution lent legitimacy to a religion, then their own legitimacy was proven. But, by the same token, the Bahá'ís could be seen as even more legitimate. No single factor proved more impressive to those who converted than the persecution that Bahá'ís endured at the hands of Muslims. The reply given by Mulla Bahram, one of the first Bahá'ís of Zoroastrian background, to a mulla who asked by what proof Mulla Bahram had accepted the Bahá'í revelation indicates to what extent Zoroastrians had accepted Muslim paradigms. Mulla Bahram told the mulla:

The proof of the truth of Zoroaster is that this man arose to make his claun and the Zend and the Avesta which contains divine laws were revealed to him. When he arose for the propagation of his religion a group came under the shadow of his word, in the propagation of which pure blood was spilt and luminous souls were sacdficed. Acceptance of such trials and difficulties in the path of religion is proof of its truth. Knowing these things, I was confirmed in the Zoroastrian religion. These same proofs I had accepted for Zoroastrianism I saw demonstrated with my own eyes in this blessed Cause. For holy souls to sacrifice their very lives is the greatest act in the world, and this miracle is higher than all miracles and this reason stronger than all reasons. (Sulaymani, Masabih-i 4:412-16) 

Mulla Bahram's self-understanding of his conversion is not an untypical one for Iranian Bahá'ís. He clairns that the Bahá'í religion confirrns the beliefs he held prior to becoming a Bahá'í. Yet the proofs he adduces to support this are not Zoroastrian in origin but rather are drawn from Shí'í paradigms. A prophet arises, he makes a claim, reveals a book, and is received by those pure ones willing to suffer in the path of God.

Eschatology
Iran may be considered the birthplace of eschatology, which arose first in Zoroastrianism and later influenced Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. The Bahá'í Faith grew out of the millennial expectations of the Shí'í Muslims of the nineteenth century who awaited the coming of the Hidden Imam. The conversion narratives I have studied suggest that those Jews and Zoroastrians who became Bahá'ís had, before their conversion, diligently searched through their respective scriptures for signs of the advent of the promised one. Eschatology provided one of the primary bridges between the Bahá'ís and those of other comrnunities. Bahá'u'lláh was consistently presented as the fulfilment of all the apocalyptic prophecies. Virtually all Bahá'í literature written by the Jewish and Zoroastrian converts revolves around this theme.^l1

In Hamadan, where Bahá'ís and Presbyterian missionaries vied for the Jewish community, both groups endeavored to present their respective founder as the Messiah. Organized debates on biblical prophesy took place between Jewish Bahá'ís and the missionaries. Missionaries used the fundamentalist methodology of the Princeton theology, while Bahá'ís relied more on rabbinical exegesis.^l2 In the end, the Bahá'í claim was probably more persuasive because it presented less cultural dissonance than did Western Christianity.

For Bahá'ís of Zoroastrian background, Bahá'u'lláh was considered Shah Bahram, an apocalyptic figure who had been the focus of Zoroastrian hopes for a restoration of their religion after the Arab invasions. Great use was made of Bahá'u'lláh's genealogy, which traced his descent from Yazdigird III, last of the Sassanian monarchs. When Bahá'u'lláh wrote to Zoroastrians, he used pure Persian with no admixture of Arabic words (Stiles, "Early Zoroastrian").

By presenting the Bahá'í Faith as the culmination of all religious traditions, Bahá'ís were able effectively to present their religion to minorities, both as an affirmation of their own past as well as a new possibility for facing the future. But this tool could only be effective to those whose hopes lay in a radical change. For Christians in Iran hope lay in the extension of European hegemony, not in the Second Coming.

Unlike Jews and Zoroastrians, Bahá'ís had a few contacts among the Christians outside of the context of the Protestant missions. The Bahá'ís could not speak their language, and those Christians who knew Persian often had the strongest identification with the West, were the most secularized, and generally were uninterested in religion.

Conclusion
The major factors that distinguished Jews and Zoroastrians from native Christians were the nature of their association with the Muslim majority and the extent to which their identities were intertwined with that of the Muslims. The fact that Christians maintained a distinct language from other Iranians and rarely learned Persian meant they were able to maintain an identity apart from Muslim paradigms and to isolate themselves from other influences. The only such influences that were welcomed were those emanating from the West.

Jews and Zoroastrians viewed themselves as Persians and drew their identity from within the Iranian context. In contrast, the Christians saw themselves as Armenians or Assyrians first and identified strongly with the West. For Iranians, persecution lent legitimacy to a religion. Christians assumed the triumphal posture of their Western co-religionists who assumed the religion of that culture which now dominated the world was the righteous one. Jews and Zoroastrians drew their poor self-image from the attitudes of Muslim Iranians. The Christians derived a much more positive image from sources outside of Iran. When Jews, through the influence of European Jewry, began to identify themselves with the West as well, the incidence of conversion slowed considerably.

The despised and poor economic position of Jews and Zoroastrians did not cause their conversions. Rather, conversions occurred as conditions were gready improving. With social and economic progress, new self-perceptions and ideologies were needed. When the old religion failed to keep pace with the changing circumstances, many embraced the religion that best allowed them to progress into the future while affirming their past with the least amount of dissonance.

This study has examined the manner in which the Bahá'í Faith began to leave its Islamic context and appeal to those outside the Muslim fold. In attracting Jews and Zoroastrians, the Bahá'í Faith succeeded in divorcing itself from Islamic particularism but not Persian culture. This latter step would only be achieved in the twentieth century when the Bahá'í Faith left its Iranian homeland and found acceptance in the West.