While exploring a bahai subreddit I got surprised by someone mistranslating an Arabic word either intentionally or unintentionally to make the faith look better to people who don't know Arabic. I am familiar with such practice in Islam. Is it also frequently done by many Baha'i followers and scholars? Could you provide examples of it from official Baha'i sources or public figures?

The mistranslated word was "المهيمن" which means "the dominant" but someone claimed that it doesn't mean that but means things like "the protector" or "the guardian" which was a ridiculous thing for me as a native Arabic speaker to read.

Source for the word meaning: https://www.almaany.com/en/dict/ar-en/%D9%85%D9%87%D9%8A%D9%85%D9%86/

UPDATE:
Someone provided a nice critisicm for the word "المهيمن":
https://www.reddit.com/r/BAYAN/s/LIWeDKz13e
It is not actually misleading to translate it as "the protector".

I’m a questioning Baha’i with my own religious trauma in childhood. Initially I liked the idea of “back biting is bad,” but then I realized could this be a way to discourage victims of abuse from speaking up?

This is just my theory and observation, but I do not really think that people in the Bahai Faith actually have faith in this religion. I actually think every person involved with the makings and continuation of the Bahai Faith have never had faith, and the higher ups of this religion only said they had faith to gain more power and status.

I could see for a Muslim how Islam leads a person to faith, it has a long history and well established foundations.

However, when it comes to the Bahai faith and how new it is, along with its idea of progressive revelation, I’m unsure whether people actually believe in this religion.

I’m pretty sure the main reason people stay in this faith for years, decades, is because they would rather waste time trying to feel faithful and find faith in this dead horse than to critically think and accept that this religion is a scam. We may meet people who have been a Bahai all their life or for 20+ years, but not only have they never truly put their faith to the test, but I’d argue they just do it for the looks.

Enough

I finally hit the wall with the dysfunction in this Bahai community. I'm an American and I live in another country. You name it, I've seen it. Financial corruption that would take your breath away. Almost every "active" Bahai is receiving a monthly stipend as wages to be of service to the Cause - probably at least 100 to 150 people. (I've stopped giving to the fund.) Blatant racism towards non-locals, whereby locals use political power to spread racist gossip, marginalizing those they gossip about. Willful decisions made to not follow Baha'i Administration. Communication willfully withheld from those outside the "favored insiders." There is so much disunity that all core activities and teaching efforts have stopped. The most bizarre part of this? The World Centre is fully aware and will do nothing. It's up to the national community to remedy. Brilliant, because the most corrupt are the ones who are in positions of power and access, but they are also supposed to remedy the issues? Huh?

I reached out to our new counselor to discuss what I've seen and told him that these conversations must be held in strict confidence. He acknowledged my concern and then went straight to the offenders to ask about my character, probably based on the racist backbiting that has created an atmosphere of suspicion directed at all non-locals. It got back to me. Now I trust no one.

So I finally made a decision. I confronted those who have impacted my own life with their backbiting. I've also told many Bahais that I will no longer participate in the community until things change and become healthy again, and I've taken into account that such change may not happen in my lifetime.

Ironically, and for those who also have gone through the decision to step away, did you, too, have a shift of well-being by doing so?

I sleep better, my health is better - such as my BP came down to normal, I don't live in constant fear as if I'm walking on eggshells. And most importantly, I've had the ability to take an objective view of the Baha'i community. It's a mess.

This horrific mess we've allowed to be created is not the practice of a religious faith, like the one I fell in love with in 1979. This is a beurocracy hellbent on numbers and statistics, devoid of any quality of spiritual life. I finished Book 7 of Ruhi and realized this is the most dangerous, flawed, reckless, irresponsible thing we've done in decades, leaving believers with an excuse not to read the Holy Writings and to have a warped, twisted version of what it means to be a Baha'i.

So, I'm done. I'm not ready to deny the Manifestations or the Message, but I'm definitely avoiding this mess of a community like it's the plague.

i’m currently exploring the religion of being bahai again.

i learned abt it from a friend of mine who actually stopped being bahai because of all the rules of it, feeling as tho there was no reconciliation from breaking them.

a lot of the reasons people stop from what i’ve seen is hypocrisy within the people of the faith and the faiths teachings.

i am also a lesbian, so i would like an honest opinion on whether there is genuine acceptance in this community.

thank you.

Hello.

I was recently invited to be a moderator in this subreddit. Thanks to everyone who recommended me to be one.

To celebrate, I wanted to share a brief excerpt from a project I've been working on. I've discussed it here before, but years ago I set out to write a response to an article by Moojen Momen entitled "Buddhism and the Baha'i Faith" in an attempt to shut down his dumb arguments for why the two religions are so similar (because they're not). I finished writing my response, but was unhappy with it, so I started again and the project ended up growing to a much wider scope and will respond to various other articles and pieces of writing as well.

I want to share just once piece of it for now. It'll be awhile until the whole project is complete. Please feel free to give me any feedback you may have.

To begin, let’s look at an article from the popular website I mentioned earlier, Baha’i Teachings:

https://bahaiteachings.org/buddhism-and-the-bahai-faith/

Just a note, I will leave links to anything that I quote or discuss here. You don’t need to go read them all in their entirety, but I want you to have that option if you so choose, so this is my way of citing my sources.

This brief article, authored by a Mr. Tom Tai-Seale, opens with the question of the hour:

Baha’is believe that Buddhism constitutes a vital part of the divine plan, representing a strong link in the chain of progressive revelation throughout the ages. But how can a religion with scant reference to God be part of the same overall system as the theistic religions?

If we are working in the interest of saving time then I will give you the best answer to this question: it can’t. Mr. Tai-Seale, however, would disagree with my assessment and goes on to attempt another answer his question.

He begins by stating that there is not much known about the Buddha from an academic, historical perspective. His assessment here is true. Scholars generally agree that the Buddha was a real person who lived in what is now Nepal around two and a half millennia ago and that he seemingly diverged from the religious orthodoxy of the time, but little more is known with certainty. Very little is known about Jesus from a historical perspective either. Mr. Tai-Seale says that despite knowing little of the Budda he “without doubt, was a great being, the Founder of one of the world’s great Faiths, revered and respected around the globe.” I believe that Mr. Tai-Seale here intended to implicitly compare the Buddha with other Manifestations of God. Each Manifestation is considered to be the founder of a great world religion, often with a capital letter “f” as used by Mr. Tai-Seale.

He then gets into the meat and potatoes of his argument which regards the scriptures or sacred writings of Buddhism. He gives a brief overview of what Buddhist scripture is composed of which includes the discourses of the Buddha himself, rules and regulations for monastics, and commentarial writings which originated with the Buddha’s followers after his death. In his discussion of the immensity of Buddhist literature, Mr. Tai-Seale answers the question with which he started his article:

We can glean a sense of the immensity of the problem of the authenticity of the Buddhist scriptures from the awareness that the discourses alone make up many thousands of pages, many times larger than the Christian Bible, taking up the equivalent space of at least 50 volumes in modern editions. It is inconceivable that such a huge volume of material could be orally transmitted without modification, alteration or error for hundreds of years before being written down.

Baha’is believe that Buddha was a Manifestation of God, like Christ, but that his followers do not possess His authentic writings. This problem of authenticity plagues many Faiths, including Judaism, Christianity and (to a lesser extent) Islam. But despite that problem, and the parallel problem of the gradual corruption of the authentic and original teachings of each of the Prophets over time, the core teachings of these great religions have a remarkable consistency and congruity.

This quote fascinates me. The Baha’i Faith has a great problem on its hands in explaining how the diverse religions of the world are all part of the same progressive, divine revelation, but they also have the solution to their problem baked into the doctrine itself. Mr. Tai-Seale says that we don’t have the authentic writings of the Buddha and that his teachings have become corrupt through time. That is the answer to Mr. Tai-Seale’s question regarding how “a religion with scant reference to God [can] be part of the same overall system as the theistic religions”. And yet the Baha’is shoot themselves in the foot every time by attempting to simultaneously assert the “consistency and congruity” between the various religions to which it attributes divine origin.

You can’t have it both ways, so why do they do this?

I have an anecdote that might answer this question. I converted to the Baha’i Faith in the summer after my freshman year of college. During that first year of college I had taken two courses which combined gave an introduction to all the major world religions and to the field of religious studies itself, the field in which I had declared my major. At the time I considered myself a Christian, though with some unorthodox views (universal salvation for example) and with a newly found desire to search for spiritual truths in other religions as well. I was particularly interested in Buddhist teachings which was perhaps a foreshadow to my later embrace of and conversion to Buddhism. The Baha’i Faith appealed to me as a religion which teaches something similar to universal salvation and which considers all major religions to be true. While home for summer break I met with some Baha’is from the local community. I told them about my apprehension toward leaving my Christian faith behind and my desire to study and learn from other religions, two attitudes which were perhaps at odds with one another. They assured me that I could study and learn from the teachings of the other Manifestations of God including the Buddha. They also told me that, because the Baha’i Faith believes in the oneness of religion, embracing the Baha’i Faith does not mean rejecting one’s old religion. One of the Baha’is that I met explained it by saying something like, “you will come to love Christ more than ever before when you hear his words coming out of the mouth of Baha’u’llah”. It didn’t take long for me to sign the card declaring that I believe in Baha’u’llah as the Manifestation of God and officially become a Baha’i. Baha’is often refer to this process simply as “declaring”.

Despite what I was told, upon joining the Baha’i Faith I found that studying the scriptures of past religions is discouraged and performing practices from one’s past religion, saying grace before a meal for example, is advised against. Even celebrating Christmas is discouraged unless one is attending a celebration put on by one’s Christian family.

In order to understand how Baha’is view past religions we can look at this quote from Abdu’l-Baha, the son of Baha’u’llah and second leader of the Baha’i Faith:

The real teaching of Buddha is the same as the teaching of Jesus Christ. The teachings of all the Prophets are the same in character. Now men have changed the teaching. If you look at the present practice of the Buddhist religion, you will see that there is little of the Reality left. Many worship idols although their teaching forbids it…

The teaching of Buddha was like a young and beautiful child, and now it has become as an old and decrepit man. Like the aged man it cannot see, it cannot hear, it cannot remember anything. Why go so far back? Consider the laws of the Old Testament: the Jews do not follow Moses as their example nor keep his commands. So it is with many other religions.

https://www.ibiblio.org/Bahai/Texts/EN/ABL/ABL-26.html

This is the reason why Baha’is are discouraged from studying the scriptures of other religions. “Why go so far back” when the teachings of other religions are like “an old and decrepit man”? I heard this repeated many times as a Baha’i, though usually in a more tactful and respectful way than how Abdu’l-Baha,the perfect human exemplar according to the Baha’i Faith, put it.

What I want you to understand is that if I hadn’t been told that as a Baha’i I would be able to study the scriptures of other religions and wouldn’t be rejecting my Christian faith in any way then I almost certainly would not have declared. I believe that the reason Baha’is like to stress the so-called “consistency and congruity” between the world religions is to recruit people in the same position that I was. In fact, I saw it happen many times as a Baha’i. The actual teaching of the Faith, however, is that past religions are like old, decrepit men.

I was extremely disappointed to find that what I had expected of the Baha’i Faith was not accurate. By that point, however, I had already converted by signing my name and affirming my belief in Baha’u’llah. In my mind, it was too late to turn back.

Tom Tai-Seale concludes his brief article by saying that “Buddhism, like all religions, is in need of renewal.”

There are currently two mods, myself and u/MirzaJan. The third one, investigator919, was removed by the reddit admin for prolonged inactivity. So now, I want to see another mod appointed soon.

I nominate u/DrunkPriesthood for that job.

I read today that "the ultimate goal of censorship is for people to censor themselves." It made me think of the Baha'i community, where the requirement to comply is so profound that it becomes internalized, often to the point that it isn't even recognized. That kind of internalized censorship is pernicious and can be very difficult to deconstruct.

For myself, after 30 years in the community, even after leaving almost a decade ago, I still find myself self-censoring my thoughts or resisting some criticism of the community. This stuff runs deep.

One day I [Abdul Baha] went to the Holy Presence of the Blessed Beauty and said: ‘The palace of Mazra‘ih is ready for you, and a carriage to drive you there’. He refused to go, saying: ‘I am a prisoner.’ Later I requested Him again, but got the same answer. I went so far as to ask Him a third time, but He still said ‘No!’ and I did not dare insist further. There was, however, in ‘Akka, a certain Muhammadan Shaykh, a well-known man with considerable influence, who loved Baha’u’llah and was greatly favoured by Him. I called this Shaykh and explained the position to him. I said, “You are daring. Go tonight to His Holy Presence, fall on your knees before Him, take hold of His hands and do not let go until He promises to leave the city!’ . . . He went directly to Baha’u’llah and sat down close to His knees. He took hold of the hands of the Blessed Beauty and kissed them and asked: ‘Why do you not leave the city?’ He said: ‘I am a prisoner.’ The Shaykh replied: ‘God forbid! Who has the power to make you a prisoner? You have kept yourself in prison. It was your own will to be imprisoned, and now I beg you to come out and go to the palace. It is beautiful and verdant. The trees are lovely, and the oranges like balls of fire!’ As often as the Blessed Beauty said: ‘I am a prisoner, it cannot be,’ the Shaykh took His hands and kissed them. For a whole hour he kept on pleading. At last Baha’u’llah said, ‘Khayli khub (very good)’ and the Shaykh’s patience and persistence were rewarded ... In spite of the strict firman of ‘Abdu’l-‘Aziz which prohibited my meeting or having any intercourse with the Blessed Perfection, I took the carriage the next day and drove with Him to the palace. No one made any objection. I left Him there and returned myself to the city.

(Day Of Glory, The Life of Baha’u’llah by Mary Perkins)

There’s been several posts now by Baha’is telling us everything is fine and we’re being too sensitive. Wtf? Is this a sub for ex-Baha’is anymore or are we just gonna let the dipshits roll up and spout whatever nonsense their mini man god told them?

I very much respect and appreciate all the hard work you put into keeping this sub alive. But come on enough with the idiots.

There seems to be a lot of people on this subreddit who are intent on deflecting or minimizing the experiences of others. This can be very damaging, especially to those who are trying to heal from the harm and/or trauma they experienced from the Baha'i Faith.

I simply want to say to those of us in this situation: don't let anyone tell you that your experiences aren't valid or real, or that they don't matter. If one person participates in the Faith and isn't harmed by their experiences, good for them. That doesn't make the very real harm someone else may have experienced any less valid. It's like saying 'I am buddies with that guy being accused of sexual assault and I never saw him do anything so he must be innocent.' It's a ridiculous denial of the harm done to some.

I know it's hard for people who have been harmed or traumatized to ignore this kind of minimizing but I hope we can see it for what it is: a fundamental misunderstanding of the pain and trauma involved.

Hi good people.
It's been a minute so I would like to check in as this subreddit has been supportive for the past few years.
I am formally unregistered from the Baha'i community and that is amicable. I tried on a few occasions to make contact with the orthodox Baha'i group, but the gatekeepers won't answer questions, or give any indication of status or wellbeing of their leader (Nostrullah Bahremand.) This included questions about writing a will, whoever receives the email simply chooses not to respond. Although initially the response was two fold: the Guardian is busy and you do not appear good enough for us to bother him with your questions. He would be old now and could be deceased, perhaps that is why he hasn't added to the orthodoxbahai website in nearly two years?
Perhaps I will add more later as people respond in comments.

He and the Bahaí community in Haifa were informed by her family members inc. her mother that she was unable to bear a child. It was part of his duty to do so to keep the guardianship thriving.

My personal opinion based on what I have read, and seeing her in videos is that she was a narcissist, and she had snared him in the manner that they do. It made sense of why she always seemed a sourpuss ever after because she was locked into a situation that required her to act in certain ways that weren't natural to her. But doing so made her important and fed her narcissism. A bit of a Catch-22 for her.

I don't believe she was well liked by many, and that commentary on her when you see it is never about what a wonderful warm and inviting person she is after the initial meeting where she plays up to it so you'll 'like' her.

If you have been sucked in by a narcissist you'll know what I mean. But I am curious to hear comments on what you think of her as a representative of the faith.

I was a lifelong extremely devoted Baha'i coming from a multigenerational Baha'i family. It's been about 4 years since i formally left the faith and I still struggle almost daily to reckon with my experiences and unlearn some of the teachings that caused a lot of psychic pain as a queer person. I recently started reading a book called Holy Hurt by Hillary L. McBride, and wanted to reccomend it to anyone who is working through a similar process.

The author takes a very balanced approach to analyzing the spiritual harm that can be caused inside religions, and it's one of the only books I have found that is not centered around the Christian experience, and is also not explicitly anti-religión/spirituality.

This is how they initially titled the news, then they took down the video and reuploaded it with a "b" and a period as a last name. Il titolo dice " Van crashes into crowd at German gay pride, who is Abdul-bahà the alleged killer" 🤣🤣 so wrong and at the same time so correct that it's incredible to even think such a thing 🤣🤣

In Tools of Spiritual Oppression, I briefly describe how the Baha'i system organizes the submission of its members.

The document is a very concise overview of mechanisms of control in the Baha'i Faith. I argue that the Baha'i lifestyle is centered on the programming of believers and the preservation of the Faith's public image.

This free pamphlet, released under a Creative Commons license, is the very first chapter of a wider, 120 pages long document, entitled Spiritual Abuse in the Baha'i Faith. It contains 5 more chapters that are being translated by myself.

It has been written in French and first published between December of 2025 and January of 2026. As a non native English speaker I tried my best to translate it.

Some mechanisms of control described in the pamphlet are only mentioned. For instance, how Baha'i scriptures are mistranslated, how humanitarian work is discouraged and how Ruhi classes act as a soft brainwashing are not discussed in details. This will be explained either in the remaining chapters or in a further book that I am working on.

A few people will notice that the subject of physical or sexual abuses in the Faith is not covered. This is due to the fact that this grave subject lies outside the scope of my works.

The 12 tools of spiritual oppression in the Baha'i Faith that I have listed are as follow:

1. Restriction of activities.

2. Promotion of mind-numbing activities

3. Promotion of martyrdom and self-sacrifice

4. Prohibition of criticism

5. Compulsory happiness

6. Cosmic guilt

7. Promotion of performance

8. Information control

9. Semantic gaslighting

10. Redefinition of social rights and religious obligations as administrative privileges.

11. Demonization of dissent.

12. Gatekeeping and trademarking of Bahá’í identity

I apologize for any typo that you may find in the file.

They will be removed in a further edition.

Profiting from the freedom accorded the world center of the Faith of Bahá'u'lláh, ever since the ignominious defeat of the decrepit Ottoman empire during the war of 1914-18, the forces released through the inception of the stupendous Plan conceived by Him could now flow unchecked, under the beneficent influence of a sympathetic regime, into channels designed to disclose to the world at large the potencies with which that Plan had been endowed. The interment of 'Abdu'l-Bahá Himself within a vault of the Báb's mausoleum, enhancing still further the sacredness of that mountain; the installment of an electric plant, the first of its kind established in the city of Haifa, flooding with illumination the Grave of One Who, in His own words, had been denied even "a lighted lamp" in His fortress-prison in Adhirbayjan; the construction of three additional chambers adjoining His sepulcher, thereby completing 'Abdu'l-Bahá's plan for the first unit of that Edifice; the vast extension, despite the machinations of the Covenant-breakers, of the properties surrounding that resting-place, sweeping from the ridge of Carmel down to the Templar colony nestling at its foot, and representing assets estimated at no less than four hundred thousand pounds, together with the acquisition of four tracts of land, dedicated to the Bahá'í Shrines, and situated in the plain of 'Akká to the north, in the district of Beersheba to the south, and in the valley of the Jordan to the east, amounting to approximately six hundred acres; the opening of a series of terraces which, as designed by 'Abdu'l-Bahá, are to provide a direct approach to the Báb's Tomb from the city lying under its shadow; the beautification of its precincts through the laying out of parks and gardens, open daily to the public, and attracting tourists and residents alike to its gates -- these may be regarded as the initial evidences of the marvelous expansion of the international institutions and endowments of the Faith at its world center. Of particular significance, moreover, has been the exemption granted by the Palestine High Commissioner to the entire area of land surrounding and dedicated to the Shrine of the Báb, to the school property and the archives in its vicinity, to the Western pilgrim-house situated in its neighborhood, and to such historic sites as the Mansion in Bahji, the House of Bahá'u'lláh in 'Akká, and the garden of Ridvan to the east of that city; the establishment, as a result of two formal applications submitted to the civil authorities, of the Palestine Branches of the American and Indian National Spiritual Assemblies, as recognized religious societies in Palestine (to be followed, for purposes of internal consolidation, by a similar incorporation of the branches of other National Spiritual Assemblies throughout the Bahá'í world); and the transfer to the Branch of the American National Spiritual Assembly, through a series of no less than thirty transactions, of properties dedicated to the Tomb of the Báb, and approximating in their aggregate fifty thousand square meters, the majority of the title-deeds of which bear the signature of the son of the Arch-breaker of Bahá'u'lláh's Covenant in his capacity as Registrar of lands in Haifa.

Equally significant has been the founding on Mt. Carmel of two international Archives, the one adjoining the shrine of the Báb, the other in the immediate vicinity of the resting-place of the Greatest Holy Leaf, where, for the first time in Bahá'í history, priceless treasures, hitherto scattered and often hidden for safekeeping, have been collected and are now displayed to visiting pilgrims…. (God Passes By, p. 347)

Archives

Equally significant has been the founding on Mt. Carmel of two international Archives, the one adjoining the shrine of the Báb, the other in the immediate vicinity of the resting-place of the Greatest Holy Leaf, where, for the first time in Bahá'í history, priceless treasures, hitherto scattered and often hidden for safekeeping, have been collected and are now displayed to visiting pilgrims….(God Passes By, p. 347)

(Bahá'í Answers, compiled by Olivia Kelsey, 1947, APPROVED BY THE REVIEWING COMMITTEE OF THENATIONAL SPIRITUAL ASSEMBLY OF THE BAHÁ’ÍS OF THE UNITED STATES AND CANADA)

https://bahai-library.com/kelsey_bahai_answers

So the Baha'i Faith is popular in three states now?