Anywhere else I am at the mercy of the government. It is very simple. _I want to be in a country where I can defend myself when I am attacked_.
-- Ada Sereni, in James McNeish, _Belonging_, 1980
But Christians and Jews are at least quasi-tolerated as recognized classes of dhimmis. There's a religion known as the Bahai faith, though, which doesn't get even that much respect. They are a peaceful and peace-promoting syncretic sect, about six million strong worldwide. Think of them as transnational Quakers. They are persecuted--boy, are they persecuted!--under Iranian shariah law as out-and-out heretics. The faith is an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam, which like every other sect of Islam isn't supposed to have "offshoots". The "Seal of Prophets" and all, you know. I don't see it immediately anywhere online, but I remember being hearing that the floorplans for the Bahai temple in Iran, which the ayatollahs demolished, are in safekeeping in Haifa, for the day when it will be possible to rebuild it.
The Bahai faith does not appeal to me, but I do have a personal attachment to it. The first Iranians I ever met in person were Bahais. I met them at a Bahai meeting, which I was attending for a college class. They left Iran due to persecution after the Islamic Revolution. I studied the Bahai faith in more depth some time later, and even wrote a paper on the local Bahai community. Most amazingly, after it was done, I found a framed photo of the second Bahai spiritual leader, Abdul Baha, hanging in a pawn shop. I bought it for three bucks, and donated it to the local group. I've been wincing at the depredations visited on Bahais by the One True Faith ever since.
Fun fact: Bahaullah is the only founder of an Abrahamic faith of whom we have a photograph. Unless there's a daguerrotype of the Mormons' Joseph Smith out there someplace.
UPDATE: Yep, there apparently is.
