Bahá'í Faith in Egypt

The Bahá'í Faith in Egypt has existed for over 100 years. The first Bahá'ís arrived in 1863.Bahá'u'lláh, founder of the religion, was himself briefly in Egypt in 1868 when on his way to imprisonment in `Akká. The first Egyptians were converts by 1896. Despite forming an early Bahá'í Local Spiritual Assembly and forming a National Assembly, in 1960 following a regime change the Bahá'ís lost all rights as an organised religious community by Decree 263 at the decree of then-President Gamal Abdel Nasser. However, in 1963, there were still seven organized communities in Egypt. More recently the roughly 2000 (according to Egypt Today or 7000 by ARDA) Bahá'ís of Egypt have been embroiled in the Egyptian identification card controversy from 2006 through 2009. There have been homes burned down and families driven out of towns.

One of the early Baha'i pioneers to come to Egypt in 1867 was Mirza Heyder Ali during the reign of Isma'il Pasha circa 1860–70 who was arrested and banished to Sudan for 12 years soon after his entrance into Egypt. Other early Bahá'ís in Egypt were Haji Báqir-i-Káshání and Siyyid Husayin-i-Káshání who took up residence in Egypt during the period Bahá'u'lláh was in Adrianople. Another early Bahá'í was Hag Hassan Khurásáni who held weekly meetings in his home. Bahá'u'lláh and his family left Adrianople on 12 August 1868 and after a journey by land and sea through Gallipoli and Egypt arrived in `Akká on 31 August, and confined in the barracks in the citadel in the city. From then on many well known Bahá'ís spent time in Egypt or joined the religion there. Nabíl-i-A`zam made several journeys on behalf of Bahá'u'lláh and was imprisoned in Egypt in 1868.Robert Felkin was in Egypt circa 1880s and published a number of books -later he converted to the religion. In 1892 two converts in Egypt embarked to the West intending to spread the religion and were the first Bahá'ís to enter the United States where the first converts followed in 1894.

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Wikipedia