I assumed that a meeting with a religious group would take place in church so when I showed up at the agreed meeting place and saw it was a house, I thought I'd been the victim of a practical joke.
I was apprehensive to knock on the door in case I was greeted by a very confused person or even angry person, but I’d spent £9, which could have gotten me three pints, on travel to get there and I wasn’t going to waste three pints. I knocked on the door and sure enough I was in the right place.
The Baha’i faith is a worldwide religion, which I found strange as I hadn’t heard of it until a few months ago. It’s a fairly young religion founded in 1844 in Iran, known as Persia at the time, by Baha’ullah. The faith came from the Shi’ite side of Islam and contradicted the Islamic belief that Muhammad was the final profit. They also believe in the standard things like there is only one God who created the universe and that God is too great to fully understand.
A belief that really sets the Baha’is apart from other religions is their belief in the "oneness of humanity and freedom of prejudice". Although a lot of religions are coming into the 21st century and excepting that attitudes are changing most churches still have a long way to go. The Baha’is pride themselves on being a progressive religion evolving around issues that arise as time goes on. It says on the Baha’is website that they support the development of spiritual qualities, the integration of worship and service, the fundamental equality of the sexes, the harmony between religion and science.
The Baha’i religion is one which has faced a lot of adversary from extremist Islamic groups. Baha’ullah himself was imprisoned and eventually executed for his teachings. Sadly, to this day, Baha’i followers in Iran are forced out of their homes and sometimes even executed for their belief.
In the meeting I attended was a woman who was forced out of her home in Iran 40 years ago who came to live in Newcastle. Her daughter, also a Baha’i follower, was imprisoned and eventually executed.
She told me: "I’ve been a member all my life and I’ve seen people killed and everything. It’s the same as me; my house, shop, property all taken and my daughter was killed. It’s a big problem."
She went on to say: “It’s still the same, not a little bit has changed all governments eyes are closed.”
I asked James Herpert, my main point of contact with the Baha’is, how does the Baha’i appeal to people.
“This very much depends on who the individuals," he explained to me. "For myself I was convinced of the logic of the Baha'i teachings very early on, but I needed to recognise something spiritual about it before I fully adopted it as my Faith, so for me it was the prayer that won it for me, even though the teachings strongly appealed.”
James also told me that Baha’i is the second most widespread religion. And according to their website, Baha’i is the most widespread belief system, after Christianity, in the world.
However, there are only 10 Baha’i houses of worship across the globe which are open to anyone to go visit. Due to the lack of places to worship, a lot of Baha’i meetings are held in people’s home’s, like the one I attended, or, if required, a rented community hall.
These meetings start with prayers, each person in attendance would chose a prayer to say and I wasn’t and exception. I was given a prayer book and told to choose one I liked the look of. I chose the shortest.
I was the last in four to say a prayer. I followed a woman who did hers in Persian. I was unusually nervous. I’m quite confident in my reading ability but I felt like I was back in year four, silently hoping the teacher wouldn’t pick me to read aloud the next chapter. It came to my turn. My blood was cocaine. But it all went fine. I chose a prayer under the heading ‘Youth’.
By pure chance the meeting I went to was the final day of Ridvan. This a 12-day celebration which commemorates the anniversary of Baha'u’llah declaring his mission in the garden of Sojourn outside Baghdad. He did this just before his banishment to Istanbul, then known as Constantinople, in 1863.
Despite the sad origin of the holiday the Baha’is see this as a time of joy. Betty Skeet, the host of the meeting said: "Rivdan is very special time for us, it shows that even though people in our faith have faced adversaries we come always come together."
James told me that at the start of Ridvan, which is April 21st, the Baha’i community in the North East came together to celebrate. This totalled to about 30 to 40 people. Rivdan is celebrated by Baha’is all around the world.
James asked me if I had to leave by a certain time because he was planning to show a video which came from the Baha’i hub. It was 77 minutes long. The video showed Baha’is from all around the world, how they aided their communities and youth outreach programmes.
After the video I asked James about the community work the Baha’is in Newcastle did.
He told me: “The work required in this area is not the same in some of the areas in the video. We can’t just build a place to meet in the middle of Newcastle.” He went on to say. “We run classes for children which anybody can come to. We have something called the junior spiritual empowerment programme and both of these are based upon values, so love and justice and humility. These kinds of values are at the core of having both a spiritual and material life.”
I left the meeting understanding a little more about what the Baha’is believed in and I agreed with their basic principles that humanity should be one. I wasn’t converted by any means but it did give me a lot to think about.
