The Baháʼí Faith in Japan begins after a few mentions of the country by ʻAbdu'l-Bahá first in 1875. Japanese contact with the religion came from the West when was living in Honolulu, Hawaii in 1902 converted; the second being .
In 1914 two Baháʼís, George Jacob Augur and Agnes Alexander, and their families, pioneered to Japan. Alexander would live some 31 years off and on in Japan until 1967 when she left for the last time. The first Baháʼí convert on Japanese soil was in 1915. ʻAbdu'l-Bahá undertook several trips in 1911-1912 and met Japanese travelers in Western cities, in Paris, London,(trans. by Mirza Ahmad Sohrab.) and New York. ʻAbdu'l-Bahá met Fujita in Chicago and Yamamoto in San Francisco.
ʻAbdu'l-Bahá wrote a series of letters, or tablets, in 1916-1917 compiled together in the book titled Tablets of the Divine Plan but which was not presented in the United States until 1919. Fujita would serve between the World Wars first in the household of ʻAbdu'l-Bahá and then of Shoghi Effendi. In 1932 the first Baháʼí Local Spiritual Assembly was elected in Tokyo and reelected in 1933. In all of Japan there were 19 Baháʼís.
In 1937 Alexander went on Baháʼí pilgrimage to return years later. In 1938 Fujita was excused from his services in Haifa out of fears for his safety during World War II and returned to Japan until 1956. In 1942, back in the United States, the Yamamoto family lived at a relocation camp during the war. Baháʼí Americans associated with the American Occupation Forces reconnected the Japanese Baháʼí community — Michael Jamir found Fujita by 1946 and Robert Imagire helped re-elect the assembly in Tokyo in 1948. In 1963 the statistics of Baháʼí communities showed 13 assemblies and other smaller groups.
In 1968 Japanese Baháʼís began to travel outside Japan. In 1971 the first residents of Okinawa converted to the religion. In 1991 the community organized an affiliate of the Association for Baháʼí Studies in Japan which has since held annual conferences, published newsletters, and published and coordinated academic work across affiliates.Yerrinbool Report on Scholarship 1999 Affiliate Associations for Baháʼí Studies-Japan The Association of Religion Data Archives (relying on World Christian Encyclopedia) estimated some 15650 Baháʼís in 2005 while the CIA World Factbook estimated about 12000 Japanese Baháʼís in 2006.
Early period
The first mention of Japan in Baháʼí literature is with the Secret of Divine Civilization written by ʻAbdu'l-Bahá in 1875. It was written to try to enlighten Persia. It says: …the government of Japan was in the beginning subject to and under the protection of China, and that now for some years, Japan has opened its eyes and adopted the techniques of contemporary progress and civilization, promoting sciences and industries of use to the public, and striving to the utmost of their power and competence until public opinion was focused on reform. This government has currently advanced to such a point that, although its population is only one-sixth, or even one-tenth, that of China, it has recently challenged the latter government, and China has finally been forced to come to terms. Observe carefully how education and the arts of civilization bring honor, prosperity, independence and freedom to a government and its people.
Firsts
Baháʼís moved across Asia from the turn of the century. Baháʼís were in Shanghai in 1902, Philippines by 1944, Taiwan and Canton in 1923, and Macau in 1953. However, for the Japanese contact with the religion came from the West. Kanichi Yamamoto was living in Honolulu, Hawaii in 1902 where a Baháʼí, Elizabeth Muther, introduced him to the religion. Yamamoto wrote a letter to ʻAbdu'l-Bahá and enters the history books as the first Japanese Baháʼí — the second and third being Saichiro Fujita and Kenzo Torikai. The first Baháʼís to visit Japan were Mason Remey and Howard C. Struve on December 27, 1909 who addressed an audience at a Tokyo YMCA. D. T. Suzuki's wife, Beatrice, had multiple contacts with the Baháʼís both in America and in Japan and was for a time considered a Baháʼí. Bernard Leach lived in Japan from 1909-1920 working on the Mingei arts and converted to the religion in 1940. Leach received awards for his continued work in Japanese folk arts in the 1960s and 70s. A few other Baháʼís traveled through Japan in 1911 and 1914. But in 1914 two Baháʼís, George Jacob Augur and Agnes Alexander, and their families, pioneered to Japan. Alexander would live some 31 years off and on in Japan until 1967 when she left for the last time and much of her work would be through Esperantists and connections with the blind community of Japan.Life of Agnes Alexander by Duane Troxel Meetings for the public were set up and talks and interviews were given including to Esperantist audiences. The first Baháʼí convert on Japanese soil was Kikutaro Fukuta in 1915, followed by the blind Russian youth Vasily Eroshenko who later drifted to communism. Also in 1915, Martha Root arrived for the first time in Japan and Tokujiro Torii converted to the religion. Torrii later served as president of the Japanese Blind Association and received an Imperial Citation, the Medal of the Third Order, for his work on behalf of the blind. Cities where Baháʼís traveled in this early phase include Kobe, Kyoto, Tokyo, Hiroshima and this period also saw the first observances of the Baháʼí Holy Days of Naw Ruz and the Declaration of the Báb. In the spring of 1916 Fukuta and Eroshenko made the first contributions towards raising the first Baháʼí House of Worship being raised in Wilmette, Illinois, USA. In the summer of 1916 Eroshenko took a copy of Some Answered Questions with him when he traveled to Siam and Burma. The first Japanese woman to convert to the religion was Yuri Mochizuki in 1919. Shortly before the death of ʻAbdu'l-Bahá in 1921, Alexander and Oh Sang Sun made a trip from Japan to Korea, then under Japanese rule, for the first entry of the religion in that country. Alexander also spent time with Shibusawa Eiichi. Elsewhere Fujita served as a secretary to Bahíyyih Khánum in communicating the death of ʻAbdu'l-Bahá in late 1921. At a time when women speaking in public was rare, two women, a Miss Mochizuki and Haruko Mori, spoke at the memorial service of the death of ʻAbdu'l-Bahá held in Japan.
ʻAbdu'l-Bahá meets
The Japanese Ambassador to Spain was staying in Paris when ʻAbdu'l-Bahá stayed there on his 1911 trip to the west and they met and had a prolonged conversation. In London in 1912, ʻAbdu'l-Bahá came in contact with the President of the Japan Women's University. It was this occasion that ʻAbdu'l-Bahá wrote the only prayer he wrote for the Japanese. It says: O God! The darkness of contention, strife and warfare between the religious, the nations and the people has beclouded the horizon of Reality and hidden the heaven of Truth! The world is in need of the light of Guidance! Therefore, O God! Confer Thy favor so that the Sun of Reality may illumine the East and the West. In New York he met several Japanese as well. On September 12, ʻAbdu'l-Bahá reached Chicago. Fujita attempted to connect with ʻAbdu'l-Bahá at Cleveland but caught up with him in Chicago. Fujita would accompany ʻAbdu'l-Bahá across many American cities including Kenosha, Wisconsin, St. Paul and Minneapolis, Minnesota, Denver and Glenwood Springs, Colorado, Salt Lake City, Utah, and San Francisco and Stanford, California - Fujita would serve between the World Wars first in the household of ʻAbdu'l-Bahá and then of Shoghi Effendi. On October 22, ʻAbdu'l-Bahá reached San Francisco where he met Yamamoto who arranged for a presentation among a Japanese audience in Oakland.
ʻAbdu'l-Bahá writes to Japan and Korea
In all ʻAbdu'l-Bahá wrote 18 tablets to Japanese living in Japan, and the last one was to the Koreans dated November 5, 1921. Eighteen of the nineteen Tablets were addressed to young people, and seven of these to girls of Tokyo. It is remarkable that the only Tablets to women in Asia were to three Japanese girls: Yuri Mochizuki who received three Tablets, Haruko Mori and Mikae Komatsu, each received one, and the group of girls who were sent two Tablets. ʻAbdu'l-Bahá made mentioned especially to the blind of Japan. He addressed five Tablets to three blind men.
ʻAbdu'l-Bahá's Tablets of the Divine Plan
ʻAbdu'l-Bahá wrote a series of letters, or tablets, to the followers of the religion in the United States in 1916-1917 suggesting Baháʼís take the religion to many places; these letters were compiled together in the book titled Tablets of the Divine Plan but were delayed in being presented in the United States until 1919 — after the end of World War I and the Spanish flu. These tablets were translated and presented by Mirza Ahmad Sohrab on April 4, 1919, and published in Star of the West magazine on December 12, 1919. One tablet says in part: O that I could travel, even though on foot and in the utmost poverty, to these regions, and, raising the call of Yá Baháʼu'l-Abhá in cities, villages, mountains, deserts and oceans, promote the divine teachings! This, alas, I cannot do. How intensely I deplore it! Please God, ye may achieve it.…
…if some teachers go to other islands and other parts, such as the continent of Australia, New Zealand, Tasmania, also to Japan, Asiatic Russia, Korea, French Indochina, Siam, Straits Settlements, India, Ceylon and Afghanistan, most great results will be forthcoming.
Growth to WWII
The Baháʼís in Japan were witness to, and participated in the relief effort of, the 1923 Great Kantō earthquake. Moneys and letters of concern arrived from Baháʼís in New York, Haifa, Kenosha, Wi., Brooklyn, Chicago, Somerville, Mass., Montreal, Canada among other places spreading encouragement and reporting on or actually sending funds Baháʼís and others had marshaled for the relief effort. In 1927 Siegfried Schopflocher visited Japan and reported the religion was firmly established and progressing. In 1932 the first Baháʼí Local Spiritual Assembly was elected in Tokyo. There was a preliminary election that corrected when Shoghi Effendi, then head of the religion, specified rules that needed to be followed for the election. The members of the community of Tokyo were (former Rev.) Sempo Ito; Yuri Mochizuki Furukawa; Otoe Murakami; Kanae Takeshita; Mr. Y. Kataoka (first name unknown); Keiji Sawada; Agnes Alexander; Antoinette Naganuma; Mr. Nakanishi (first name unknown); Hidehiko Matsuda; and Keiko Eito. The first nine names were elected to the provisional Local Spiritual Assembly but the later official election changed adding Mr. Matsuda, who took the place of Mr. Y. Kataoka, who asked to be relieved. The members included five women and two who were blind. The assembly was reelected in 1933. In all of Japan there were 19 Baháʼís. In 1916 Daiun Inouye was a young Buddhist priest when he first heard of the religion. In 1932 he translated Baháʼu'lláh and the New Era and it was printed the following year. In 1937 he resigned from the priesthood and wrote that he would be free to spend his time propagating the Baháʼí Faith.