The Baháʼí Faith in France started after French citizens observed and studied the religion in its native Persia in the mid-19th century.Gate of the Heart: Understanding the Writings of the Báb, by Nader Saiedi: Review by Stephen Lambden, published in The Journal of the American Oriental Society, 130:2, 2010–04 The first followers of the religion declared their belief shortly before 1900, the community grew and the understanding of Baha'u'llah's Revelation was assisted by ʻAbdu'l-Bahá's trip to France in late 1911 and early 1913. The number of Baha'is grew, tests and difficulties were overcome, and the community established its National Assembly in 1958. The community has been reviewed a number of times by researchers. According to the 2005 Association of Religion Data Archives data there are close to some 4,400 Baháʼís in France and the French government is among the many who have been alarmed at the persecution of Baháʼís in modern Iran.UN Commission expresses concern over human rights violations in Iran
Early days
Before 1900
A French agent working in Persia reported briefly on the Bábís, teachings brought by the Báb, the forerunner and Prophet-Herald of the Baháʼí Faith, in the 1840s after it originated in 1844.Early Western Accounts of the Babi and Baháʼí Faiths by Moojan Momen
Though in no way espousing his beliefs, Baháʼís know Arthur de Gobineau as the person who obtained the only complete manuscript of the early history of the Bábí religious movement of Persia, written by Haji Mírzá Jân of Kashan, who was put to death by the Persian authorities about 1852. The manuscript now is in the Bibliothèque Nationale at Paris. He is also known to students of the Bábí Faith for having written the first and most influential account of the movement, displaying a fairly accurate knowledge of its history in Religions et philosophies dans l'Asie centrale. An addendum to that work is a bad translation of the Báb's Bayan al-'Arabi, the first Bábí text to be translated into a European language.
Baháʼu'lláh, founder of the Baháʼí Faith in the 19th century, addressed a number of items to French officials or in circumstances related to France from circa the 1870s. There were two Tablets to Emperor Napoleon III incorporated into major works of the literature of the Baháʼí Faith: the Súriy-i-Mulúk and the Kitáb-i-Aqdas. In the first it said the sincerity of the Emperor's claims on behalf of the oppressed and the helpless were tested. In the second he prophesies that, failing that sincerity, his kingdom would be "thrown into confusion", the "empire shall pass" from him and the people experience great "commotions". Baháʼu'lláh also criticizes the French Ambassador in Constantinople for having conspired with the Persian Ambassador saying he has neglected the exhortations of Jesus Christ as recorded in the Gospels and advises him, and those like him, to be just and not to follow the promptings of the evil within their own selves. Another tablet – the Tablet of Fu'ad – was written soon after the death of Fu'ád Páshá in Nice. The Pasha was the foreign minister of the Sultan and a faithful accomplice of the prime minister in bringing about the exile of Baháʼú'lláh to 'Akka then in Palestine.
However, Baháʼu'lláh's tablets had little attention if any in France itself. Instead the French were still occupied much more with the Báb's dramatic life and the persecution his religion and life were subject to. French writer Henri Antoine Jules-Bois says that: "among the littérateurs of my generation, in the Paris of 1890, the martyrdom of the Báb was still as fresh a topic as had been the first news of his death. We wrote poems about him. Sarah Bernhardt entreated Catulle Mendès for a play on the theme of this historic tragedy." The French writer A. de Saint-Quentin also mentioned the religion in a book published in 1891. For all the attention, little penetrated to understanding the religion itself.Bibliographie des ouvrages de langue française mentionnant les religions babie ou bahaʼie (1844–1944) compiled by Thomas Linard, published in Occasional Papers in Shaykhi, Babi and Baháʼí Studies, 3, 1997–06
In late 1894 May Bolles (later Maxwell) moved to Paris with her mother and brother, who was to attend the École des Beaux-Arts, May's mother hoped the change from living in America would help May find a happy life, however she continued through periods of deep depression and insomnia and even considered entering a convent. In 1897 May lost both her grandmother and cousin whom she was very close to. At age 27, May became obsessed with mortality and became bedridden leading to many of her family members believing she was going to die. In November 1898 family friend Phoebe Hearst, with Lua Getsinger and others, stopped off at Paris. Hearst was shocked to see 28-year-old May bedridden with the chronic malady which had afflicted her. She invited May to sojourn to the East with her, believing the change of air to be conducive to her health. Getsinger also disclosed to May the purpose of the journey: a pilgrimage to visit the then head of the Baháʼí Faith: ʻAbdu'l-Bahá. They arrived in early December. Transformed by the trip in just a few days, May returned to Paris about late-December where she stayed for some time, at the request of ʻAbdu'l-Bahá, living as a confirmed Baháʼí and began teaching her new faith.
1898 is considered as the first presence of the religion in France and the beginnings of the first Baháʼí community in Europe. That is also the year the French Encyclopaedia of Larousse contained an entry on the Bábí religion.
From 1900 to World War I
About 1900 Frenchman and American Laura Clifford Barney learned of the religion in Paris from Bolles.Biography of Hippolyte Dreyfus-Barney by Laura C. Dreyfus-Barney and Shoghi Effendi, edited by Thomas Linard, 1928 Dreyfus would be the first French Baháʼí and the couple would marry a decade later.
Barney went to Egypt in the spring of 1901 to see ʻAbdu'l-Bahá and returned with Mírzá Abu'l-Faḍl Gulpáygání, one of the most erudite scholars of the religion, to Paris, where Anton Haddad translated for him. At the time, Paris had the most important Baháʼí community in Europe and many of those who were becoming Baháʼís there would in later years would be famous in the religion. During Gulpaygani's time there, more than thirty became Baháʼís. From Paris Gulpaygani went to America in the autumn of 1901.Mirza Abu'l-Faḍl by Moojan Momen
At almost the same time Englishman Thomas Breakwell was also taught the religion by Bolles in the summer of 1901 in Paris.Philip Hainsworth, 'Breakwell, Thomas (1872–1902)', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 accessed 21 November 2010 At the request of ʻAbdu'l-Bahá, Breakwell also took up permanent residence in Paris, where he worked enthusiastically to teach the religion and help develop the first Paris Baháʼí community. Breakwell regularly corresponded with ʻAbdu'l-Bahá's secretary and translator Yúnis Khán and was the first western Baháʼí to give the Huqúqu'lláh, a voluntary payment based on any wealth in excess of what is necessary to live comfortably. Breakwell died of tuberculosis on 13 June 1902, barely a year after joining the religion though his father followed him into the religion.
After learning of the Baháʼí Faith in Washington DC near 1898 Juliet Thompson traveled to Paris at the invitation of Barney's mother. Later in 1901 in Paris she met Breakwell who gave her Gobineau's description in French of the Execution of the Báb which confirmed her faith. Turn of the century Paris is also where Charles Mason Remey first met Thompson when she was taking classes on the religion from Gulpáygání.
Bolles also introduced the religion to French-American Edith MacKaye who then moved from Paris to Sion, Switzerland in 1903 as the first Baháʼí to live in that country. Bolles would later leave France, being married in London and moved to Canada.
In 1903 Dreyfus went with Lua Getsinger and Edith Sanderson to see ʻAbdu'l-Bahá. Over following decades Dreyfus would translate many Baháʼí writings and serve in delegations to the Shah of Persia protesting the treatment of Baháʼís.
Modern Iranian government allegations against Baháʼís claim the early 20th century French Ambassador confessed that the Baháʼí Faith was a tool of colonial expansion. Baháʼí sources indicate that the French Ambassador in Tehran, greatly impressed by the teachings of the religion and by their effect upon the people who embraced them, suggested that Baháʼís might go to Tunisia and teach their religion there. But it was Dreyfus that sought out permission from the French authorities for the religion to be promulgated in Tunisia. Indeed, the Baháʼí Faith has never been associated with a fortification of colonial occupation or Euro-American assimilation – a stance supported by anthropologist Alice Beck Kehoe, a well known researcher of Native Americans, who observed that the Baháʼí Faith is considered by its members to be a universal faith, not tied to any one particular culture, religious background, language, or even its country of origin. This has been examined in issues related to Native Americans, Latin Americans and sub-Saharan Africans affirming this approach in Baháʼí activities.
Among the translations done by Dreyfus of Baháʼu'lláh's works are the Kitab-i-Iqan, The Hidden Words and Epistle to the Son of the Wolf. Over the same period A.L.M. Nicholas was inspired to study the Bábí Faith because of Gobineau though Nicholas was critical of his work and even reached to the point of calling himself a Bábí. Nicholas translated several Bábí volumes – Persian Bayán, Arabic Bayán, and the Dalá'il-i-Sab'ih and ultimately he believed Subh-i-Azal was the rightful successor of the Bábí Faith, being deeply hurt at what he felt the Baháʼís showed towards the Báb making him but the insignificant forerunner, the John the Baptist, of Baháʼu'lláh. On learning with clarity of the independent status as a greater prophet acknowledged for the Báb late in his life he wrote:
I do not know how to thank you nor how to express the joy that floods my heart. So it is necessary not only to admit but to love and admire the Báb. Poor great Prophet, born in the heart of Persia, without any means of instruction, and who, alone in the world, encircled by enemies, succeeds by the force of his genius in creating a universal and wise religion. That Baháʼu'lláh succeeded Him eventually may be, but I want people to admire the sublimity of the Báb, who has, moreover, paid with his life, with his blood, for the reforms he preached. Cite me another similar example. At last, I can die in peace. Glory be to Shoghi Effendi who has calmed my torment and my anxieties, glory be to him who recognizes the worth of Siyyid 'Alí-Muhammad, the Báb. I am so happy that I kiss your hands that have written my address on the envelope which carried Shoghi's message. Thank you, Mademoiselle; thank you from the depths of my heart.
Barney and Dreyfus worked together on the editing and translation of Some Answered Questions.al-Nūr al-abhā fīmofāważāt ʻAbdu'l-Bahá, Leiden, 1908; tr. L. C. Barney and H. Dreyfus as Some Answered Questions, London, 1908; tr. H. Dreyfus asLes leçons de Saint Jean d'Acre, Paris, 1909). In 1905–06 Barney visited Persia, the Caucasus, and Russia with Dreyfus. She also wrote a play God's Heroesin 1910 depicting the story of Tahirih named as a Letter of the Living who has been compared with Joan of Arc in the changes which they came to release by virtue of their examples. Barney and Dreyfyus married in April 1911, when they both adopted the surname Dreyfus-Barney.
Extending the previous work in the Encyclopaedia of Larousse the Baháʼí Faith was entered into the supplement published in 1906.