What is the Bahá'í Faith?

• The Bahá'í Faith is among the fastest growing religions in the world.
  
  
• With significant communities in at least 205 countries and dependent territories, the Bahá'í Faith has become, in only a century, the second most widespread religion, after Christianity.
  
  
• The six milion members of the worldwide Bahá'í community come from virtually every nationality, religious background, ethnic group, and social class.
  
  
• The Founder of the Bahá'í Faith is Bahá'u'llah (1817-1892), a Persian nobleman who suffered 40 years of imprisonment and exile. Baha'is believe that He was the latest in a line of Messengers from God that includes Abraham, Krishna, Moses, Buddha, Zoroaster, Christ, and Muhammad.
  
  
• The main theme of Bahá'u'llah's message is unity. He taught that there is only one God, that all the world's religions represent one changeless and eternal Faith of God, and that all humanity is one race, destined to live in peace and harmony.
  
  
• Baha'is work towards the creation of an ever-advancing, sustainable world civilization, based on the following principles: the oneness of humankind; equality of women and men; racial integration; economic justice; universal education; the harmony of science and religion; the adoption of a universal auxilary language; and the creation of a world commonwealth of nations which keeps the peace through the principle of collective security.
  
  
• In recent years, Bahá'í communities around the world have launched more than 1,800 educational, environmental, social and economic development projects, ranging from village-level tutorial schools to environmental study centers.
  
  
• There is no clergy in the Bahá'í Faith. It conducts its business through a distinctive system of global administration, which features a network of democratically elected national and local-level governing councils in more than 18,000 locations in 165 countries.