Bahá’í Pioneers: A Global Religious Mobility

Abstract (English)

The intersection of religion and transnational mobility has been widely examined in the anthropology of religion, especially with displacement, diaspora, and religious networks. While there have been studies on proactive, theologically driven forms of migration in various religious traditions, such as Christian missions and crusades, this paper focuses on the Bahá’í concept and practice of "pioneering," a universal obligation on believers to spread the faith globally. This principle was institutionalized in the early twentieth century through the transatlantic journeys of Bahá’í leaders such as ʿAbdu’l-Bahá and intensified under Shoghi Effendi’s leadership, most notably in the Ten Year Crusade (1953–1963), which encouraged Bahá’ís to settle in hundreds of countries and territories.
Drawing on life stories and ethnographic research in Ireland, including Iranian Bahá’ís who were persecuted for their faith and traveled to Europe to teach the faith, I examine how these actors present and enact their roles as agents of spiritual transformation across new cultural and geographic contexts. I argue that Bahá’í pioneering represents a historically distinct form of voluntary religious displacement, grounded in a universalist theology and realized through institutional planning and personal sacrifice.
In the anthropology of religion, religious mobility challenges traditional notions of fixed religious communities by emphasizing the dynamic and fluid nature of faith practices across global contexts. This perspective highlights how religious identities and communities are continuously reshaped through proactive, theologically driven migrations, creating new geographies and intercultural interactions. The Bahá’í principle of pioneering exemplifies this by promoting unity and the vision of world citizenship, where believers are encouraged to transcend national and cultural boundaries to create a global community.