Leyla MELIKOVA

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Leyla Melikova, Junior research fellow at the Academician Buniyatov Institute of Oriental Studies, National Academy of Sciences of Azerbaijan (Baku, Azerbaijan).

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BAHAISM IN AZERBAIJAN

ABSTRACT

The author traces the history of Bahaism in Northern Azerbaijan, the religious movement born in 1844 in Iran that assumed its final shape in 1863 under the influence of its founding father Mirza Husayn Ali Nuri (1817-1892), known as Baha Ullah, and analyzes the present and future of Bahaism in the context of the relations between the state and society in Azerbaijan.

Introduction

Due to its geopolitical specifics, Azerbaijan (tucked in between Europe and Asia) has been always open to all sorts of cultural, spiritual, religious, public, and political influences and their synthesis. This enriched the Azeris’ religious and cultural identification and made it possible to  preserve it throughout the centuries.

In the late 1980s, after the prolonged stagnation of the Soviet period, Azerbaijan attracted numerous confessional groups, trends, and sects of all sorts, which entered into fierce competition for new followers. Some of the newcomers left deep marks in the history of Azerbaijan’s religious life.

Bahaism, the religious doctrine that appeared in the mid-19th century in Iran and assumed its final shape in 1863, is one such confession, the followers of which are actively seeking the status of………………

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