Ardabil

اردبیل Ardabil
City in Iran
Location of Ardabil
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Ardabil is the capital city of Iran's Ardabil Province.

The Bahá’í Faith was present in Ardabil by the early 1890's but a community was not firmly established until the 1920's. The Bahá’ís of the city faced recurrent periods of persecution but also occasional support from the authorities with a Mujtahid being arrested in the 1920's after instigating the murder of a Bahá’í and an individual being ordered to leave the city after preaching hate speech against the Faith at a Mosque in the 1940's.

Since the 1979 Revolution the community has faced persecution from the government.

History

One of the Letters of the Living, Mullá Yúsúf-i-Ardibílí, was from Ardabil and returned to the area after becoming a Bábí but did not teach the religion in Ardabil itself.

At least two Bahá’ís came to live in Ardabil during the Ministry of Bahá’u’lláh, Mirza ‘Abbas Sarraf and his sister, and when Bahá’í travel teacher Siyyid Asadu’llah Qumi visited the city in 1893 he stayed with Sarraf. Qumi's teaching activities resulted in some declarations but also instigated opposition and he left the city after a brief time but returned late in the year at the request of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. During Qumi's second visit the Imam-Jum‘ih of the city became a Bahá’í and the as a result the Imam-Jum‘ih's son gathered a mob who abducted and beat Qumi and imprisoned him in a dungeon. Qumi and Sarraf were both taken into custody and the deputy governor held them in the towns government house for their own protection. Qumi was transferred to Tehran where he was released by the Shah and Sarraf remained imprisoned for a time and became severely ill requiring an extended period to recover after being released.

As of the early 1900's there was a small Bahá’í community in Ardabil which had less than twelve members according to an American missionary living in the area. In 1920 Mulla ‘Abdu'l-‘Azim Amin ul-‘Ulama of Ardabil visited Qazvin and became a Bahá’í and upon returning to Ardabil he began enthuiastically teaching the Faith in the city, and by 1927 a Local Spiritual Assembly had been established in the city.

As a result of his Bahá’í activity a local Mujtahid issued a fatwa calling for Mulla ‘Abdu'l-‘Azim Amin ul-‘Ulama's death. On March 28, 1927, Aqa Bala Khan Baggal visited Amin claiming he had been sent from the chief of police and when Amin let him into his home Baggal stabbed him to death. The murderer was arrested and the Mujtahid who had issued the fatwa demanded his release but the police chief refused and orders from Tehran were sent for the Mujtahid to leave the city. As a result a mob protested and shut down the Bazaar of Ardabil with over one thousand people gathering in support of the Mujtahid. The governor restored order by announcing the Mujtahid would not be required to leave the city and the crowd dispersed however a few days later the Mujtahid was arrested, as was his son who had provided the murder weapon, and the murderer was executed by firing squad.

In the late 1930's two Bahá’ís were dismissed from their jobs in Ardabil due to their religion, and the police confiscated all records of the Local Spiritual Assembly, arrested a Bahá’í, and instructed the Local Spiritual Assembly that it was prohibited from meeting. By 1944 the authorities had softened their approach to the Faith and when Shaykh Reza began denouncing the Faith from the pulpit in a Mosque in Ardabil that year he was summoned to Tabriz by government authorities and ordered to stop spreading hate speech due to concerns he would stimulate civil unrest in the city.

Following the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran the Bahá’ís of Ardabil have faced intensified persecution alongside the rest of the Bahá’í communities in the country. In 2011 Bahá’í Ramin Idelkhani was arrested in nearby Parsabad and imprisoned in Ardabil and during his interrogations he was asked why he would not leave the province and advised the authorities wanted to "clean" the Province by not having a single Bahá’í resident in the region.