There are approximately 5 million practitioners of the Baha'i faith in 235 countries and territories throughout the world, according to its official website (http://Bahai.org/) There is no Baha'i clergy; rather, there are local and national spiritual assemblies that run the affairs of Baha'i communities.

The Baha'i faith teaches that the founders of the world's major religions are divine teachers sent by one God to educate humanity, and religious revelation will continue as civilization progresses.

In 1844, an Iranian named Seyyed Ali-Mohammad, known as the Bab (Arabic for "the gate") established a religion known as the Babi faith. The Bab was imprisoned and executed in Tabriz in 1850.

One of his followers, Mirza Hussein-Ali (known as Bahaullah, Arabic for "the glory of God") was imprisoned in 1852 in Tehran, and during this time he started to believe that he was the individual the Bab predicted would be manifested by God.

Bahaullah promoted unity and a world civilization -- he opposed prejudice and poverty, and he promoted gender equality, universal education, truth-seeking, and a global collective security system.

While exiled in Baghdad in 1863, Bahaullah announced his mission. Bahaullah's exilic travels eventually landed him in Acre, where he stayed until his May 1892 death. Before dying he appointed his oldest son, Abdul-Baha, as his successor. Abdul-Baha died in Haifa in November 1921.

The Bab's remains were secretly transported from Iran to Israel and are interred in a shrine on Mount Carmel in Haifa. Bahaullah's shrine in Haifa/Acre is the faith's holiest place.

In Iran, followers of the Baha'i faith were persecuted in the 1950s by a movement known as the Hojjatieh Society, which is currently said to be experiencing a revival.

The National Spiritual Assembly of the Baha'is of the United States asserted in an advertisement in "The New York Times" of 12 September 2004 that the Iranian government has persecuted members of the religious minority there for the last quarter century. The advertisement compared the Iranian theocracy's actions with those of the Taliban when it destroyed the ancient rock statues of Buddha at Bamian, Afghanistan.

The faith has also come under pressure throughout Central Asia, notably in Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, although members are said to be experiencing fewer problems today with the authorities in Kazakhstan.