History of the Association for Bahá'í Studies


Founded in 1975 as a result of the commitment of a diverse group of interested persons, the work of the Association has, through the support and encouragement of the Bahá'í Institutions and Bahá'ís worldwide, expanded far beyond its original mandate. The Association is a cooperative effort of the National Spiritual Assemblies of Canada, the United States and Alaska. The Centre for Bahá'í Studies, located in Ottawa, Canada, coordinates the activities of the Association in North America and serves as a centre for research, instruction, and information. Adjacent to the University of Ottawa, the Centre enjoys easy access to the university library and other university facilities. These resources, combined with the Centre's own library, offer an unparalleled facility for research on the Bahá'í Faith.

The Association is also engaged in developing curricula suitable for use at universities that recognize the Bahá'í Faith as an important subject for research and instruction. In addition, the Centre for Bahá'í Studies maintains a bureau of speakers from a variety of disciplines who are qualified to present lectures on various aspects of Bahá'í studies. Such lectures are organized by the Association in response to invitations by universities and other academic organizations.

The Association holds annual meetings, international conferences, and special seminars and symposia. In addition, it sponsors regional conferences across North America, which provide further opportunities for scholars to present the results of their research and to exchange ideas. Selected topics presented on these occasions appear in publications of the Association: The Journal of Bahá'í Studies, a quarterly publication, and Bahá'í Studies, serial monographs.

Campus Affiliates

The Association for Bahá'í Studies has twenty-six international fraternal affiliates worldwide, and the Centre for Bahá'í Studies in Ottawa acts as the international coordinating hub for these Associations. The Centre for Bahá'í Studies produces a quarterly international newsletter, The Bulletin, which keeps members advised of the worldwide activities of the Association.

Campus organizations affiliated with the Association provide a valuable source of ideas and original research. In addition, these campus associations organize Bahá'í studies activities that complement the interests and aims of their respective institutions. The groups receive the Campus Association Newsletter periodically.

In the past several years, the Association has established professional interest groups within its membership. The areas now represented are agriculture, arts, consultation and conflict resolution, business and economics, education, environmental design, health, intercultural issues, marriage and family, science and technology, philosophy of science, study of religion, and women's studies. These groups have begun their activities by organizing conferences in conjunction with the Association's annual conference and by issuing newsletters in their respective fields of interest.

Aims and Objectives

The Association for Bahá'í Studies is very different from any academic or professional society. It is not merely characterized by shared methods or practices or an object or field of investigation. It is an enterprise committed to a vision and a purpose that is both spiritual and social -- to the advancement of human knowledge and civilization through the study and application of the teachings and precepts contained in the Bahá'í Writings.

It seeks to foster the development of a scholarship, as 'active science,' that applies the teachings of Bahá'u'lláh to address the manifold and increasingly urgent problems that beset a desperate, suffering humanity -- a scholarship that is 'anxiously concerned with the needs of the time' and whose deliberations are centred 'on its exigencies and requirements.' The Universal House of Justice has written that 'the task of humanity, including the Bahá'í community that serves as the 'leaven' within it, is to create a global civilization which embodies both the spiritual and material dimensions of existence.' This 'vast enterprise will depend on a progressive interaction between the truths and principles of religion and the discoveries and insights of scientific inquiry.' Such an objective calls for a spirit of innovation and unfettered search for truth that 'requires us not to limit science to any particular school of thought or methodological approach postulated in the course of its development.

Another critical requirement before us, therefore, is to bring about a profound transformation of scholarship itself. The academic world today increasingly recognizes that traditional practices and discourses of scholarship have arbitrarily limited what is defined and valued as 'knowledge.' The recognition and exploration of nontraditional forms of knowledge; a wider inclusiveness of diversity, valuing the 'different voices' of those previously excluded from being regarded as agents of knowledge by reason of class, race, culture, or gender; the rise of the interdisciplinary movement; the critique of knowledge elites; as well as an increasing awareness of the wider ethical responsibility that academicians and scientists bear toward the larger community beyond their specialized research enclave--these are all contemporary concerns on which Bahá'í scholars are uniquely positioned to shed illumination and mark out new paths in theory and practice, and those to which we invite you to explore with us.