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Book Cover for: The Baha'i Faith in Africa: Establishing a New Religious Movement, 1952-1962, Anthony Lee

The Baha'i Faith in Africa: Establishing a New Religious Movement, 1952-1962

Anthony Lee

In 1952, there were probably fewer than 200 Baha'is in all of Africa. Today the Baha'i community claims one million followers on the continent. Yet, the Baha'i presence in Africa has been all but ignored in academic studies up to now. This is the first monograph that addresses the establishment of this New Religious Movement in Africa. Discovering an African presence at the genesis of the religon in Iran, this study seeks to explain why the movement found an appeal in colonial Africa during the 1950s and early 1960. It also explores how the Baha'i faith was influenced and Africanized by its new converts. Finally, the book seeks to make sense of the diverse and contradictory American, Iranian, British, and African elements that established a new religion in Africa.

Book Details

  • Publisher: Brill
  • Publish Date: Oct 28th, 2011
  • Pages: 292
  • Language: English
  • Edition: undefined - undefined
  • Dimensions: 9.70in - 6.40in - 0.80in - 1.40lb
  • EAN: 9789004206847
  • Categories: Baha' iHistoryInspirational

About the Author

Anthony A Lee, Ph.D. (2007), Lecturer at the History Department at UCLA, is General Editor of the academic series Studies in the Babi and Baha'i Religions (Kalimat Press) and has published in African history and African American history.

Praise for this book

"It is rather an exciting, well-written and thoroughly researched study that discusses and provides an intriguing insight into the establishment of a new religion in Africa. Lee's book could easily be read as a study that belongs to the field of the history of religions, but it is also a research project that includes research traditions and methods found within the fields of missionary studies, colonial studies and more broadly African studies."
Göran Larsson, University of Gothenburg, Alternative Spirituality and Religion Review, Volume 3, Issue 1

"One of the interesting aspects of the Baha'i Faith is the manner in which it has spread to all parts of the world and gained adherents among a wide variety of cultures, and yet this aspect of the religion has not been studied much.This is the first academic book to examine the spread of the Baha'i Faith to Africa."
Moojan Momen, United Kingdom, Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions, Vol. 17, No. 2

"This monograph is the first book-length study of the Baha'i faith in Africa. As such, it is an important achievement and will hopefully engender further indepth research."
Thomas G. Kirsch, University of Konstanz, Germany, Journal of Religion in Africa 46