New Baha'i
Bahá'í faith, a world religion with followers in 235 countries and territories,
Although its forerunner, the Babi movement, had its roots in Shi'ah (ISLAM) Iran, the Bahá'í faith is independent rather than a sect of another religion, and derives its inspiration from its own sacred scriptures.
These consist primarily of the writings of the founder, Bahá'u'lláh (1817-92), who Bahá'ís believe is the Messenger of God to our age, the most recent in a line stretching back beyond recorded time and including Abraham, Moses, Buddha, Christ and Muhammad.
The central teaching of Bahá'u'lláh is that mankind is one human race, and that the age for the unification of this race in a global society has arrived.
Among the principles of justice on which it is based are equality of the sexes, the right of all people to education and economic opportunity, the abolition of all forms of prejudice and the need for the establishment of a democratic world government with its own peacekeeping force.
Bahá'ís believe that all great religions of the past have been stages in the progressive revelation of what Bahá'u'lláh called "the changeless Faith of God." God himself is unknowable.
From age to age he reveals himself through his messengers, whose lives and teachings reflect the Divine qualities. These successive revelations provide the chief impulse in the civilizing of human nature and the evolution of human society. Other messengers will follow Bahá'u'lláh so long as the universe exists, but the challenge of the next thousand years will be to realize Bahá'u'lláh's vision of world unity.