The history of the Baháʼí Faith in Africa dates back to the lifetimes of the three individual heads of the religion, Baháʼu'lláh, ʻAbdu'l-Bahá, and Shoghi Effendi, each of who was in Africa at least once. The Association of Religion Data Archives (relying on World Christian Encyclopedia) lists many larger and smaller populations in Africa with Kenya, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, South Africa and Zambia among the top ten numerical populations of Baháʼís in the world in 2005, and Mauritius highest in terms of percentage of the national population. There are Baháʼí Houses of Worship in Uganda, Kenya, and in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. A plan for a House of Worship in Zambia was announced in 2023.
History Baháʼu'lláh's lifetime Among its earliest contacts with the religion came in Egypt. The Baháʼí Faith in Egypt begins perhaps with the first Baháʼís arriving in 1863. Baháʼu'lláh, founder of the religion, was himself briefly in Egypt in 1868 when on his way to imprisonment in ʻAkká. Nabíl-i-Aʻzam made several journeys on behalf of Baháʼu'lláh and was imprisoned in Egypt in 1868. Robert Felkin was in Egypt circa 1880s and published a number of books -later he converted to the religion.Arohanui, Introduction by Collis Featherstone. In 1892 two converts in Egypt embarked to the West intending to spread the religion and were the first Baháʼís to enter the United States where the first converts followed in 1894. The first Egyptian converts had taken place by 1896.
ʻAbdu'l-Bahá's leadership Mírzá Abu'l-Faḍl-i-Gulpáygání, often called Mírzá Abu'l-Faḍl, was the first prominent Baháʼí to live in Africa and made some of the first big changes to the community in Egypt. Abdu'l-Fadl first came to Cairo in 1894 where he settled for several years. He was the foremost Baháʼí scholar and helped spread the Baháʼí Faith in Egypt, Turkmenistan, and the United States. In Egypt, he was successful in converting some thirty of the students of Al-Azhar University, the foremost institution of learning in the Sunni Muslim world. Abu'l-Faḍl also became friends with writers and magazine publishers, and many articles that he authored appeared in the Egyptian press. In 1896, when Nasiru'd-Din Shah was assassinated in Iran, an enemy of the Baháʼís, Zaʻimu'd-Dawlih, used the rumour that the assassination had been performed by Baháʼís, to cause a massacre of the Baháʼís in Egypt. When Abu'l-Faḍl stood up in defense for the Baháʼís and stated that he himself was a Baháʼí, his allegiance became public; then when his two books Fara'id and Al-Duraru'l-Bahiyyih were published in 1897-1900 the al-Azhar University decreed that Abu'l-Faḍl was an infidel.
ʻAbdu'l-Bahá, head of the religion after Baháʼu'lláh, lived in Egypt for several years and several people came to meet him there: Stanwood Cobb, Wellesley Tudor Pole, Isabella Grinevskaya, and Louis George Gregory, later the first Hand of the Cause of African descent, visited ʻAbdu'l-Bahá at Ramleh in 1911. ʻAbdu'l-Bahá then embarked on several trips to the West taking an ocean liner for the first one on August 11, 1911. He left on the next trip left March 25, 1912. One of the earliest Baháʼís of the west and a Disciple of ʻAbdu'l-Bahá, Lua M. Getsinger, died in 1916 and she was buried in Egypt near Mírzá Abu'l-Faḍl.
ʻAbdu'l-Bahá wrote a series of letters, or tablets, to the followers of the religion in the United States in 1916–1917; these letters were compiled together in the book Tablets of the Divine Plan. The eighth and twelfth of the tablets mentioned Africa and were written on 19 April 1916 and 15 February 1917, respectively. Publication however was delayed in the United States until 1919—after the end of the First World War and the Spanish flu. The tablets were translated and presented by Mirza Ahmad Sohrab on 4 April 1919, and published in Star of the West magazine on 12 December 1919. ʻAbdu'l-Bahá mentions Baháʼís traveling "…especially from America to Europe, Africa, Asia and Australia, and travel through Japan and China. Likewise, from Germany teachers and believers may travel to the continents of America, Africa, Japan and China; in brief, they may travel through all the continents and islands of the globe" and " …the anthem of the oneness of the world of humanity may confer a new life upon all the children of men, and the tabernacle of universal peace be pitched on the apex of America; thus Europe and Africa may become vivified with the breaths of the Holy Spirit, this world may become another world, the body politic may attain to a new exhilaration…."
Shoghi Effendi's leadership Shoghi Effendi, who was appointed the leader of the religion after ʻAbdu'l-Bahá's death, travelled through Africa in 1929 and again in 1940.
The history of the religion in Kenya has an interesting precursor. Before joining the religion, Richard St. Barbe Baker served in the country in 1920 under the Colonial Office as Assistant Conservator of Forests. There he saw the wide scale deforestation going on. While there he intervened in a case of a colonial officer against a Kikuyu worker - taking a blow aimed at the worker. The struggle would eventually alienate him from the service. He developed a plan for re-forestation where food crops were planted between rows of young native trees. Because of lack of funds St. Barbe consulted with the Kenyans themselves, approaching the Kikuyu Chiefs and Elders, and together they arranged for three thousand tribal warriors to come to his camp and with the assistance of the Chiefs fifty were selected to be the first Men of the Trees. They promised before Ngai, the High God, that they would protect the native forest, plant ten native trees each year, and take care of trees everywhere. Immediately then leaving Kenya, St. Barbe offered a paper at a Congress of Living Religions in the Commonwealth about the Bantu religion following which he was introduced to the Baháʼí Faith because of "his genuine interest in another's religion struck a sympathetic chord with the Baháʼí principles."
At the other extreme of the continent the Baháʼí Faith in South Africa struggled with issues under the segregated social pattern and laws of Apartheid in South Africa. The Baháʼí community decided that instead of dividing the South African Baháʼí community into two population groups, one black and one white, they instead limited membership in the Baháʼí administration to black adherents, and placed the entire Baháʼí community under the leadership of its black population. In 1997 the National Spiritual Assembly presented a Statement to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa which said in part: Abhorring all forms of prejudice and rejecting any system of segregation, the Baháʼí Faith was introduced on a one to one basis and the community quietly grew during the apartheid years, without publicity. Despite the nature of the politics of that time, we presented our teachings on unity and the oneness of humankind to prominent individuals in politics, commerce and academia and leaders of thought including State Presidents.... [b]oth individual Baháʼís and our administrative institutions were continually watched by the security police.... Our activities did not include opposition to the previous Government for involvement in partisan politics and opposition to government are explicitly prohibited by the sacred Texts of our Faith.... During the time when the previous Government prohibited integration within our communities, rather than divide into separate administrative structures for each population group, we opted to limit membership of the Baháʼí Administration to the black adherents who were and remain in the majority of our membership and thereby placed the entire Baháʼí community under the stewardship of its black membership.... The pursuit of our objectives of unity and equality has not been without costs. The "white" Baháʼís were often ostracized by their white neighbours for their association with "non-whites". The Black Baháʼís were subjected to scorn by their black compatriots for their lack of political action and their complete integration with their white Baháʼí brethren.
To the west the Baháʼí Faith in Morocco began about 1946.
Wide-scale growth in the religion across Sub-Saharan Africa was observed to begin in the 1950s and extend in the 1960s. In 1953 the Baháʼís initiated a Ten Year Crusade during which a number of Baháʼís pioneered to various parts of Africa following the requests of ʻAbdu'l-Bahá. It was emphasized that western pioneers be self-effacing and focus their efforts not on the colonial leadership but on the native Africans - and that the pioneers must show by actions the sincerity of their sense of service to the Africans in bringing the religion and then the Africans who understand their new religion were to be given freedom to rise up and spread the religion according to their own sensibilities and the pioneers to disperse or step into the background. Among the figures of the religion in Africa the most senior African historically would be Enoch Olinga. In 1953 he became the first Baháʼí pioneer to British Cameroon, (moving from Uganda) and was given the title Knight of Baháʼu'lláh for that country. Ali Nakhjavani, and his wife along with Olinga and two other Baháʼís travelled from Uganda to Cameroon - the other Baháʼís were dropped along the way in other countries. As the number of Baháʼís grew in Cameroon new Baháʼís left the immediate region to pioneer in other surrounding areas, each becoming a Knight of Baháʼu'lláh including Ghana, and Togo. Because of the successive waves of people becoming Knights of Baháʼu'lláh, Enoch Olinga was entitled "Abd'l-Futuh", a Persian name meaning "the father of victories" by Shoghi Effendi. He was appointed as the youngest Hand of the Cause, the highest appointed position in the religion. A biography published in 1984 examined his impact in Cameroon and beyond.
Under the Universal House of Justice
Troubles characterize the experience of the Baháʼís across the Saharan countries. In 1960 with a regime change in Egypt, the Baháʼís lost all rights as an organized religious community by Law 263 at the decree of then-President Gamal Abdel Nasser which specified a minimum sentence of six months' imprisonment or a fine for any organized activities of the Baháʼís. All Baháʼí community properties, including Baháʼí centers, libraries, and cemeteries, were confiscated by the government except the cemetery Al-Rawda Al-Abadeyya. In obedience to the government is a core principal of the religion. In 1963 the arrests of Baháʼís in Morocco had gotten attention from Hassan II of Morocco, US Senator Kenneth B. Keating and Roger Nash Baldwin, then Chairman of the International League for the Rights of Man and would echo in analyses of politics of Morocco for years to come.