The Baháʼí Faith was formed in the late 19th-century Middle East by Baháʼu'lláh, and teaches that an official line of succession of leadership is part of a divine covenant that assures unity and prevents schism. There are no major schisms in the Baháʼí Faith, and attempts to form alternative leadership have either become extinct with time or have remained in extremely small numbers that are shunned by the majority. The largest extant sect is related to Mason Remey's claim to leadership in 1960, which continued into the 21st century with two or three groups numbering less than 200 collectively, mostly in the United States.

About a dozen efforts have been made to form sects in the history of the Baháʼí Faith. The first major challenge to leadership came after Baháʼu'lláh died in 1892, with ʻAbdu'l-Bahá's half-brother Mírzá Muhammad ʻAlí opposing him. Later, Shoghi Effendi faced opposition from his family, as well as some individual Baháʼís. When Shoghi Effendi passed in 1957, there was no clear successor, and the Hands of the Cause led a transition to the Universal House of Justice, elected in 1963. This transition was opposed by Mason Remey, who claimed to be the successor of Shoghi Effendi in 1960, but was excommunicated by Hands of the Cause because his claim had no basis in authoritative Baháʼí writings. Other, more modern attempts at schism have come from opposition to the Universal House of Justice and attempts to reform or change doctrine.

Those that have been excommunicated are designated as Covenant-breakers by the majority, some of which claim to represent the true Baháʼí Faith. Some Baháʼís have claimed that there have been no divisions in the Baháʼí Faith, or that none will survive or become a threat to the main body of Baháʼís. From 2000 to 2020, twenty individuals were expelled by the Baháʼí Administration for Covenant-breaking.

ʻAbdu'l-Bahá's ministry

Baháʼu'lláh remained in the Akka-Haifa area under house arrest until his death in 1892. According to the terms of his will, his eldest son ʻAbdu'l-Bahá was named the centre of authority; Mírzá Muhammad ʻAlí, the eldest son from Baháʼu'lláh's second wife, was assigned a secondary position.Baháʼu'lláh, Tablets of Baháʼu'lláh, p. 221

With ʻAbdu'l-Bahá as the head of the Baháʼí community, soon Muhammad ʻAli started working against his elder brother, at first subtly and then in open opposition. Most members of the families of Baháʼu'lláh's second and third wives supported Muhammad ʻAlí; however, there were very few outside of Haifa who followed him.

Muhammad ʻAlí's machinations with the Ottoman authorities resulted in ʻAbdu'l-Bahá's re-arrest and confinement in Acre. They also caused the appointment of two official commissions of inquiry, which almost led to further exile and incarceration of ʻAbdu'l-Baha to North Africa. In the aftermath of the Young Turk revolution, Ottoman prisoners were freed thus ending the danger to ʻAbdu'l-Baha. Meanwhile, Ibrahim George Kheiralla, a Syrian Christian, converted to the Baháʼí Faith, emigrated to the United States and founded the first American Baháʼí community. Initially, he was loyal to ʻAbdu'l-Bahá. With time Kheiralla began teaching that ʻAbdu'l-Baha was the return of Christ, and this was becoming the widespread understanding among the Baháʼís in the United States, despite ʻAbdu'l-Baha's efforts to correct the mistake. Later on, Kheiralla switched sides in the conflict between Baháʼu'lláh's sons and supported Mirza Muhammad ʻAlí. He formed the Society of Behaists, a religious denomination promoting Unitarian Bahaism in the U.S., which was later led by Shua Ullah Behai, son of Mirza Muhammad ʻAlí, after he emigrated to the United States in June 1904 at the behest of his father. Muhammad ʻAlí's supporters either called themselves Behaists Shu'a'ullah, Behai Quarterly Volume 4 Page 23 or "Unitarian Baháʼís". From 1934 to 1937, Behai published Behai Quarterly a Unitarian Bahai magazine written in English and featuring the writings of Muhammad ʻAlí and various other Unitarian Bahais.

ʻAbdu'l-Bahá's response to determined opposition during his tenure was patterned on Baháʼu'lláh's example and evolved across three stages. Initially, like Baháʼu'lláh, he made no public statements but communicated with his brother Muhammad ʻAlí and his associates directly, or through intermediaries, in seeking reconciliation. When it became clear that reconciliation was not possible, and fearing damage to the community, ʻAbdu'l-Bahá wrote to the Baháʼís explaining the situation, identifying the individuals concerned and instructing the believers to sever all ties with those involved. Finally, he sent representatives to those areas most affected by the problem.

The function of these representatives was to explain matters to the Baháʼís and to encourage them to persevere in cutting all contact. Often these chosen individuals would have ʻAbdu'l-Bahá's authority to open up communications with those involved to try to persuade them to return. In Iran, such envoys were principally the four Hands of the Cause appointed by Baháʼu'lláh.

Aftermath When ʻAbdu'l-Bahá died, his Will and Testament explained in some detail how Muhammad ʻAlí had been unfaithful to the Covenant, identifying him as a Covenant-breaker and appointing Shoghi Effendi as leader of the Faith with the title of Guardian. Baháʼí authors such as Hasan Balyuzi and Adib Taherzadeh set about refuting the claims of Muhammad ʻAlí. This represented what is often described as the most testing time for the Baháʼí Faith. The Behaists rejected the authority of the Will and Testament of ʻAbdu'l-Bahá, claiming loyalty to the leadership succession as they inferred it from Baha'u'llah's Kitab-i-Ahd.

This schism had very little effect. The claims were rejected by the vast majority of Baháʼís. Muhammad ʻAlí's supporters had mostly abandoned him by the time of his death in 1937. In the ʻAkká area, the followers of Muhammad ʻAlí represented six families at most, they had no common religious activities, and were almost wholly assimilated into Muslim society.

Shoghi Effendi as Guardian

Appointment

At 24, Shoghi Effendi was particularly young when he assumed leadership of the religion in 1921, as provided for by ʻAbdu'l-Bahá in his Will and Testament. He had received a Western education at the Syrian Protestant College and later at Balliol College, Oxford.

At this time Muhammad-ʻAlí revived his claim to leadership of the Baháʼí community. He seized the keys of the Tomb of Baháʼu'lláh at the Mansion of Bahjí, expelled its keeper, and demanded that he be recognized by the authorities as the legal custodian of that property. However, the Palestinian authorities, after having conducted some investigations, instructed the British officer in ʻAkká to deliver the keys into the hands of the keeper loyal to Shoghi Effendi.

American disputes After the death of ʻAbdu'l-Bahá, Ruth White questioned the Will's authenticity as early as 1926, and openly opposed Shoghi Effendi's Guardianship, publishing several books on the subject. She wrote a letter to the United States Postmaster General and asked him, among other things, to prohibit the National Spiritual Assembly from "using the United States Mails to spread the falsehood that Shoghi Effendi is the successor of ʻAbdu'l-Bahá and the Guardian of the Cause." She also wrote a letter to the High Commissioner for Palestine; both of these letters were ignored.

Another division occurred primarily within the American Baháʼí community, which increasingly consisted of non-Persians with an interest in alternative spiritual pursuits. Many had been strongly attracted to the personality of ʻAbdu'l-Bahá and the spiritual teachings of the Baháʼí Faith. Some regarded it as an ecumenical society which all persons of goodwill—regardless of religion—might join. When Shoghi Effendi made clear his position that the Baháʼí Faith was an independent religion with its own distinct administration through local and national spiritual assemblies, a few felt that he had overstepped the bounds of his authority. Most prominent among them was a New York group including Mirza Ahmad Sohrab, Lewis and Julia Chanler, who founded the "New History Society", and its youth section, the Caravan of East and West.Mirza Ahmad Sohrab, The Baháʼí Cause pp. 309-14 Sohrab and the Chanlers refused to be overseen by the New York Spiritual Assembly, and were expelled by Shoghi Effendi as Covenant-breakers. They argued that the expulsion was meaningless because they believed the faith could not be institutionalized. The New History Society published several works by Sohrab and Chanler and others. Sohrab accepted the legitimacy of Shoghi Effendi as Guardian, but was critical of the manner of his leadership and the methods of organizing the Baháʼí administration. The New History Society attracted fewer than a dozen Baháʼís, however its membership swelled to several thousand for a time. The New History Society was active until 1959 and is now defunct. The Caravan House, also known as Caravan Institute, later disassociated itself from the Baháʼí Faith, and remained as an unrelated non-profit educational organization.See also New York Tax Exempt and NonProfit Organizations

All of the divisions of this period were short-lived and restricted in their influence.

Family members expelled

In 1932 Shoghi Effendi's great aunt, Bahíyyih Khánum, died. She was highly respected and had instructed all to follow Shoghi Effendi through several telegrams she had sent around the world announcing the basics of the provisions of ʻAbdu'l-Bahá's will and was witness to the actions relatives took in violation of provisions of the will. Bahíyyih Khánum had devoted much of her life towards protecting the accepted leadership of the Baháʼí Faith and after Shoghi Effendi's appointment there was little internal opposition until after her death when nephews began to openly oppose Shoghi Effendi over Baháʼu'lláh's house in Baghdad. Some family members disapproved of his marriage to a Westerner, Mary Maxwell—daughter of one of the foremost disciples of ʻAbdu'l-Bahá—in 1937. They claimed that Shoghi Effendi introduced innovations beyond the Iranian roots of the Faith. This gradually resulted in his siblings and cousins disobeying his instructions and marrying into the families of Covenant-breakers, many of whom were expelled as Covenant-breakers themselves. However, these disagreements within Shoghi Effendi's family resulted in no attempts to create a schism favouring an alternative leader. At the time of his death in 1957, he was the only remaining male member of the family of Baháʼu'lláh who had not been expelled. Even his own parents had openly fought against him.

The founding of the Universal House of Justice Shoghi Effendi died in 1957 without explicitly appointing a successor Guardian. He had no children, and during his lifetime all remaining male descendants of Baháʼu'lláh had been excommunicated as Covenant-breakers. He left no will. Shoghi Effendi's appointed Hands of the Cause unanimously voted it was impossible to legitimately recognize and assent to a successor. The Baháʼí community was in a situation not dealt with explicitly in the provisions of the Will and Testament of ʻAbdu'l-Bahá. Furthermore, the Universal House of Justice had not yet been elected, which represented the only Baháʼí institution authorized to adjudicate on matters not covered by the religion's three central figures. To understand the transition following the death of Shoghi Effendi in 1957, an explanation of the roles of the Guardian, the Hands of the Cause, and the Universal House of Justice is useful.

Guardianship