Muslim-Baha’i Relations in the Southern Caucasus at the End of the 19th and Beginning of the 20th Centuries

This article examines the attitudes of the South Caucasian Muslims toward the Baha’i communities at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries, focusing on the Nukha and Javat districts, within the broader framework of Tsarist Russia’s geopolitical and geostrategic concerns— vis-a-vis the Shiʿa majority and the Ottoman adversary—the article shows how local administrations of Elizavetopol and Baku provinces adopted an informal policy toward the Baha’is, which fostered a climate of impunity for anti-Baha’i harassment. Drawing on archival documents and oral histories, and by comparing the distinct experiences of the Baha’i communities in Nukha and Javat, the study further demonstrates how individual Baha’i leaders—through religious authority, social influence, or strategic alliances—were nonetheless able to resist persecution and, in some cases, improve Muslim—Baha’i relations. The findings underscore that, despite adverse conditions, Baha’i communities in the South Caucasus not only survived but at times thrived.