The Baháʼí Faith in Tanzania begins when the first pioneer, Claire Gung, arrived in 1950 in what was then called Tanganyika. With the first Tanganyikan to join the religion in 1952 the first Baháʼí Local Spiritual Assembly was elected in 1952 of Tanganyika in Dar es Salaam. In 1956 a regional Baháʼí Assembly which included Tanganyika was elected. Later each of the constituent countries successively formed their own independent Baháʼí National Spiritual Assembly and Tanganyika, with Zanzibar, formed its own in 1964 and it and the country was renamed Tanzania. Since 1986 the Baháʼís have operated the Ruaha Secondary School as a Baháʼí school. In 2005 Baháʼís were estimated at 163,800 adherents.
Early history For much of the history of the country it was known as Tanganyika. In 1964 Zanzibar was brought under governance with Tanganyika after which the country was renamed Tanzania by merging the two names. This article will follow the timeline of name usage.
ʻAbdu'l-Bahá's Tablets of the Divine Plan 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 April 19, 1916, and February 15, 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 April 4, 1919, and published in Star of the West magazine on December 12, 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...."
The first Baháʼí to visit Tanganyika may have been Shoghi Effendi, head of the religion after the death of ʻAbdu'l-Bahá. Rúhíyyih Khanum, his wife from 1921, shared in 1961 that Shoghi Effendi, with a male companion from the holy family, travelled from Cape Town to Cairo in the early 1920s, at the end of the traditional safaris and the beginning of safaris done by car: "He found an English hunter who took him from one point to another through the bush in East Africa - in Uganda, Kenya, or Tanganyika."
After World War II Baháʼís began to move to the region. In 1950 the British Baháʼí community was called upon by Shoghi Effendi to spearhead and co-ordinate five national Baháʼí communities in a Two Year Plan to spread the religion in Africa. Claire Gung, a German-born Baháʼí who had joined the religion in Torquay, left in 1950 to pioneer to Tanganyika as the region was called then. She was hired as an assistant teacher at a school in the Usambara Mountains region at Lushoto. For this she earned the title Knight of Baháʼu'lláh. Jalal Nakhjavani (and family), the first contemporary Persian pioneer to settle in Africa, brother of Ali Nakhjavani, entered Tanganyika in January 1951. Hasan and Isobel Sabri left for Tanganyika in July 1951 from Egypt. After Louis George Gregory, the first Hand of the Cause of African descent, died on 30 July 1951, Tanganyikan Baháʼís were among those who sent cablegrams for his memorial service. By August there were five pioneers. The first declaration of an indigenous Tanganyikan was noted on 21 August in the person of Denis Dudley-Smith Kutendele. During the formative years of Baháʼí communities in East Africa, the area received eighty pioneers, forty of whom were Persians. Forty percent of these were women. Tanganyika attracted the greatest number of Persian Baháʼís, at eighteen. Wide scale growth in the religion across Sub-Saharan Africa was observed to begin in 1950s and extend in the 1960s. In 1952 the first Local Spiritual Assembly of Tanganyika is established in Dar es Salaam. Its members were: Jalal Nakhjavani, Isobel Sabri, Hassan Sabri, Darakshandeh Khanum Nakhjavani, Leslie Matola, Denis Dudley-Smith Kutendele, Frahang Naimi Gopalkrishnan Nayer, and Eustace Mwalimu - Matola was of the Yao tribe and Mwalimu was of another tribe. In the summer of 1952 Denis Dudley-Smith Kutendele became the first pioneer to come from Tangayika when he moved to Nyasaland, now Malawi.
Ten-Year Crusade In 1953 Shoghi Effendi established a 10-year plan called the Ten Year Crusade. Waves of pioneers fanned out in a great effort to spread the religion. Ottilie Rhein pioneered to Mauritius, where she was named a Knight of Baháʼu'lláh, after having visited Kenya, Uganda and Tanganyika. After a regional conference in 1953 the first pioneer from Uganda went to Mwanza, Tanganyika and native Tito Wanantsusi joined him there. An early pioneer to Zanzibar was Salisa Karikal before the end of 1953.
In 1954 Dr. Farhūmand left Tehran and settled in the country with his three children; his wife followed. Dr. Farhūmand was particularly noted for his founding a multiracial clinic in Dar es Salaam and eventually served as personal physician to the first president of Tanzania. The death of a Persian Baháʼí, Mrs. Afrūḵta, widow of Yunis Khan, provided the opportunity for the still emerging Baháʼí community of Dar es Salaam to establish the first multiracial cemetery in that city.
By January 1956 the first Baháʼí arrived on Pemba Island. Later in 1956 Shoghi Effendi called for the establishment of regional national assemblies of Baháʼís to supervise the developing communities in regions of Africa. In the case of central and east Africa the regional assembly included many countries whose names have changed since then but at the time they were known as Belgian Congo, Kenya, Tanganyika, Comoro Is., Ruanda-Urundi, Uganda, French Equatorial Africa, Seychelles, Zanzibar, were part of the regional national assembly for Central & East Africa. The convention was held in Kampala Uganda and delegates from Tanganyika and Zanzibar attended. Hasan Balyuzi, then Chairman of the National Spiritual Assembly of the Baháʼís of the United Kingdom, whose task it was to target pioneers to Tanganyika, and Hand of the Cause Músá Banání represented Shoghi Effendi at the event. The members of the first regional national assembly were Ali Nakbjavani, Philip Hainsworth, Hassan Sabri, Oloro Epyeruj, Aziz Yazdi, Jalal Nakhjavani, Tito Wanantsusit, Sylvester Okurut, and Max Kenyerezi.
The regional assembly established short term schools - Tanganyika held its first weekend school in 1957. The school started on a Saturday afternoon with an opening devotional program and the first class, followed by dinner and an evening of social activity. Sunday morning and part of the afternoon was devoted to more classes, panel discussions, demonstrations of the various procedures of Baha'i administrative life, such as elections and consultations, and question and answer sessions, and ending with a devotional. In early 1957 Gung moved from Tanganyika to Uganda where she founded a multi-racial kindergarten nursery. In April the Local Spiritual Assembly of Dar es Salaam obtained their civic registration according to the Trustee's Incorporation Ordinance of Tanganyika. The community of Tanganyika held three weekend schools in 1959. Four Tanganyikan's attended the centralized school held in Kampala in 1960. Conferences on the progress of the religion were held in 1960 at Mashi and Tunga with attendance by Hand of Cause Músá Banáni.
In 1961 the Baháʼí House of Worship for Africa was dedicated. Over 1500 people attended. Among the Baháʼís were some 225 African Baháʼís from Uganda, Kenya, Tanganyika, Ruanda Urundi, Ethiopia, Northern Rhodesia, Swaziland, and South Africa; some 90 Persian Baha'is, sixty-two of whom flew from Tehran; the British national assembly, the mother assembly to that of Central and East Africa, sent one believer from each of its regions - England, Scotland and Wales, as well as one from Ireland; the American national assembly sent one of its members, Amos Gibson, himself a pioneer among the American Indian peoples. Following the dedications Rúhíyyih Khanum traveled through the area for a few months spending part of February in Tanganyika.
The growth in the religion across the regional assembly of Central and East Africa was called "the most spectacular" by the Custodians who carried on the work of the religion between death of Shoghi Effendi and the election of the Universal House of Justice. In 1962 there were many Baháʼís in Central and East Africa (over 42,000). Hand of the Cause Enoch Olinga toured the region in 1962 and addressed gatherings at variety of locations in Tanganyika such as Usambara Estate, where about 1,400 people heard him; at Dar es Salaam, where two meetings were held; at Kivukoni College and at Mnazi Mmoja attended by over 150 people.
Survey In 1963 a survey was accomplished of the religion. In Tanzania it identifies there were 41 assemblies, 65 groups between 1 and 9 adults, and 48 isolated individuals. The assemblies included those from Bukoba, Dar es Salaam, Makuyuni, Mkomazi, Pemba Mnazi, Moshi, Morogoro, and Mwanza. Registered groups of Baháʼís included those from Arusha, Dodoma, Iringa, Kanga, Kilomeni, Mbeya, Mikumi, Musoma, Pongwe Pogwe, Ruvu, Shinyanga, Songea, Tukuyu, Ukerewe Island and Zanzibar City.
A national community Following the election of the Universal House of Justice, the Baháʼí populations across the African countries began to form their own National Spiritual Assembly: In 1964 - Tanganyika and Zanzibar and nearby islands together formed their own assembly in time with the civic changes (including the new name of Tanzania) while others across sub-Saharan continued to form up to the 1990s. The national convention for the Baháʼís of Tanganyika, Zanzibar, Mafia Island, and Pemba Island was held on May 1 though train breaks downs and flooded roads limited attendance by about half the delegates. The second half arrived the next morning reaching a total of 42 delegates. Hand of the Cause Músá Banání represented the Custodians and the newly elected Universal House of Justice at the convention. Many messages from Baháʼí communities arrived congratulating the Tanzanians from throughout the world which gave the delegates a grasp of breadth of the worldwide community. Those elected to the first national assembly were: H. S. Akida, Allen Elston, Mary Elston, Lamuka Mwangulu, Jalal Nakhjavani, Wallace NgaUomba, Glory Nyirenda, Ruhulah Yazdani and Jamsheed Samandari. As of 1965 there were 75 local assemblies and Baháʼís in about 265 localities. The Baháʼí assembly of Karachi, Pakistan was host to A. A. Badii of the Sokoine University of Agriculture campus of Morogo and a member of the national assembly of Tanzania in August 1967 and the national center buildings was finished in 1968. Hand of the Cause Enoch Olinga attended the 1968 convention at the new center. In 1969 the national assembly was officially recognized as a religious institution by the government.
Developments within and without