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Concept
Baháʼí Faith in the Democratic Republic of the Congo
Summary
The Baháʼí Faith in the Democratic Republic of the Congo begins after ʻAbdu'l-Bahá wrote letters encouraging taking the religion to Africa in 1916. The first Baháʼí to settle in the country came in 1953 from Uganda. The first Baháʼí Local Spiritual Assembly of the country was elected in 1957. By 1963 there were 143 local assemblies in Congo. Even though the religion was temporarily banned, and the country torn by wars, the religion grew so that in 2003 there were some 541 assemblies. The Association of Religion Data Archives (relying mostly on the World Christian Encyclopedia) estimated some 290,900 Baháʼís in 2005.
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...."
Shoghi Effendi, head of the religion after the death of ʻAbdu'l-Bahá, and his wife, Rúhíyyih Khanum may have been the first Baháʼís to visit Congo when they drove across the eastern part of the country in 1940.
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