Talk:Baháʼí Faith by country

message: As promised here is an extract from the (now dated) research I did back in NOvember 1996 on distribution of Baha'is around the world:
*1. India 2,262,126 (1996, private correspondance with NSA)
*2. Philippines 350,785 (1995, private correspondence with NSA)
*3. Iran 300,000 (1988, World Christian Encyclopedia based on projection from historic figures; these projections are not accruate for other countries)
*4. Malaysia 200,000 (1995, private correspondence with NSA)
*5. United States 130,000 (1988, Europa Year Book based on projections)
*6. Bolivia 85,000 (1988, Europa Year Book based on projections)
*7. Guyana 50,000 (private correspondence with Baha'i)
*8. Brazil 45,211 (1996, private correspondence with NSA)
*9. Zimbabwe 17,270 (1988, World Christian Encyclopedia projection)
*10. Zambia 14,560 (1988, World Christian Encyclopedia projection)
*11. Australia 12,224 (1996, NSA quoted in "Baha'i Weekly Planner")
*12. Albania 12,000 (1996, private correspondence with NSA)
I would treat the projected figures with significant scepticism.
AndrewRT 20:15, 3 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Possibly - I'll have a look to see if I kept them. AndrewRT 13:33, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: As an interesting connection to this, check out this link. It claims India has 1.7 million, and the US has 753 thousand. Other estimates appear to be wrong also. Cuñado  - Talk 19:53, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Distribution 

message: A few people have said in comments on this topic that size is not that important. Why does it matter how many Baha'is there are anyway?
From a theological point of view, of course size is irrelevant. Truth is independent of the number of people who believe it to be true, and God does not depends on our approval.
However, from a sociological point of view size is definitely important. In Britain, the Baha'i Faith claims to be "one of the nine major world religions in Britain". The fact that in numerical terms the Baha'i Faith comes about number 25 means that this claim is questionable.
Credibility is very important for the Baha'i Faith, as it gets them recognised, and increases their impact when dealing with secular authorities. From their point of view, why woudl they bother listening to the Baha'is if there are only a handful of them anyway? Many Baha'is rely on the claimed global size of their religion to give them credibility as a "global religion". If this was shown to be exaggerated it would have a definite impact on how the religion is treated. AndrewRT 13:33, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed on everything. When I introduce the Faith to people who have never heard of it before, I admit that I often mention that there are 6 million Baha'is in the world in almost every country. It gives credibility and makes people realize that it's not some whacko nutjob cult. I also reference the fact that truth is independent of that. Cuñado  - Talk 17:50, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Does size matter? 

message: Does anyone remember where this paragraph came from or what it was meant to say?
:The large growth of the religion in the 20th century means that most Bahá'í's were not born into the religion of their grandparents, or of the society around them, combined with the Bahá'í principle of independent investigation, makes it difficult to compare Bahá'í statistics with religions in which people are automatically assigned to statistics at birth. Some would say that this results in an overcount for major religions; others point out that as a sociological reality, Baha'i membership is often more transient than say, Catholic identity.
First of all, Baha'i children are now "automatically assigned" a Baha'i membership at birth if their parents register them. Second you can't assign someone "to statistics"; the English is awkward. Third, I think what this is trying to say is that it hard to compare a religion with lots of converts who might then leave the Faith (but who, let's face it, are often more zealous than those born into a Faith) to a religion with an "inherited" membership. But the paragraph doesn't use terms like convert, inherited, and such, so it is confusing.
How can we edit it for clarity?
RHStockman 13:45 CDT April 25, 2007.
:I agree with your understanding of the paragraph;  I believe this paragraph has existed from way back, near the creation of the article.  I don't have access to much internet access at this moment, so I can't help clean it up, but regardless it isn't really sourced, so I don't know if it deserves to be in the article. -- Jeff3000 02:16, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Difficulties in Enumeration

message: I suggest creating a new page, Bahá'í Faith by country, to replace :Category:Bahá'í Faith by country, and also merge Statistics on National Spiritual Assemblies into the new page. The category is not supposed to be used as an informational page like that, and there is more than enough material to put on a page. I suggest moving all the country info from Baha'i statistics to the new page. Cuñado ☼ - Talk 17:31, 28 November 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Sounds good to me. -- Jeff3000 (talk) 23:20, 28 November 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually, let me be more specific; if there is anything relating to demographics in the current blurbs for each country, they should stay here.  I think a better title for this page, after the general country stuff is moved to a new page is Baha'i demographics. Regards -- Jeff3000 (talk) 23:22, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

text: I'm generally for the idea, kind of. I presume you mean take the article-like qualities of the category page and make an article of it as well as some content from the statistics page, but to leave the category itself. I've been wrestling between doing the work of each country and when to break out to summary pages by quasi-continent as well these world-wide summary articles. The reason I added the regional templates all here is because it allows for regional snapshots as well as simply alphabetical listing. A little detail I observed was that the templates for the quasi-continental regions sometimes lend themselves to those summary pages (literally click on the title and it's an article waiting to go) and sometimes it doesn't (it's not a link going anywhere.) Cuñado - want to throw together a sandbox draft so I can see what you are shooting at or do you prefer a solo effort? There is also a nagging prospect of improving the articles as none of them reaches even a B grade I think. And yet I've done barely over 10% of the countries. Another thought I had was a sub-cat for countries where the Baha'i Faith is illegal or seriously oppressed (just a  pure cat, there are at least three articles about them.)Smkolins (talk) 13:58, 29 November 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: There is also integration with other pages like List of religious populations....Smkolins (talk) 14:05, 29 November 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: We'll have to be careful: WP:NOT#STATS. It seems hard that such an article could be a stand-alone article. Perhaps a clear list in this article. MARussellPESE (talk) 22:00, 29 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bahá'í Faith by country 

message: Come on, Israel boasts a huge number of Baha'i followers.  99.160.9.30 (talk) 00:01, 14 February 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Not really, there is no large number of Baha'is in Israel.  In fact, apart from maintenance staff who are volunteering at the Baha'i World Centere, there is no Bahá'í community in Israel, although it is a destination for pilgrimages . Furthermore Bahá'í staff in Israel do not teach their faith to Israelis following strict policy which has been in place since the time of Baha'u'llah.  Regards, -- Jeff3000 (talk) 00:26, 14 February 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Could we not start an article Bahá'í Faith in Israel to make this clear? Wiki-uk (talk) 06:28, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: It's already in the Israel and Religion in Israel articles.  Regards, -- Jeff3000 (talk) 15:50, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks, I was not aware of that! I have made a redirect for "Bahá'í Faith in Israel" now... Wiki-uk (talk) 18:23, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  No discussion of Israeli community? 

message: *World Christian Trends, Ad 30-Ad 2200 By David B. Barrett, Todd M. Johnson, Christopher Guidry, Peter Crossing. Just in case anyone wants to cite it. I've not dug into the details but it seems to suggest there have been 1-1.5 million Baha'i martyrs?! Hm! Smkolins (talk) 03:37, 29 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  new ref available online 

message: please see Talk:Bahá%27%C3%AD_Faith_by_country#re-catting Smkolins (talk) 15:10, 16 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  re-catting some pages 

message: Actually Dennis I disagree the 5 million comes from the Christian Encyclopedia. In 1987 there was a census of sorts and it was published in the Baha'i News and I don't remember them citing the Christian Encyclopedia. It's quoted down below the intro section - "A 1987 report, Achievements of the Seven Year Plan published in Bahá'í News (July, 1987,) pages 2–7, reports 4.74 million Bahá'ís in 1986 growing at a rate of 31% over 1979, or 4.4% per year on average." That seems a far more responsible source for where the 5 million comes from. Smkolins (talk) 01:12, 24 February 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I've removed the newly added comment as per original research.  Wikipedia policies allow for content published in reliable sources, and there are many sources that note the 5-7 million, and that's what is important.  Regards, -- Jeff3000 (talk) 06:00, 24 February 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  5 million figure 

message: Substituted at 08:51, 29 April 2016 (UTC)
thread_title: Assessment comment

message: A report that ‘Abdu’l-Bahá claimed a world Baha'i population of ten million in 1912 would require a pretty unassailable source - or at least a modicum of support - otherwise it looks like a casual journalistic misstatement (or misunderstanding) - if the remark had really been made it would surely have caused quite a sensation, and have been recorded somewhere else during the last century or so. IF it is considered to be worth including here at all it needs at least to be in the form "a Journalist who reported the visit of of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá to Salt Lake City in 1912 claimed that...". --Soundofmusicals (talk) 21:59, 17 September 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: That the statistic is reported is noted in various sources. But it is the words of the reporter, - as noted in 239 Days by Allan Ward - "On Monday morning, September 30, 1912, the Salt Lake City Tribune printed an article headed, 'COMES TO LECTURE ON BAHAI RELIGION: Leader of Movement Will Explain Tenets to People of Salt Lake': Abdul Baha Abbas, leader of the Bahai movement, which he says has 10,000,000 followers in the world, is in Salt Lake City. He is making a tour of the United States and plans to lecture on his religion here." There is no note of translation so at best it is a pilgrim note kind of mention. It is not attributable specifically to `Abdu'l-Baha and many of the newspaper articles have gross exaggerations or outright fictions. Smkolins (talk) 23:33, 17 September 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  What a journalist reported ‘Abdu’l-Bahá as saying in 1912 not (in isolation) a good source 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: what's the merge justification? Note that I moved the merge template to the article page, but a case for the merge should be started here. Klbrain (talk) 10:02, 12 December 2020 (UTC)
replies: text:  If no objections from  & , I think we've waited long enough to go ahead with this. Best, Gazelle55 (talk) 19:46, 24 December 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merge  

message: , regarding this edit. The details of active vs inactive are on the country-specific pages, and I think it kind of just adds to the clutter to try and include it here. I was also debating removing the note on US jurisdiction covering continental states for the same reason. Cuñado ☼ - Talk 22:04, 15 February 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: Okay, I reverted. I think the other note should stay for precision though. Gazelle55 (talk) 01:15, 16 February 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Good addresses 

message: Just popping in here to drop this link: 
This dataset was published by Maoz and Henderson (2013) and offers historical estimates for religious groups by country, including for Bahá'ís. The interesting thing about it is that figures tend to be less inflated than WCE/WCD/WRD numbers, and the global numbers are actually in a similar ballpark with official Baha'i estimates. There are also estimated figures for various regions, i.e. Europe, Asia, Africa, Middle East. dragfyre_ʞןɐʇc 08:21, 20 December 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks, , I just saw this. I'll try to take a look soon. Currently, the two WCE columns and the ARDA column in the chart in the article are all basically the same source so it would be great to have another independent one. Gazelle55 (talk) 16:28, 13 March 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  World Religion Project