Code ("insulting a heavenly religion") and other possible charges, 10 of whom were held in detention for over 10 months without being formally charged.[119]

In 1925, Egypt became the first Islamic state to legally recognize the Bahá'í Faith as an independent religion apart from Islam. Despite a historically active Egyptian Bahá'í community during the early twentieth century, Bahá'í institutions and community activities have been banned since 1960 by Law 263. This law was decreed by Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser, seven years after the founding of the Arab Republic of Egypt. All Bahá'í community properties, including Bahá'í centers, libraries, and cemeteries, were confiscated by the government. The current Egyptian Bahá'í community, estimated to number between several hundred and two thousand, has also had fatwas issued against it by Al-Azhar'sIslamic Research Center, which charges Bahá'ís with apostasy.[118]

Egypt

There are many Iranians who have published how and why Iranians think of Bahá'ís as outsiders. Dr. Mohammad Tavakoli, a Muslim-Iranian, who is a Professor of Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Toronto presents in Iran-Nameh, a Persian language academic journal, a study that examines the processes that led to the ghettoization and eventual "othering" of the Bahá'ís in Iran by the political and religious forces within Iranian society.[117]

The Iranian representative to the United Nations tried several times, albeit unsuccessfully, between 1982 and 1984 to convince the United Nations diplomatic community that the Bahá'í Faith is a politicized organization with a record of criminal activism against the Iranian government[2] and not a legitimate religion like Judaism, Christianity, and Zoroastrianism which