Abd al Ḥosayn Ayati (1871—1953), known to Baháʼís as Avarih, was an Iranian convert to the Baháʼí Faith, who later converted back to Islam and wrote several polemic works against his former religion. He is regarded in Baháʼí circles as an apostate. In his later years he served as a secondary school teacher while writing poetry and history, and was regarded as a competent orator.
During his 18 years as a Baháʼí, Ayati was a missionary to Turkestan, the Caucasus, the Ottoman Empire, and Egypt. During this time he associated with ʻAbdu'l-Bahá and wrote a two-volume history of the Baháʼí Faith, al-Kawākeb al-dorrīya (1914), which was translated to Arabic in 1924. His main polemic writing refuting the Baháʼí Faith was the three-volume Kašf al-ḥīal (1928-31). He has a total of seventeen published titles on various subjects, such as the history of Yazd Ātaškada-ye yazdān (1928), and commentaries and translations of the Qur'an.
Early life
Ayati was born in a religious family in the city of Taft in the province of Yazd, Iran in 1871. His father was a Mullah by the name of Mohammad-Taqi Akhund Tafti. Ayati received a religious education from childhood. At the age of 15 he moved to Yazd where he studied at the Khan religious school for two years in Islamic subjects. He then moved to Iraq to study at the seminaries in Najaf and Karbala where he became a student of Ayatollah Mirza Hasan Shirazi. This only lasted for a few months and he was forced to return to Yazd after receiving the news of the death of his father.
Ayati became a cleric in his youth while at Yazd and would give sermons and lead prayers. He showed great interest in literature and poetry. According to one of his brief autobiographies, he hadn't reached puberty yet when he was allowed to wear the classic Muslim cleric clothing and give sermons. At the age of twenty, he lost his father and at the age of twenty five, he was stationed as the Imam of the Mosque that his late father led the prayers at.
He became a Baháʼí at the age of 30. This is how Ayati describes it:"I became familiar with the Baháʼís at the age of 30 and left my beloved homeland. I removed the Turban from my head and shaved my beard and started traveling around the world."
Life as a Bahá'í
After becoming a Baháʼí, Ayati started a career as a Baháʼí missionary that saw him traveling to Tehran, the Iranian capital and from there to many Iranian cities and provinces. His Missionary travels then took him outside of Iran and in a span of 18 years he traveled to Turkestan, the Caucasus, the Ottoman Empire, and Egypt. Due to his numerous endeavors 'Abdu'l Baha gave him the titles of "Raʾīs al-Moballeḡīn" (Chief of Missionaries) and "Avarih" (Wanderer).
In 1923, Shoghi Effendi sent Ayati to England to teach the Baháʼí Faith. This was first announced to the Baháʼís of the west through the Baháʼí Magazine, Star of the West. In a letter addressed to the Baha'is in Britain Shoghi describes Ayati and his book al-Kawakib al-durriya in this manner:"Ere long, an able and experienced teacher recently arrived from Persia will visit your shores, and will, I trust, by his thorough knowledge of the Cause, his wide experience, his fluency, his ardor, and his devotion, reanimate every drooping spirit, and inspire the active worker to make fresh and determined efforts for the deepening as well as the spreading of the movement, in those regions."The Former member of the Universal House of Justice, Luṭfu'lláh Ḥakím, served as his translator during this visit. Subsequent issues of Star of the West chronicled Avarih's Journey and activities while in England according to the following Table:
Ayati then left England for Cairo to print his two volume work on the history of the Baháʼí faith called al-Kawakib al-durriya. According to Shoghi Effendi this work was "the most comprehensive and reliable history of the Movement yet published" and " the most graphic, the most reliable and comprehensive of its kind in Bahai literature" and was labelled as the "great history of the Baháʼí cause" by the Baháʼí magazine, Star of the West. According to Encyclopaedia Iranica it "is still one of the major works on the subject."