Strong Factors Underlying Conversions

Various Jewish scholars have suggested reasons why the Iranian Jews might have been attracted to the Bahá'í Faith. We might see how many of these can be shown to apply both to Jewish and Zoroastrian converts.

Habib Levy suggests that
1. The poor economic condition of  Zorastrians
The condition of the Zoroastrian community in Yazd began steadily improving in the latter half of the nineteenth century when representatives from the Parsi community in Bombay were sent to Iran to ameliorate the oppression and poverty under which the Zoroastrians lived. Besides establishing schools, influencing government regulations, and introducing internal reforms into the Zoroastrian community, the contacts with the Parsis of India led to the establishment of trade relations between Bombay and Yazd in which Zoroastrians played a prominent role. Out of this relationship arose a mercantile and professional class that had been hitherto absent among the Zoroastrian community of Iran.
The early conversions to the Bahá'í Faith occurred among this group and again followed or accompanied economic improvement. The upwardly mobile were often the first to convert.

2. Ignorance of Zorastrians of Iran from basic tenents of their Religion
Like the Jewish clergy, the Zoroastrian priests in Iran were poorly educated entrenched in ritualism, and unable to respond to social change. Parsi agents sent to assist the Iranian Zoroastrians often found their efforts frustrated by intransigent priests. When one Parsi agent, Kay-Khusraw Ji Sahib, established a body of elected laymen to oversee the activities of the Zoroastrian community including those previously regulated by the clergy, the Zoroastrian priests were said to have poisoned him (Sulaymani, Masabih-i 4:404-6).

3. Bahai manipulated the writings for their own use
Dreading the oppression of the Muslim Mullahs of Iran, the Bahais carried on their work clandestinely in the beginning. They could not construct public places of worship. Practising of the faith and even conversion when the occasion presented itself, were conducted behind closed doors. For generations our community had been disgruntled by the persecution of the mullahs. We had been rebuffed, repudiated and rejected. At such a stage of existence the Bahais welcomed us with open arms. They invited us to dine with them. This was something to gladden the hearts of our unfortunate co-religionists in their homeland, Iran. They were naturally drawn towards the Bahais. The shrewd Bahais played upon their religious sentiments and deluded the ignorant Zoroastrians that the prophecy in their scriptures that Shah Behram Varjavand would come one day has been fulfilled, for Bahaullah himself was Shah Behram Varjavand.

In some of the unauthentic Pazand and Pahlavi books written after we lost our kingdom, it has been foretold that Shah Behram Varjavand of Kyanian lineage will come some day. At the age of thirty he will raise an army of Hindus and Chinese and attack Iran and conquer it and will reinstate a Zoroastrian regime in Iran.

It is understandable that uneducated Zoroastrians of Iran, fifty or sixty years ago, believed these fictitious fairy tales; but for highly qualified and cultured Parsis of India to gulp down such fantastic stories today is truly regrettable. Certain gentlemen inform us that Shah Behram Varjavand will be born between 1941 and 1950 and that 1940 to 1990 will be very bad years for the world. These people write that, with his spiritual powers and the [724] strength of his prayers and purity, he will perform universally renowned miracles by arresting electricity in the atmosphere that suspends aero planes high up in the air, will poison the planes engaged in warfare and bring them down! What a miserable exhibition of the intellectual prowess of men who have qualified and stepped out of the portals of the Bombay University!