The 1903 Yazd Massacre, a Month of Mob Violence Against Baha'is

This article records tradition as it has been passed down and reported. Its sources are not yet part of the atlas's verified catalogue.

A month-long wave of mob attacks against the Baha'i community of Yazd, in central Iran, and nearby villages including Taft and Manshad, began in June 1903. A newly appointed local prayer leader, Sayyid Muhammad Ibrahim, circulated rumors of a coming general massacre of Baha'is even before reaching the city, and the killing began within days of his arrival, spreading over the following weeks into repeated waves of mob violence against Baha'i shopkeepers, households and individuals across the wider district.

Hundreds of Baha'is were left homeless as their homes and shops were looted and destroyed across the month of violence, with many more injured beyond those killed. No prosecution of the massacre's organizers or participants is recorded, and the episode is remembered within Baha'i historiography, alongside the same year's violence at Rasht and Isfahan, as one of the most severe outbreaks of anti-Baha'i mob violence in Iran between the faith's nineteenth century origins and the Islamic Republic era.