Hindu and Zoroastrian Baha'is continued to live as the members of their religious communities. And how the first Americans were converted to the Baha'i faith

The context Garlington chooses is that of depressed caste conversions in India. Garlington argues that, in contrast to the other three cases he considers, conversion to the Baha'i faith fulfilled no specific caste ambition, and there were no prominent individuals who provided model converts for the masses. In addition, he contrasts the devaluation of Hinduism in the other cases with Baha'is' acceptance of Hinduism as a valid spiritual tradition simply in need of some reform. In practical terms, this meant that Baha'u'llah was presented in a Hindu context and that converts were not required to break totally with their Hindu roots; converts could remain Hindus who believed in Baha'u'llah.

Although Garlington sees this approach to Baha'i conversion as a pattern initiated in the 1950s, there are interesting parallels in Stiles's description of late nineteenth-century conversions among Zoroastrians. Here Baha'u'llah was presented as the fulfillment of Zoroastrian prophecies and as a descendant of Yazdigird III, the last of the Sassanian monarchs, and converts here too continued to live as members of the Zoroastrian community. It was only when the Zoroastrian clergy expelled the Baha'is from the Zoroastrian community that they became a distinct group.

Richard Hollinger focuses his attention on Ibrahim George Kheiralla, a Syrian immigrant responsible for many early conversions among Americans. The 1890s were a time of many popular religious movements in the United States, and Kheiralla attracted converts by teaching the Baha'i faith in a graded series of esoteric classes especially designed to be compatible with Christianity. The faith that he taught, however, contained a number of superstitions, misinterpretations, and inaccuracies (at least by the standards of today's Baha'is). 

Peter Smith focuses on the Baha'i magazine Reality published in New York City during the 1920s. The history of this magazine illustrates the conflict between Baha'is of that era over whether the movement should remain more a "spiritual attitude than a distinct religion" (p. 137- one to which any humanitarian could be said to belong—or whether religious exclusivity should be promoted. While most Baha'is eventually opted for the latter, Reality magazine became ever more extreme in its promotion of the former, until the magazine finally ceased to make much reference to the Baha'i faith.

(Patricia J. Higgins, Review : From Iran East & West: Studies in Babi and Baha'i History. Edited by Juan R. Cole and Moojan Momen. Los Angeles: Kalimat Press, 1984)

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/iranian-studies/article/abs/from-iran-east-west-studies-in-babi-and-bahai-history-edited-by-juan-r-cole-and-moojan-momen-los-angeles-kalimat-press-1984-xiii-205-pp/17B2433BF683473C13C4BC0AE95B6D48