Abstract
The Bahá'i faith is usually described as one of fastest growing religions in the world. In the following article the numbers of Bahaʾi adherents given by the official Baha'i statistics and by the Association of Religious Data Archives (the Arda) is compared with numbers from the latest censuses.
Worldwide there are less than 700 thousand active Baháʾists, which is in conflict with the numbers given by Arda and by Baha'i statistic (from six to seven millions of adherents). Although an attempt to prove that the data provided by Baháʾis are false or inflated is not made, an argument is presented that this data reflects good missionary results.
However, since the Bahaʾi faith lacks conversion rituals and collective rituals which would strength religious identity, it is argued here that the Baháʾi faith is not able to turn new converts into stable adherents.