The Bahá’ís of Boise comprise the most populous among several communities in a local area known as the Treasure Valley Bahá’í Cluster. The Treasure Valley cluster also includes Caldwell, Eagle, Garden City, Kuna, Meridian, Mountain Home, Nampa, the unincorporated portion of Ada County and other areas. Some of these also have their own Local Spiritual Assembly. The Treasure Valley cluster is one of about 22,000 in the world.
The Bahá’í presence in Boise is noted as a Bahá’í group in the Bahá’í World1 volume 7 (1936-1938) which lists Mrs. Ethel Thompson as the contact person for the Bahá’í group. A group means there were fewer than nine adult Bahá’ís at that time. Once nine adults are present, a Local Spiritual Assembly can be formed. Bahá’í World volume 9 (1940-1944) acknowledges the formation of the Boise Spiritual Assembly for the first time and this Institution has continued to form annually ever since. Throughout these early volumes of Bahá’í World, numerous Boise Bahá’ís are acknowledged as pioneers—selfless Bahá’ís who uproot their lives to move elsewhere in the world for the propagation of the Faith. The Boise Spiritual Assembly was Incorporated with the Idaho State Department on 2 February, 1948. The articles of incorporation were published in Bahá’í World volume 11 (1946-1950). Boise was among the first hundred incorporated Local Spiritual Assemblies in the world. To keep up with advances in information technology, an expansive web presence was created for the Boise Spiritual Assembly in 1998, again putting it in the vanguard of communities by being among the first two hundred Bahá’í web sites in the world at a time before there was a web presence by either the American or International Bahá’í communities. The current website you are viewing was created and published in 2025/2026.
1 Bahá’í World is an annual reference book with a goal of capturing significant activities and facts of the Bahá’ís of the world, first published under the supervision of the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United States and Canada. Volume 1 covered April 1925-April 1926. The latest volume, #35, spans 2006-2021. New volumes continue to be produced.
As of 2024, official Bahá’í records listed approximately nine million registered Bahá’ís. Surveys conducted by third parties such as World Christian Encyclopedia or Pew Research Center often list higher numbers of adherents than Bahá’í records. This is believable because additional people identify with the Bahá’í community even though they have not formally registered their contact information with a national community.
Bahá’ís reside in well over 100,000 localities worldwide. Among these, there are between ten and twenty thousand Local Spiritual Assemblies (annually elected institutions of nine adult community trustees).
Bahá’ís reside in every nation except two (Vatican City and North Korea).
Bahá’í writings have been translated into more than 800 languages.
The original languages of Revelation are Arabic and Persian.
English is the working language of the Bahá’í World Centre located in Haifa, Israel.
This website was created by J. Thomas Pawlowski on behalf of the Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of Boise and is approved by the latter, as have been several previous Boise Bahá’í web sites. While this does not mean all content is error-free or in every nuance is a flawless representation of the Bahá’í Faith, every effort is made to achieve a high standard of accuracy. If you have any questions or comments about the contents you are encouraged to contact us, see link below. The copyright is taken by an individual on behalf of the Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of Boise for the purpose of protecting against malicious reuse of content. Content on this site will expand in response to the needs of the community.