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Amharic - አማርኛ | Arabic - عربي
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Chinese (Traditional) - 中文（繁體) | French - Français
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PEOPLE GROUP PROFILE

The Bakhtiari of Iran

The Bakhtiari of Iran, numbering approximately 1,310,000 people, are Engaged yet Unreached. They are an ethnolinguistic community of Iran . They are an Indigenous people, in the Luri-Bakhtiari people cluster of the Persian-Median affinity bloc. Their primary religion is Islam - Shia. They primarily speak Bakhtiâri.

Bakhtiari in Iran photo
Photo by By Bruce LePoint

Fast Facts:

Affinity Group: Central Asian Peoples
Country: Iran
People Cluster: Luri-Bakhtiari
Primary Language(s): Bakhtiâri (bqi)
Primary Religion(s): Islam - Shia
Population: 1,310,000
Strategic Progress Index (SPI): Engaged yet Unreached
Global Status of Evangelical Christianity (GSEC): Less than 2% Evangelical, No Active CP Activity
People Group ID: PG024146

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Dig Deeper (Religion):

Primary Religion: Islam - Shia
Religious Affiliation: Islam

%
Islam - Shia Adherents

Dig Deeper (Language):

Primary Language: Bakhtiâri
Language Family: Indo-European

%
Bakhtiâri Speakers

Media Resources in Bakhtiâri:

Films:

Provided by the Jesus Film Project

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Bible Resources in Bakhtiâri:

Provided by Faith Comes by Hearing

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Next steps for the Bakhtiari

The Bakhtiari are Unengaged and Unreached, which means there are less than 2% evangelical Christian populations among which there are no known efforts focused on establishing self-sustaining churches consistent with evangelical faith and practice.

Begin signifcant prayer and fasting for this group
Send cross-cultural teams to discover and research this people group
Begin gospel seed sowing and church planting among this group

Next steps for the Bakhtiari

The Bakhtiari are Engaged yet Unreached, which means there are less than 2% evangelical Christian populations but there are sustained efforts at establishing self-sustaining churches consistent with evangelical faith and practice.

Continue prayer and fasting for this group
Continue gospel seed sowing and church planting among this group
Begin training up local leaders to lead and develop strategies to reach their own people

Next steps for the Bakhtiari

The Bakhtiari are No Longer Unreached, which means there are more than 2% evangelical Christian populations and there are churches consistent with evangelical faith and practice. There is still more to be done among them.

Empower local believers to begin praying for their own people
Continue gospel seed sowing and church planting among this group
Encourage local leaders to being leading church planting strategy and looking for Unreached and Unengaged groups nearby

Pray specifically for the Bakhtiari of Iran

And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil.
readJohn 3:19

Pray that God will have mercy on those who love the darkness they are walking in and turn from their sin to faith in Christ.

And the word of God continued to increase, and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests became obedient to the faith.
readActs 6:7

Pray that the Word of God will be increasingly available to these people in ways they will resonate with so that all may have a chance to respond to the good news of Jesus Christ.  

I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand.
readJohn 10:28

Pray that as people place their faith in Christ, they will have assurance of eternal life, knowing that no one can snatch them out of the loving hand of Jesus.

But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me. Whether then it was I or they, so we preach and so you believed.
read1 Corinthians 15:10–11

Pray that God's people will preach the message of Jesus' death and resurrection and that it will spread among the lost through the selfless witness of believers.

Bakhtiari reported in the following countries (ROP3):

To download a comprehensive people group list in spreadsheet form, visit our Research Data page.

Peoplegroups.org relies on updates from the field and other organizations for much of our data, so if you have any updates, please contact us. We use various international naming standards. For a list of these standards and fields, visit our Definitions page.

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