He come from the community of Baháʼís in Egypt. Isfahani's brother Habib came to join him in April 1954. There were over 1000 Baháʼís across North-West Africa which was organized into a regional National Spiritual Assembly including French West Africa in 1956. In 1959 Baháʼí marriage ceremonies were legalized and the first such marriage had Hand of the Cause Enoch Olinga in attendance. Growth in the Senegalese community came partly by pioneers and partly from converts. In early 1962 the family of Rouhani Ardekani stayed for six-months in Senegal and in 1966 returned to settle permanently. The first Baháʼí of Senegalese origin converted in March 1962. In 1963 the communities of French West Africa, then included a small group of Baháʼís in Dakar. With the help of Baháʼís originally from Gambia in Dakar the community formed the first Local Spiritual Assembly in Dakar on 21 April 1966. During much of the 1960s-1970s Hermione Vera Keens-Douglas Edwards composed letters for the communities of the former French West Africa for their Nineteen Day Feasts. Additional one well known Baháʼí made an impact in Senegal and beyond - Robert Hayden, who had become a Baháʼí in 1943, was named Poet Laurette of Senegal in 1966 after winning the 1965 first World Festival of Negro Arts festival "Grand Prix de la Poesie" with over ten thousand people from thirty-seven nations in attendance on April 7, 1962 and went on to further acclaim. In 1975 the Baháʼí community elected the first National Spiritual Assembly of Senegal and by the beginning of 1978 there were 30 local assemblies. The first regional Baháʼí conference of the Casamance region happened in 1979 with participants from Gambia and Senégal in December 1978, and at the end of that year there were 35 assemblies. Since its inception the religion has had involvement in socio-economic development (SED) beginning by giving greater freedom to women, promulgating the promotion of female education as a priority concern, and that involvement was given practical expression by creating schools, agricultural coops, and clinics. The religion entered a new phase of activity when a message of the Universal House of Justice dated 20 October 1983 was released. Baháʼís were urged to seek out ways, compatible with the Baháʼí teachings, in which they could become involved in the social and economic development of the communities in which they lived. Worldwide in 1979 there were 129 officially recognized Baháʼí socio-economic development projects.