Abstract
One of the largest media initiatives undertaken by the global Bahá’í community in recent years was the launch of a campaign titled “Our Story Is One,” which was amplified across BBC platforms as well as Bahá’í-affiliated media. This campaign was meticulously and almost obsessively crafted to operate within the political climate inside and outside Iran, with the intention of capitalizing on ongoing developments. Bahá’í promoters assumed that through extensive funding and heavy lobbying of opposition groups, the campaign would achieve significant influence among Iranian audiences. Multiple media outlets were mobilized for this purpose. However, contrary to expectations, the campaign achieved little success and did not even rank among the top ten hashtags of recent months—an outcome that led to disappointment among Bahá’í activists and confusion within the administrative leadership.
The primary reason for this failure may lie in the Iranian public’s historical understanding of the Bahá’í Faith and the media portrayal of both the BBC and the Bahá’í establishment as entities with totalizing tendencies. For the Iranian public and most intellectuals, the Bahá’í Faith bears little resemblance to a divine religion; rather, it is perceived as a group or party with authoritarian characteristics that has gradually lost its ability to engage with society and has left no real space for its own expansion. Even after seventy years of activity by the Universal House of Justice—and despite organizationally inflated statistics—the demographic growth of the Bahá’í community remains less than one-thousandth of the world’s current population.
BBC and the Bahá’í Faith: Examining Media Roles in Representing a Sect
The Bahá’í Faith, in its interactions with the world, has never adopted a serious approach to existing challenges. Instead, it has attempted to create a platform for itself by promoting general slogans on social issues, while in practice prioritizing only organizational interests.
This is not the only issue. Persistent internal criticism within Bahá’í circles has also posed serious challenges for its leadership. Numerous questions and contradictions—raised even among groups close to the Bahá’í community—have significantly undermined the credibility of the Bahá’í Faith and weakened internal cohesion within this small group. These include questions such as:
– “Non-involvement in politics and obedience to governments,”
– The exclusion of women from the highest decision‑making body (the Universal House of Justice) despite claims of equality,
– Instructions from the Universal House of Justice encouraging aggressive and covert proselytization aimed at converting individuals or destabilizing their beliefs,
– The inconsistent or opportunistic behavior of Bahá’í leaders toward social phenomena, including shifting positions on issues such as same‑sex relations,
– Historical instances such as ‘ʻAbdu’l‑Bahá’s outward display of Islamic identity in Haifa,’
– Irrational claims attributed to Bahá’u’lláh, such as the transformation of copper into gold within seventy years,
– The strategic use of victimhood narratives to gain social recognition,
– And objections to authoritarian leadership in Haifa, which continually dictates obligations to Bahá’ís.
These issues have created multiple fractures within Bahá’í communities, to the extent that even the long‑relied‑upon strategy of portraying victimhood no longer yields meaningful results internally.
BBC Radio and Broadcasting Service in the Service of the Bahá’í Sect
In examining the media relationship between the BBC network and the Bahá’í Faith, it must be acknowledged that the Bahá’í administration has made strategic use of the BBC as one of the most influential media outlets. Within its media think‑tank, the Bahá’í establishment concluded that the BBC could serve as a powerful and ideologically aligned platform for promoting its agenda and advancing its objectives, drawing upon the network’s prior experience—from the 1953 coup in Iran (28 Mordad) onward.
The creation of BBC Persian Radio was, from the outset, a carefully calculated project. It was launched under the leadership of a Bahá’í figure who served simultaneously as its founder, editor‑in‑chief, and even radio announcer: Hassan Movaqqar Balyuzi, one of Shoghi Effendi’s Hands of the Cause and the head of the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United Kingdom between 1937 and 1960.
The connection between BBC Radio and the Bahá’í community played a significant role during the 1953 coup, when the second Pahlavi monarch was in power in Iran. The coded signal initiating the coup was broadcast in the voice of Hassan Movaqqar Balyuzi, a key member of the Bahá’í administration:
“This is London. The time is exactly midnight.”
Following this now‑famous announcement in 1952, Operation Ajax commenced. Many prominent Bahá’ís—from General Nassiri, the Bahá’í Minister of War under the Shah, to Habib Sabet Pasal and numerous high‑ranking Bahá’í officers in the military—supported the coup, and events unfolded as they did. The cohesion and media coordination were such that, out of the one million dollars allocated for the operation, only a few tens of thousands were ultimately spent.
“In general, this pattern can be observed across the broader BBC media ecosystem and within the shared framework of BBC and Bahá’í policies in other Persian‑language networks as well.”
The media influence of the Balyuzi family continues to this day. One year after the launch of BBC Persian Television, in 2009, Robert Movaqqar Balyuzi (son of Hassan Movaqqar Balyuzi) provided 55 million dollars to Keyvan Abbasi, the senior director of the Persian‑language network Manoto, thereby activating yet another branch of media activity targeting Islam and Iranian culture.
Keyvan Abbasi himself was born in March 1971 in Sydney, Australia. His father, Fariborz Abbasi, is a well‑known Iranian Bahá’í, and his mother, Tahmineh Barzegar, worked at the Pahlavi‑era embassy in Canberra. Additionally, his father’s cousin, Behrouz Abbasi, who worked at VOA, played a role in his media development.
According to various accounts, up to 70% of the staff of major Persian‑language media outlets—such as BBC Persian, Manoto, VOA, and Iran International—are Bahá’ís. Official statistics in recent years indicate that BBC Persian has historically held the leading position, with other networks ranking below it (Communication Culture Quarterly, Issue 10). More recent unofficial reports suggest that Manoto may now occupy this position. What remains consistent is the active and continuous presence of Bahá’ís across all these networks—further evidence of the long‑standing connection between the BBC and the Bahá’í establishment.
The significant presence of Bahá’ís in these media outlets has effectively turned them into cultural and political extensions of the Bahá’í administration among Persian‑speaking audiences, particularly during times of crisis.
The “Pargar” Program as a Case Study in Bahá’í Representation
The program Pargar can be considered a clear example of how the BBC frames and represents the topic of the Bahá’í Faith. One of BBC Persian’s most popular programs since the early years of the network, Pargar has aired since 2010 and has repeatedly addressed the subject of the Bahá’í Faith under various pretexts.
The program’s format on Bahá’í‑related topics typically involves inviting one guest from the Bahá’í community and another guest presented as a critic of the Bahá’í Faith. However, the Bahá’í guest is usually articulate, well‑presented, and highly prepared, while the opposing guest—selected in coordination with the program—is often someone with limited knowledge and even a sympathetic inclination toward the Bahá’í Faith. The outcome of such debates is therefore predictable: the Bahá’í side almost always appears victorious.
One reason for the program’s success—despite weaknesses in other domestic and
foreign networks—is its host and editor, Dariush Karimi, who has built a large audience through years of producing challenging and engaging content.
In the Pargar episode of 19 August 2023 (28 Mordad 1402), two guests were featured:
– Arash Arjomandi, representing the Bahá’í perspective
– Mahmoud Sabahi, a non‑Bahá’í figure presented as a critic
As usual, the program was hosted by Dariush Karimi. Karimi is knowledgeable and well‑versed in Bahá’í issues and occasionally expresses criticisms of the Bahá’í Faith. Due to his close family ties with Bahá’ís, he is trusted by both the network’s leadership and Bahá’í circles. He is intellectually independent and generally critical of religions, including the Bahá’í Faith, though he rarely voices such criticism openly. He has never explicitly declared the invalidity of the Bahá’í Faith, as doing so could jeopardize his professional standing—and perhaps even his personal life. Overall, his position at the network requires him to defend the Bahá’í Faith. He is one of the most skilled Persian‑language hosts, admired for his intelligence, extensive research, command of English, and use of primary sources.
On 3 September 2015, the Bahá’í administration invited Karimi to the annual “Friends of Persian Culture” conference organized by the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United States. He spent a week as a guest of the Bahá’í community in America and delivered a speech on the role of media in establishing peace. In that panel, he advised Bahá’ís to engage with non‑Bahá’í media platforms and avoid one‑sided perspectives. He is well aware that harsh criticism of the Bahá’í Faith could cost him his job—and perhaps even his marriage.
Karimi generally identifies as non‑religious, yet maintains a favorable position among Bahá’ís. His wife, Rozita Lotfi, formerly a senior editor in the BBC newsroom, became his successor after the scandal involving Saba. She is a Bahá’í residing in the United Kingdom.
To counter accusations of BBC–Bahá’í alignment, the producers of Pargar occasionally invite experts with differing views to create an appearance of neutrality and to shield themselves from responsibility for Bahá’í propagandists’ insults toward Islamic sacred figures under the banner of free speech. They have been somewhat successful in this strategy, though not without missteps. For example, in an episode designed to portray Qurrat al‑Ayn as a mythical pioneer of women’s rights in Iran, the candid and well‑informed remarks of Majid Tafreshi reversed the intended narrative. As a result, Tafreshi was never invited again, and stricter filters were imposed on guest selection. At times, finding a genuine critic has become so difficult that the program resorts to “pseudo‑critics.” Additionally, due to restrictions on interviews with foreign media inside Iran, the network’s options have become even more limited. The repeated presence of controversial Bahá’í propagandists such as Erfan Sabeti has also diminished the program’s credibility. Meanwhile, well‑informed Muslim scholars rarely have the opportunity to appear and respond to these claims.
Given all this, it appears that the Bahá’í administration designed Pargar to pursue multiple objectives simultaneously.
The first goal was to encourage the Iranian public to recognize the Bahá’í Faith as a legitimate religion and, given the anti‑religious tendencies of some Pargar viewers, to present it as a modern and alternative spiritual path. The second goal was to reduce internal criticism among Bahá’ís and address questions arising within the silent Bahá’í community.
To achieve the first goal, even the program’s title was chosen so that a significant portion of the intended effect would be achieved even before viewers watched the episode.
Does the Bahá’í Faith Have Any Chance of Further Expansion?
The journalistic phrasing of this program’s title implants two implicit assumptions in the audience’s mind: first, that the Bahá’í Faith is indeed a religion; and second, that this so‑called religion has experienced meaningful growth over the past two centuries. This framing itself constitutes a major objective of the program for a significant portion of its viewers. Even if a viewer finishes the episode with new criticisms of the “Bahá’í Faith,” the primary goal has already been achieved—because the notion of religionhood has been subtly established as a mental premise.
Nevertheless, some of the program’s 30,000 YouTube viewers understood the underlying intention and commented:
“In Persian, the word dīn (religion) has a meaning that cannot be applied to the Bahá’í sect.”
This point can also be detected in the program’s introduction, presented by the host at the beginning.
Ultimately, however, through Karimi’s introduction, the Bahá’í Faith was placed alongside sects such as the Ahmadiyya, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and the Mahdiyya of Sudan—because, in reality, no major or serious religion emerged in the nineteenth century. Some sects founded during that period actually have far more followers than the Bahá’í Faith. A subtle point—likely inserted deliberately by the host—was the statement:
“Some nineteenth‑century religions were defined in opposition to colonialism and played anti‑colonial roles.”
Without elaboration, the audience can infer that some of these movements were themselves created or expanded by colonial powers. Karimi demonstrated similar attentiveness when exposing several contradictions in Sabahi’s remarks—the guest positioned as the “critic”—allowing him to avoid being accused of opposing the Bahá’í Faith while simultaneously signaling his own reservations about it. Without at least this degree of performative neutrality, viewers would have had no trust in such a program. This broader BBC strategy has consistently served the network’s objectives.
The BBC and the Bahá’í administration are well aware that a large portion of today’s audience consists of Instagram users, and that most non‑Bahá’í Persian speakers have little interest in watching a long debate about the Bahá’í Faith. For this demographic, it is sufficient merely to portray the Bahá’í Faith as a religion—and a successful one at that. Thus, regardless of the program’s actual content or whether its other goals are achieved, this single outcome already satisfies the network’s aims.
This may explain why the program’s trailer—with its unusually long title—was circulated more widely than other Pargar episodes. Yet, interestingly, the full podcast has not been posted on BBC Persian’s 700,000‑member Telegram channel, whereas, for example, an earlier episode designed to diminish the legacy of Amir Kabir is available there in both audio and video formats.
To pursue its additional objectives, the program invited two individuals connected to the Bahá’í establishment:
– Arash Arjomandi, a philosophy of ethics lecturer in Spain and a well‑known defender of the Bahá’í Faith, and
– Mahmoud Sabahi, a former lecturer at the Faculty of Fine Arts, presented as a supposed critic of the Bahá’í Faith.
One YouTube commenter wrote:
“You invited two uninformed people—especially Sabahi, who only came to validate the Bahá’í side.”
Another commented:
“Dear Dariush, thank you, but that gentleman claiming to be an atheist—Mahmoud Sabahi—was more protective than the Bahá’ís themselves. Instead of critique, he defended them emotionally. Was he a Bahá’í pretending otherwise? He derailed the program.”
A closer look at the episode suggests that the “critic” may have gone to extremes in justifying the Bahá’í position. His remarks were less a critique of the Bahá’í Faith and more a set of recommendations for improving administrative methods or criticizing Iranian Bahá’ís. As another viewer wrote:
“Arjomandi’s defense of the Bahá’í Faith was shallow, but Sabahi’s so‑called critique was actually a far stronger defense. Accepting Bahá’í teachings as meaningful requires resigning from rational thought.”
For this reason, during a significant portion of the program, the host himself subtly assumed the role of the critic—if only to keep the discussion moving—and even managed at moments to convey, gently and indirectly, that he was not personally aligned with the spectacle. For example, when Arjomandi attempted to obscure the exclusivist and absolutist claims of the Bahá’í Faith by redefining “truth,” Karimi twice pointed out the distortion and refrained from continuing the discussion, allowing attentive viewers to clearly understand that Bahá’u’lláh considered only his own path to be valid.
Nevertheless, Bahá’í propagandists reacted harshly even to this mild criticism. For instance, Iman Motlagh, a well‑known Bahá’í promoter, wrote:
“It would have been better if equal time had been given to both guests. Giving Sabahi so much time while limiting Arjomandi is unethical! Mr. Karimi raised more than ten objections in under an hour—this doesn’t seem fair!”
Such complaints hold little weight—especially considering that Sabahi’s interview with the Aso website, in which he passionately defends the Bahá’í Faith, is publicly available.
At the very least, before selecting Sabahi as the program’s “critic,” they could have removed his interview from Aso or reminded him not to repeatedly express his affection for the Bahá’í Faith during the discussion.
Thus, these conversations and interviews serve as yet another piece of evidence demonstrating the connection between the BBC network and the Bahá’í establishment.
Mahmoud Sabahi’s Interview in Support of the Bahá’ís, Published on the Aso Website
Another striking aspect of this staged debate was the so‑called “critic of the Bahá’í Faith” defending Bahá’u’lláh’s ruling on homosexuality.
“In recent years, homosexuality has gained strong support in Western societies, while Bahá’u’lláh’s explicit prohibition—presented as a clear religious ruling—has left no room for reinterpretation by the Universal House of Justice. This has created serious debates among both Bahá’ís and non‑Bahá’ís in the West.”
Perhaps for this reason, Sabahi—acting as a savior for the Universal House of
Justice—attempted, through an unfounded interpretation, to appease both sides. By conflating homosexuality with pedophilia, he tried to resolve the issue. Such an approach could only come from someone outside the Bahá’í community, since every Bahá’í knows that textual reinterpretation is forbidden in the Bahá’í Faith. And any reasonable person could see that such a comparison was entirely misplaced. As one YouTube commenter wrote:
“What this guest said about rejecting homosexuality and linking it to pederasty was a bizarre fallacy. His emotional defense of the Bahá’í Faith—despite claiming not to be a Bahá’í—was obvious. He distorted history and suddenly connected a nineteenth‑century context to modern pro‑LGBTQ arguments. Truly an astonishing fallacy!”
Arjomandi, the Bahá’í guest, was not far behind in fallacy‑making—especially when he attempted, in comically strained language, to justify the prohibition on women entering the Universal House of Justice. Even the audience seemed amused by his efforts, and it is not unlikely that the repeated cuts in the program—noticed by YouTube viewers—were due to such awkward moments.
Ultimately, with Sabahi’s help as a non‑Bahá’í, the issue was reframed: the exclusion of women from the Universal House of Justice was attributed to the House’s failure to reinterpret the writings of Bahá’u’lláh and ‘Abdu’l‑Bahá. This argument could not have been presented by Arjomandi, since a Bahá’í is not permitted to oppose explicit Bahá’í texts. Although this claim implicitly criticizes the administrative structure, it may serve as a safety valve for changing the ruling if internal opposition among Bahá’ís increases.
Beyond this, perhaps Sabahi’s most important assigned role was to insult Iranian Bahá’ís—calling them “terrified” due to their Shi‘i background (while ignoring the Shaykhi roots and non‑Islamic elements of the movement). By doing so, he reinforced the authority of the Bahá’í administration—especially the Universal House of Justice—at the top of the Bahá’í hierarchy. His remarks aimed to normalize the administrative structure as a religious necessity for naïve Iranian Bahá’ís and to pave the way for the House of Justice to override earlier sacred Bahá’í figures. If executed properly, this strategy would both strengthen the House’s authority and provide an escape route from irrational Bahá’í texts. For example, with a new definition of “harmony of science and religion,” there would be no need to justify Bahá’u’lláh’s claim that copper can turn into gold over time.
Following this logic, Sabahi attributed the clear discrimination within the Bahá’í administration between Iranian Bahá’ís and Western converts to their Christian background, effectively defending the practice. He even implied that Western converts were “more Bahá’í” than Iranian ones, suggesting that Iranian identity itself is an obstacle to becoming a “true Bahá’í.” Yet no one asked the obvious question: if a Christian background is so advantageous, why has more than a century of aggressive proselytizing in the Christian West produced so little growth?
To address another issue raised by Karimi—the existence of a disillusioned class of Bahá’ís who have distanced themselves from the administration—Sabahi offered a contradictory solution: reducing the Universal House of Justice from a governing authority (or, as Karimi put it, a “Bahá’í state”) to a mere advisory body for estranged Bahá’ís.
One wishes someone had asked him: if the House of Justice is merely advisory, how does it have the authority to alter Bahá’u’lláh’s fundamental laws?
This proposal seems intended only to entice alienated Bahá’ís back into the fold. Although such a retreat would be a major concession for the totalitarian Bahá’í administration—and risks losing its loyal members—if successful, it might encourage hundreds of thousands of Bahá’ís worldwide to re‑engage with the organization. Yet, given the nature of the current administration, such rhetoric is unlikely ever to move beyond slogans.
The reality is clear: despite seventy years of continuous organizational activity, the Bahá’í administration has achieved no significant success in attracting the general public—its so‑called “troops of new believers.” A heavy sense of disappointment dominates the Bahá’í community, and most criticism is directed at the aging, rigid leadership at the top. It is uncertain how many more five‑year plans the ordinary Bahá’í population will tolerate. Overall, the lack of motivated and capable human resources has been the greatest challenge facing the Universal House of Justice in the modern era.
In the end, the program’s guests agreed on the narrative that the Bahá’í Faith—as a modern religion or, in their words, a “religious paradigm shift”—is not meant to possess the characteristics of a classical religion (though perhaps they should have said it is not a religion at all). They argued that lacking such characteristics does not diminish its value, and that the contradictions Karimi mentioned only matter if the Bahá’í Faith is treated as a conventional religion. They dismissed the failure of Bahá’í proselytizing in European “firesides” as an accidental and misleading observation—even though these meetings are organized and monitored by national Bahá’í assemblies. In other words, after decades of unsuccessful sectarian outreach in Europe, Bahá’ís are expected to believe that these efforts were merely individual initiatives, not part of an institutional strategy.
One wishes Karimi had read aloud the definition of “fireside” from Margit Warburg’s Citizens of the World to show that these traditional sectarian recruitment methods were explicitly instructed by the Bahá’í administration—though they have proven far less effective than those of other sects. Karimi did, however, correctly point out that no Bahá’í publication addresses contemporary global concerns such as the war in Ukraine. He might also have added that, from the administration’s perspective, non‑Bahá’ís have no inherent value warranting coverage in Bahá’í publications, and that Bahá’í claims of persecution in some countries are primarily tools for gaining international advantage.
Ultimately, the guests’ descriptions became so poetic and detached from reality that Karimi jokingly referred to their narrative as the “Sabahist religion,” noting that it bore little resemblance to the actual Bahá’í Faith.
“In sum, examining these programs shows that the BBC’s media relationship with the Bahá’í Faith has been centered above all on constructing a particular representation of this movement.”
Note:
1-Shadab Askari, Military Baha’is in the Government of the Second Pahlavi, Cultural-Artistic Institute and Publications of the Center for Islamic Revolution Documents, Tehran, 2017.
