Since the June 2025 flare-up in the long-running conflict between US-backed Israel and Iran, there has been a predictable intensifying of securitising discourse with each side vowing it is acting in self-defence against an aggressive and belligerent external enemy. Israel paints Iran as an existential threat, and Iran declares Israel to be an illegitimate Zionist occupier of Palestine. With Iran’s military weaknesses exposed and a fragile ceasefire hanging by a thread, it was predictable that the government’s security apparatus would crack down on pro-reform critics and journalists as a way to project power to a domestic audience and stave off dissent.

Iran’s religious minorities are also vulnerable to this kind of posturing and the purpose of this article is to look at how and why the Islamic Republic securitises one of its most reviled perceived internal enemies: the followers of the indigenous Baha’i religion.

Securitisation is the process by which an authority (i.e. a government) speaks to an audience in order to convince them of a grave threat requiring action. By successfully invoking “security”, the authority gains sanction to respond in extraordinary ways, such as enacting emergency laws or launching a war. A threat may be rooted in a real, objective danger—like an impending natural disaster—but it becomes a threat in the political sense when it is socially constructed through discourse. This is where the threat is defined and shaped by the ways that people think and talk about it. The thing becomes a threat because authorities say it is a threat and audiences believe it to be so. For political scientist Thierry Balzacq, both the wider political context and role of the audience are vitally important dimensions in understanding how securitisation works. By looking not only at what the Iranian government says about Baha’is, but also the context and audience for the government’s anti-Baha’i program, we can better understand how and why Baha’is are securitised.

Founded in the nineteenth century, the Baha’i religion is indigenous to Iran. It emerged out of an esoteric millenarian movement; its two central prophetic figures were Sayyid ʿAli Muhammad (d. 1850), self-titled as the Bab (‘gate’ to the Hidden Imam), and Mirza Husayn-ʿAli Nuri (d. 1892) his prevailing successor, who took the name Baha’ Allah (splendour of God) after which the Baha’i religion is named.

Like other messianic movements based on Islamic eschatological prophesies (such as the Indian Ahmadiyya movement) the Bab and Baha’ Allah both made a number of claims considered heretical from the perspective of the Muslim ʿulama’ (clergy) who opposed them. In particular, they proclaimed themselves to be long-awaited messianic figures, bearing new scriptures from God. They were ferociously opposed by most of the clerical establishment and an egged-on Qajar state. The Bab was executed and Baha’ Allah sent into exile, eventually ending up in Acre in what was then Palestine under the Ottoman Empire. He died in 1892, and his house in Bahji became the holiest Baha’i shrine and direction towards which Baha’is turn in prayer. By an accident of history, the headquarters of the Baha’i religion are thus found in the modern State of Israel.

It is difficult to know precisely how many Iranians converted to the Babi and Baha’i religions. Historian Peter Smith gives an estimate of somewhere between 100,000 to 200,000 Baha’is by the early twentieth century (possibly 1 – 2.5 percent of the Iranian population). Currently, as the Baha’i religion is not officially recognised by the Iranian government it is not included in the census. The most commonly cited figure is around 300,000-350,000 (approximately 0.4 percent of the population) with many having fled after the 1979 Revolution. The international Baha’i leadership attempts to prevent dessmination of Baha’i numbers, however, and applies sanctions to those who dissimulate in the attempt to thwart the Iranian passport requirement declaring religious identity.

Despite their small numbers, the Baha’is represent a perceived challenge to the Iranian government and the conservative religious establishment in three dimensions: 1) as a religious threat, 2) as a political threat, and 3) as a theocratic threat. It is worth noting that in line with the securitisation theory mentioned above, the perceived threat the Baha’is pose to the Iran does not need to be objectively true. It is a socially constructed threat, shaped through an asymmetrical discourse dominated by the Iranian government, which maintains an iron grip on state-controlled media.

A religious threat

First, the Baha’is are claimed to be a religious threat as a post-Islamic religion claiming to have new revelations from God. Muslims believe that the prophet Muhammad is the last messenger, and the Qur’an is the final scripture based on the verse: ‘Muhammad is not the father of any of your men, but is the messenger of God and the seal of the prophets’ (Qur’an 33:40), as well as a number of statements attributed to him discussing the finality of prophethood. To claim that the divine voice speaks authoritatively once more is heresy.

It was on charges of apostasy that the Bab was brought before a religious court in 1848 and there have been many religious pronouncements since accusing Baha’is of religious infidelity. Architect of the Revolution and first Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini (d. 1989) gave a fatwa (a scholarly opinion on a question of religious law) describing the religion as “dalleh” (deviant), “kafer” (disbelief), and “najes” (ritually impure), prohibiting Muslims from marrying Baha’is or sharing washing facilities. (This last point is because if a Muslim comes into contact with moisture from a ritually impure source, they must perform certain washing rituals to return to a state of religious purity themselves.) Similarly, statements from current Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei also disparage the Baha’i religion and its followers. On his official website there are a number of fatwas giving rulings about Baha’is. He explicitly couches the Baha’is as a threat to the religious faith of Muslims. In answer to a question of whether ethically good Baha’is are ritually impure, he stated: ‘They are unclean and the enemies [doshman] of your religion. So, my dear children, definitely avoid them’.

It was Khamenei who endorsed a Supreme Revolutionary Cultural Council (SRCC) circular outlining a government policy of “suspended” or “cultural” genocide. Sensitive to international consternation over the arbitrary arrests, torture, and summary executions of Baha’is on trumped up charges of espionage and spreading corruption, the Iranian government shifted tactics from an explicit genocide to a more insidious cultural and social strangulation. This well-documented anti-Baha’i program has resulted in everything from the seizure of Baha’i property; destruction of cemeteries; the expulsion and banning of Baha’i students from higher education as well as intense proselytisation in primary and secondary schools; banning the operation of Baha’i religious and educational institutions; throttling businesses through bureaucratic red-tape; doxxing individuals; as well as preventing effective access to the Iranian justice system, not to mention blocking the ability of the community to rebut government propaganda.

With some notable exceptions (including among the ʿulama’), this has been at worst supported by the Iranian public at large, or at best met with apathetic indifference. This is partly due to general ignorance about this small minority religion, but more significantly due to the securitising discourse the Iranian state has crafted, especially in the second dimension described in this article: the Baha’is as a perceived political threat.

A political threat

Although it contradicts the religious heresy accusation discussed above, a common motif in anti-Baha’i statements is that the Baha’i faith is not a religion but a political party aligned with, or even created by, any number of political enemies. Throughout its history, Baha’is have been painted as a foreign creation of various imperial powers (Russia, Britain, or the United States) to undermine Iran. In a 1983 speech in front of government officials (including then President Ali Khamenei, future President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, Prime Minister Mir-Hossein Mousavi, and a large number of high-ranking officials in the government, judiciary, military, police, seminarians and more), Khomeini drew a parallel between communists from the Soviet-linked Tudeh party and Baha’is as US spies. He went on to assert: ‘The Baha’is are not a religious denomination (mazhab), they are a party (hezb)—a party which was formerly supported by Britain and is now being supported by America.’ The securitising act of Khomeini’s speech is: Baha’is actively undermine the integrity of the nascent Islamic state and thus require urgent action and sanction for the government to conduct arrests, trials, and executions.

More damningly, they are often described as Zionist spies given their connection with Israel. The Rasa News Agency is a state-backed media outlet for the Islamic Seminary of Qom, the largest and most important of Iran’s religious education institutions. Although it’s English-language version returns no search results for Baha’i as a topic, its Farsi archives—aimed at a domestic audience—contain a large number of pieces (for example, a July 2, 2025 search for articles using the keyword “بهائیت” [Baha’ism] returned 1810 hits) disparaging the Baha’i religion and its followers, accusing them of religious and political perfidy, both historically and in the present day. Baha’is as Zionists is a common trope. For example, in a June 21, 2025 article: ‘Baha’ism: The Zionist arm in the soft war against the Iranian nation’ the accompanying image is a stylistic representation of the Israeli flag’s blue Magen David as a sardine tin-lid partially unfurled by its key revealing a sacred Baha’i symbol underneath. Aside from the absurdity of the graphic artist conceptualising Israel as a cover for the Baha’i agenda instead of the other way around, the article’s exposition repeats a number of common, and at times contradictory, motifs:

• Baha’ism originated as a British and Russian-backed movement to undermine Muslims in service of colonialism;
• Baha’is supported the former Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, and worked to advance his program of and secularisation and Westernisation; Westernisation;
• Baha’is are secretive and cult-like;
• Baha’is foster and leverage international criticism of Iran to their benefit;
• Baha’i teachings on peace, unity, progressive values, and the various community initiatives they undertake serve as a façade for their real agenda, namely promoting atheism and irreligion and advancing the interests of Iran’s political enemies;
• they align with government critics to foster dissent; and
• Baha’is—directed by their leadership in Israel and thus acting as a Zionist proxy—are linked to or responsible for crisis flash-points in Iranian politics.

A theocratic threat

The third way Baha’is challenge the Islamic Republic is as a theocratic threat. Although there is not the space here to fully unpack this dimension, in short because the Baha’is have a different vision for Iranian (and indeed, global) society, including its more progressive, liberal values and its alternate structure of governance, it represents a rejection of Khomeini’s vision of Islamic theocracy based on the velayat-e faqih—guardianship of the Islamic jurist. The Baha’i response has been quietist, disavowing interest in domestic politics, but this has failed to satisfy Iranian authorities who regularly accuse it of undermining the Revolution.

Iran has long played the role of Middle East bogeyman in American and Israeli rhetoric. Even though Iran had been complying with the terms of the JCPOA (aka the Nuclear Deal), President Trump terminated the United States’ participation and re-imposed sanctions during his first term in office. Amidst an ongoing process of committing urbicide in Gaza, Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, claimed that Iran was on the brink of nuclear weapons capability—despite verifiable evidence to the contrary—in order to justify Israel’s June 2025 military attacks on Iran. It is within this wider geopolitical crisis that the Iranian government needs to deflect public concern over their vulnerability in the face of increasing Israeli and American hostility. Thus, as well as targeting journalists and human rights activists, Baha’is and other minorities are in the crosshairs:

‘The Baha’i sect, like Zionism, is not amenable to reform or dialogue; because its origin and root are intertwined with betrayal and enmity towards God and God’s creation. The time has come for this chronic cancer and pillar of hypocrisy to be identified, exposed, and ruthlessly controlled with utmost decisiveness; not with tolerance, not with expediency, but with a decisive revolutionary blow.” (Translated with the assistance of the University of Melbourne’s SparkAI tool, based on Claude 3.5 Sonnet LLM by Anthropic.)

This concluding paragraph in a Rasa News Agency article ‘Baha’ism is a dagger in the heart of the nation’ published on June 24, 2025 makes it difficult to imagine more overt anti-Baha’i messaging to an audience.

Importantly, the Baha’is have no real ability to counter any accusations given the government and clergy’s stranglehold on the means of communication. Historian Moojan Momen hopes that roll out of the Baha’is’ Ruhi program of contributions to the broader society, as well as the unintended fruits of the government imprisoning Baha’is alongside Iranian reformers, intellectuals and journalists might help counter the ‘black propaganda’. This may well be unrealistically optimistic given the scope and depth of the government’s Othering messaging and the nature of the scapegoat role in securitisation, especially in times of great crisis such as Iran is currently facing. The future remains grim for Iran’s Baha’i minority.

Image: Mural at the Waco Baha’i Center, Texas. Credit: Timothy Welter/Flickr.