When Belief and Fear Became Public Threats

Introduction

These episodes should not be forced into one label. The Babi movement was a real new religion with revolutionary expectations, not an imaginary cult scare. Anti-Bahá’í allegations have often functioned as propaganda supporting documented persecution. “Satanist” raids commonly combine genuine breaches of Iran’s morality laws with much less substantiated claims about devil worship. The school illnesses may have included toxic exposures, psychologically amplified symptoms, or both. Taken together, the cases show how uncertainty becomes especially dangerous when religious authority, political insecurity, restricted journalism and public distrust reinforce one another.

When a millenarian movement became a national threat

The most important Iranian case in the history of apocalyptic and millenarian movements began in 1844. A merchant and religious teacher known as the Bab announced a new revelation at a time when many believers expected the imminent appearance of a divinely guided redeemer. The movement spread rapidly through clerical, merchant and urban networks, attracting followers who believed that an old religious order was ending and a new age was beginning. Scholars describe it as the most significant millenarian movement to emerge from nineteenth-century Shia Islam.[Iranica Online]iranicaonline.orgIranica OnlineBABISM i. The Babi movement.Babism was the only significant millenarian movement in Shiʿite Islam during the 13th/19th cent…

It would be misleading, however, to describe the Babis simply as victims of a baseless panic. Relations with the authorities did become violent. From 1848, armed Babis fought government forces in several prolonged confrontations, while local disputes, religious hostility and state repression escalated into open conflict. The movement’s organisation was largely destroyed between 1848 and 1853; the Bab was executed in 1850, and many prominent followers were killed.[iranicaonline.org]iranicaonline.orgIranica Online BABISMIranica OnlineBABISM - Encyclopaedia IranicaThe first serious incidents occurred in 1264/1848 in Mašhad, where armed members of the large…

The crucial question is why the conflict became so extreme. Millenarian belief gave followers a powerful sense that ordinary rules and institutions were being superseded. At the same time, clerics feared a rival source of revelation, officials feared insurrection, and local opponents could present religious dissent as a danger to the whole social order. Once armed encounters began, each side’s actions appeared to confirm the other’s darkest expectations: Babis saw persecution as proof that corrupt powers opposed divine renewal, while the state treated scattered resistance as evidence of a coordinated revolutionary conspiracy.

A failed assassination attempt against the shah by a small group of Babis in 1852 intensified the reaction. The state’s reprisals extended far beyond those directly involved, producing executions and public torture. Although real militancy had existed, later representations often flattened a diverse movement into a single image of secretive, violent heresy. This is a recurring pattern in moral panics: a genuine conflict supplies the factual core, but fear expands guilt from particular actors to an entire religious population.[Iranica Online]iranicaonline.orgIranica OnlineMARTYRS, BABIby E Yarshater — The final persecution of Babis prior to the emergence of the Bahai religion as the main succe…

The Babi story matters because it resists two comforting simplifications. It was neither merely an irrational crowd delusion nor simply a peaceful sect crushed for no reason. It was an innovative religious movement, a challenge to established authority, a series of local armed struggles and a vastly disproportionate campaign of persecution. The Bahá’í faith later emerged from the Babi religious world, but rejected the earlier phase of militancy. Nevertheless, memories of Babi violence continued to be used against Bahá’ís who had not participated in it.[Iranica Online]iranicaonline.orgOpen source on iranicaonline.org.

How conspiracy stories sustained anti-Bahá’í persecution

The treatment of Iran’s Bahá’ís is better understood as a persecution fuelled by conspiracy narratives than as a neutral dispute about theology. The faith began in nineteenth-century Iran and developed into a global religion teaching the unity of humanity and the progressive relationship of religions. Because it arose after Islam and recognised later prophetic authority, many clerics regarded its followers as apostates. Yet religious disagreement alone does not explain the longevity or reach of the repression.[AP News]apnews.comIn Qatar, Baha'i leader Remy Rowhani has been detained since April 2025, facing charges for promoting a "deviant sect." His case has draw…Published: April 2025

Bahá’ís have repeatedly been portrayed as agents of foreign powers, political subversives, enemies of Islam or members of a covert organisation seeking control of Iran. Such accusations have changed with the political climate: a community could be labelled pro-Russian, British, Zionist or Western depending on which foreign enemy best suited the moment. The adaptability of the allegation is revealing. It rests less on consistent evidence than on the usefulness of imagining an internal minority as the hidden instrument of an external threat.

After the 1979 revolution, discrimination became deeply embedded in state practice. Human Rights Watch has documented arrests, imprisonment, property confiscation, restrictions on education and employment, destruction or desecration of cemeteries and other measures directed at Bahá’ís as a religious group. In 2024 it concluded that the decades-long campaign amounted to the crime against humanity of persecution. United Nations experts have also raised alarm about the systematic targeting of Bahá’í women through detention, interrogation, home raids and other abuses.[Human Rights Watch]hrw.orgHuman Rights Watch“The Boot on My Neck”: Iranian Authorities' CrimeHuman Rights Watch“The Boot on My Neck”: Iranian Authorities' Crime

This is where the language of “cult” becomes particularly hazardous. A government or dominant religious institution may apply words such as sect, deviant movement or espionage network to a minority, but repetition does not make the description analytically sound. The relevant evidence concerns identifiable beliefs, institutions and conduct. There is no credible basis for treating ordinary Bahá’ís collectively as a secret political conspiracy. By contrast, there is substantial evidence that conspiracy accusations have helped legitimise restrictions on their civil life.[Human Rights Watch]hrw.orgHuman Rights Watch Iran: Persecution of Baha'isHuman Rights Watch Iran: Persecution of Baha'is

The deeper historical link to the Babi upheavals also needs care. Memories of armed conflict in the 1840s and early 1850s contributed to later suspicion, but they do not justify transferring responsibility across generations or from one movement to its religious successor. This transformation of inherited memory into permanent collective guilt is one reason anti-Bahá’í narratives have remained culturally powerful long after the original conflicts ended.[Iranica Online]iranicaonline.orgOpen source on iranicaonline.org.

Why underground music keeps becoming “satanism”

Iran has experienced repeated official scares in which rock, heavy metal, youth fashion, private parties and mixed-gender gatherings are presented as signs of organised satanism. These episodes resemble the satanic panics seen elsewhere, but they also reflect Iran’s particular legal and cultural environment. Alcohol is prohibited, unrelated men and women face restrictions on socialising and dancing, and much unlicensed music operates underground. A police raid can therefore uncover actual violations of morality laws while still attaching a dramatic and poorly demonstrated satanic interpretation to them.

In 2007 police detained more than 200 people at an underground concert near Karaj. Officials described the event as “satanic”, while reports also referred to alcohol, drugs, dancing, Western-style music and prohibited mixing between men and women. The available evidence established that an illicit party and concert had occurred; it did not independently establish that the participants formed a Satan-worshipping religious movement.[Reuters]reuters.comIran detains scores at "satanic" rock gig: media | ReutersIran detains scores at "satanic" rock gig: media | Reuters

The pattern reappeared in May 2024, when authorities said that more than 260 people had been arrested west of Tehran for spreading “satanism and nudity”. State reporting cited symbols on clothing or bodies, as well as alcohol and drugs, but provided little explanation of the alleged organisation, doctrine or religious practice. The Associated Press noted that some supposed satanic symbols were also common features of tattoos, piercings and jewellery.[AP News]apnews.comOpen source on apnews.com.

Calling every such episode wholly invented would also be too simple. Some musicians deliberately use occult, anti-religious or blasphemous imagery, sometimes as artistic provocation and sometimes as a serious expression of opposition to religious authority. Iranian metal musicians have faced legal danger precisely because extreme music can challenge sacred boundaries. Yet provocative art is not proof of a coordinated cult, ritual abuse or a social movement threatening the public. Research on Iranian metal culture describes repeated “satanic panic” waves in which the genre’s transgressive image and official efforts to suppress it feed one another.[researchgate.net]researchgate.netOpen source on researchgate.net.

The term “satanism” therefore performs several tasks at once. It converts unfamiliar youth culture into a moral danger, associates private sexual and musical freedom with spiritual corruption, and allows ordinary policing of parties to be presented as defence of society. The scare is persuasive because it contains visible fragments that look incriminating—dark clothing, skull imagery, loud music, alcohol or mixed company—even when the larger claim of organised devil worship remains unsupported.

Were Iranian schoolgirls poisoned, or was fear spreading?

Beginning in November 2022, girls at schools in Qom and then across Iran reported strange smells followed by symptoms including coughing, dizziness, nausea, weakness, breathlessness and difficulty walking. Reports multiplied during early 2023, ambulances appeared outside schools, distressed pupils were filmed and anxious parents gathered to demand protection. The events occurred during the protest movement that followed the death of Mahsa Amini in morality-police custody, when schoolgirls had become unusually visible participants in opposition to compulsory dress rules.[stanford.edu]law.stanford.eduLaw SchoolLaw School

Competing explanations emerged almost immediately. Some officials initially spoke of deliberate poisoning and suggested that extremists wanted girls’ schools closed. Other voices suspected punishment for student protest. Authorities later emphasised anxiety, pranks, harmless irritants and alleged foreign attempts to create unrest. International experts and scientists noted that the pattern had features sometimes associated with mass psychogenic illness: concentration in a closely connected population, rapid geographical spread, reports triggered by odours, varied symptoms and quick recovery in many cases.[AP News]apnews.comAP News UN agency urges probe of schoolgirl poisonings in IranAP News UN agency urges probe of schoolgirl poisonings in Iran

Mass psychogenic illness does not mean that victims are pretending. It describes the unconscious spread of real physical symptoms through a group when fear, expectation and social communication contribute more than an identifiable disease or toxin. Headache, dizziness, nausea, fainting and breathing difficulty are common, particularly in high-stress schools or workplaces. Diagnosis normally requires careful exclusion of environmental and medical causes, rather than a dismissive assumption that anxious people imagined everything.[cambridge.org]cambridge.orgOpen source on cambridge.org.

That standard was difficult to meet in Iran because access to evidence was restricted and official accounts contradicted one another. Journalists and activists reporting on the illnesses faced arrest or prosecution, independent media had limited access, and no transparent investigation established a single cause for all incidents. United Nations experts reported alleged attacks across scores of schools and called for an independent inquiry, while UNESCO also urged investigation.[ohchr.org]ohchr.orgiran deliberate poisoning schoolgirls further evidence continuous violenceiran deliberate poisoning schoolgirls further evidence continuous violence

A 2025 open-source investigation led by Stanford’s Humanitarian Program reached a stronger conclusion than many earlier assessments. After examining more than 300 videos, photographs and reports, its researchers identified 13 incidents that they judged likely to involve poisoning. They argued that observed symptoms, reports involving teachers and staff, hospital stays and inconsistencies in official statements could not be explained by anxiety alone. They considered several toxic gases plausible, while acknowledging that the precise agent had not been established.[Stanford Law School]law.stanford.eduLaw SchoolLaw School

This later analysis does not prove that every reported illness had the same cause. A real irritant or toxic exposure can trigger fear, and that fear can then intensify or spread symptoms among other people. Multiple perpetrators, school pranks, environmental incidents and psychologically mediated reactions are not mutually exclusive possibilities. What the evidence most clearly rejects is an easy binary in which either every pupil was chemically attacked or the entire episode was “hysteria”.

The harm extended beyond the symptoms themselves. Parents lost confidence that schools were safe; pupils experienced fear and disruption; teachers protested; and competing political camps used the uncertainty to accuse one another. The state’s shifting statements deepened suspicion rather than calming it. In such conditions, rumours become credible not merely because people are gullible, but because trusted methods of verification are absent.

What connects these episodes

Iran’s cases span two centuries, but several mechanisms recur.

A real event becomes a total explanation. Armed Babi resistance was expanded into collective guilt. Illegal parties or provocative imagery become proof of satanic organisation. A cluster of genuine illnesses becomes evidence either of a nationwide chemical plot or of universal psychological contagion.

Hidden enemies explain visible disorder. Foreign agents, secret believers, immoral youth networks and internal traitors provide simple causes for complicated social change. These stories are especially useful when economic strain, generational conflict, political protest or religious competition cannot easily be discussed on their own terms.

Official secrecy encourages unofficial certainty. Restricted reporting does not eliminate rumours. It removes the shared evidence needed to test them. During the school crisis, contradictory announcements and pressure on journalists created an information vacuum in which both conspiratorial and dismissive explanations flourished.[AP News]apnews.comAP News UN agency urges probe of schoolgirl poisonings in IranAP News UN agency urges probe of schoolgirl poisonings in Iran

Labels can become instruments of punishment. “Cult”, “satanist”, “hysterical” and “foreign agent” do not simply describe. They can determine whose testimony is believed, whose suffering is minimised and whose arrest appears justified. This is why distinctions matter: a new religious movement is not automatically a cult; psychogenic symptoms are not fake; unconventional music is not evidence of ritual crime; and the existence of some militancy does not make every member of a religious community dangerous.

Iran’s history in this field is therefore less a catalogue of bizarre beliefs than a history of contested credibility. The central question in each case is not only what people believed, but who had the power to define belief as revelation, rebellion, sickness, deviance or conspiracy. The consequences have ranged from censorship and mass arrest to long-term persecution and death. Understanding those consequences requires taking fear seriously without automatically accepting the stories that fear produces.

Amazon book picks

Further Reading

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Endnotes

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