Media, Islam, and the Public Sphere: Radio and Religion in Pahlavi Iran, 1939–1957

"This project examines how early Persian-language radio networks emerged from Nazi foreign policy during World War II and transformed the public presence of Islam in Pahlavi Iran between 1939 and 1957. Special attention is given to the Radio Berlin Persian Service (1939–1945), which pioneered broadcasting religious content in Persian, merged with racist, antisemitic, and anti-imperialist propaganda. Its nationwide reception strongly resonated with Iranian clerics, prompting the BBC to establish its own Persian Service in 1940, and directly influencing the development of Radio Tehran (1940–1957), where, by the early 1950s, religious programming occupied more airtime than other content. Radio broadcasting thus became a powerful medium for transforming the public practices, perceptions, and prominence of Islam in modern Iran. The project focuses on three figures who embodied this transformation: Bahram Shahrokh, Radio Berlin's Persian-speaking announcer and Iran’s propaganda chief in the post-WWII years; Hosayn-Ali Rashed, whose ""radio religious speeches"" promoted a progressive style of Muslim piety; and Mohammad Taqi Falsafi, whose emotive live broadcasts from Tehran's Shah Mosque promoted a populist piety that culminated in the 1955 anti-Baha’i campaign. RADPUB argues that the emergence of the new genre of radio religious speech in Persian was key to the consolidation of Shi’a clerical authority – with its different shades of piety – and the marginalisation of religious minorities. In the absence of surviving audio archives, RADPUB draws on Persian, German, and English sources, including previously untapped or understudied intelligence transcripts, state files, and press coverage. Combining cultural-historical analysis with digital humanities methods, the project offers the first cultural history of Islam and radio broadcasting in Iran. It is positioned at the intersection of contemporary Iranian history, media history of religion, and WWII propaganda studies."