Habib Sabet

Habib Sabet (Persian: حبیب ثابت‎; 1903 – 1990) was a businessman and follower of the Baháʼí Faith.[1][2] He is considered one of Iran's major industrialists.[3]

Habib Sabet
Born
Habib Sabet

1903
Tehran, Iran
Died1990 (aged 86–87)
Los Angeles, United States
OccupationBusinessman
Known forFounder of the first television station in Iran

Biography
Mohammad Reza Pahlavi (last Shah of Iran) with Habib Sabet during a visit to a television centre

Sabet was born in Tehran in 1903.[1] Both his maternal and paternal grandparents were Iranian Jews who had converted to the Bahá’i Faith.[4] He began to involve in business selling tobacco and renting bicycles.[5] In 1925 he went to Beirut where he started his transport services between Tehran and Baghdad.[6] In the 1950s his business activities expanded and mostly included car dealerships, manufacturing, and agricultural machinery.[5]

One of his companies was Firooz Trading Company.[7] He was granted the franchises of many American and European brands, including General Electric, Kelvinator, Westinghouse and Volkswagen.[8] In 1955 he managed to acquire the rights to bottle Pepsi Cola in Iran.[5] However, the same year due to the anti-Baháʼí movements and the fatwa of Ayatollah Hossein Borujerdi against Pepsi Sabet became the target of the attacks.[5]

Sabet was also the founder of Iran's first television station.[3][9] His television station was called "Iran Television" which was launched in Tehran on 23 October 1958.[7]

Sabet left Iran before the regime change in 1979,[6] and he spent his remaining years in Paris, France. He died at the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles of congestive heart failure in 1990 at the age of 86.[6][10] He had the Sabet Pasal built in Tehran, a palace modeled after the Petit Trianon in Versailles.[11] His companies and other assets were confiscated by the Islamic government of Iran shortly after its establishment.[6]

See also

References
  1. Sabet, Habib Encyclopædia Iranica
  2. TV Turns 60 In Iran With Biased, Ideological Programming And Low Credibility Radio Farda
  3. Abbas Milani (2008). Eminent Persians: The Men and Women Who Made Modern Iran, 1941-1979, Volumes One and Two. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press. p. 678. ISBN 978-0-8156-0907-0.
  4. "Sabet, Habib". Iranica Online.
  5. A.H. Fink (2020). The importance of conspiracy theory in extremist ideology and propaganda (PhD thesis). Leiden University. p. 382. hdl:1887/87359.
  6. H. E. Chehabi; Hassan I. Mneimneh (2007). "Five Centuries of Lebanese–Iranian Encounters". In H. E. Chehabi (ed.). Distant Relations: Iran and Lebanon in the Last 500 Years. New York: I.B. Tauris. pp. 18, 25. ISBN 9781860645617.
  7. Javad Mesbahee (1973). Television Broadcasting in Iran (Thesis). Florida State University. p. 25. ISBN 9798661025623. ProQuest 302676973.
  8. Reza Farokhfal (2001). Under Western eyes: the BBC and the Iranian revolution 1978-1979: a discursive analysis (MA thesis). Concordia University. p. 26.
  9. Sabet, Habib Encyclopædia Iranica
  10. Habib Sabet Is Dead; An Iranian Altruist And Industrialist, The New York Times, 24 February 1990, p.30
  11. Sabet Pasal Protection Prioritized by ICHHTO, Financial Tribune, 13 June 2017
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