Habib Sabet
{{Short description|Iranian businessman (1903–1993)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=January 2023}}
{{Infobox person
| name =
| image = Habiblollah Sabet Portrait 2.JPG
| alt =
| caption = 1964
| birth_name = Habib Sabet
| birth_date = 1903
| death_date = {{death year and age|1990|1903}}
| death_place = Los Angeles, United States
| nationality =
| other_names =
| occupation = Businessman
| years_active =
| known_for = Founder of the first television station in Iran
| notable_works =
}}
Habib Sabet ({{langx|fa|حبیب ثابت}}; 1903 – 1990) was a businessman and follower of the Baháʼí Faith.[https://bahai-library.com/momen_habib_sabet_iranica Sabet, Habib] Encyclopædia Iranica[https://en.radiofarda.com/a/iran-tv-turns-60-with-ideological-programming-low-credibility/29523426.html TV Turns 60 In Iran With Biased, Ideological Programming And Low Credibility] Radio Farda He is considered one of Iran's major industrialists.
Biography
File:MohammadReza Pahlavi visits television center of Habiblollah Sabet, There are also Hormoz Sabet, Naser Zolfaghari, Ali Mo'ayyed Sabeti, Nematollah Nasiri.jpg (last Shah of Iran) with Habib Sabet during a visit to a television centre]]
Sabet was born in Tehran in 1903. Both his maternal and paternal grandparents were Iranian Jews who had converted to the Bahá’i Faith.{{cite web|url= https://iranicaonline.org/articles/sabet-habib|title=Sabet, Habib|publisher=Iranica Online}} He began to involve in business selling tobacco and renting bicycles.{{cite thesis|author=A.H. Fink|title=The importance of conspiracy theory in extremist ideology and propaganda|url=https://hdl.handle.net/1887/87359|location=Leiden University|degree=PhD|year=2020
|hdl=1887/87359|page=382}} In 1925 he went to Beirut where he started his transport services between Tehran and Baghdad.{{cite book|author1=H. E. Chehabi|author2=Hassan I. Mneimneh|editor1=H. E. Chehabi|title=Distant Relations: Iran and Lebanon in the Last 500 Years|year=2007|publisher=I.B. Tauris|location=New York|isbn=9781860645617|pages=18,25|chapter=Five Centuries of Lebanese–Iranian Encounters
|chapter-url=https://archive.org/stream/DistantRelations/Distant%20relations_djvu.txt}} In the 1950s his business activities expanded and mostly included car dealerships, manufacturing, and agricultural machinery.
One of his companies was Firooz Trading Company. He was granted the franchises of many American and European brands, including General Electric, Kelvinator, Westinghouse and Volkswagen.{{cite thesis|author=Reza Farokhfal|title=Under Western eyes: the BBC and the Iranian revolution 1978-1979: a discursive analysis|location=Concordia University |page=26|url=https://spectrum.library.concordia.ca/id/eprint/1524/|degree=MA|year=2001}} In 1955 he managed to acquire the rights to bottle Pepsi Cola in Iran. 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.
Sabet was also the founder of Iran's first television station.{{cite book|author=Abbas Milani|author-link=Abbas Milani| title=Eminent Persians: The Men and Women Who Made Modern Iran, 1941-1979, Volumes One and Two|publisher=Syracuse University Press| location=Syracuse, NY|year=2008|isbn=978-0-8156-0907-0|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ixU33FaG_dgC&pg=PA678|page=678}}[http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/sabet-habib Sabet, Habib] Encyclopædia Iranica His television station was called "Iran Television" which was launched in Tehran on 23 October 1958.{{cite thesis|author=Javad Mesbahee|title=Television Broadcasting in Iran|url=https://www.proquest.com/docview/302676973|location=Florida State University|page=25
|year=1973|isbn=9798661025623|id={{ProQuest|302676973}}}}
Sabet left Iran before the regime change in 1979, 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.[https://www.nytimes.com/1990/02/24/obituaries/habib-sabet-is-dead-an-iranian-altruist-and-industrialist-86.html Habib Sabet Is Dead; An Iranian Altruist And Industrialist], The New York Times, 24 February 1990, p.30 He had the Sabet Pasal built in Tehran, a palace modeled after the Petit Trianon in Versailles.[https://financialtribune.com/articles/travel/66350/sabet-pasal-protection-prioritized-by-ichhto Sabet Pasal Protection Prioritized by ICHHTO], Financial Tribune, 13 June 2017 His companies and other assets were confiscated by the Islamic government of Iran shortly after its establishment.
See also
References
{{Reflist}}
External links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Sadet, Habib}}
Category:20th-century Iranian businesspeople
Category:Iranian philanthropists
Category:20th-century philanthropists
Category:Iranian people of Jewish descent
Category:Iranian expatriates in France