Fazl'ollah Mohtadi Sobhi
Fazl'ollah Mohtadi Sobhi (1897–1962) was an author, story-teller, and teacher in Iran and is considered as one of the most important researchers and collector of Iranian folk tales for children.
According to his autobiography Payam-i Pidar, Sobhi was born in Tehran and his father who was originally from Kashan had remarried a few times.
His life took a turn for the worse after his father divorced his mother at the age of six (p. 5-6) and he was continuously harassed by his stepmother.
Finally, due to the constant harassment from his stepmother, he was sent to Qazvin by his father and after a few months set on to a missionary journey that led through Azerbaijan, Georgia, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan (pp. 13–44).
In 1919, he reached Haifa, Palestine to meet 'Abdu'l Baha, the second leader of the Baháʼí Faith who appointed him as his secretary for two years.
As Sobhi himself states, wherever he would apply for work the Baháʼís would tell his employers that this man is unworthy and dishonorable, until finally he started working as a teacher in the Sadat School of Sayyid Yahya Dawlatabadi (a prominent political activist and Azali by faith[6]) and sometime later he started teaching at the American High School in Tehran, Iran (p. 120).
In 1933, he started work at the Higher Academy of Music (Honarestān-e ʿāli-e musiqi) in Tehran where he taught Persian language and literature.
Thus in April 1940, he joined Radio Tehran as a story-teller and started broadcasting his children' story program.
[4] َAccording to Sobhi's autobiography, his paternal grandfather was a Muslim scholar from Kashan by the name of Haj Mulla Ali Akbar.
His wife was secretly a Babi that had converted her children to Babism then Baháʼísm and Sobhi was born into the Baháʼí Faith.
He would debate with Muslims and was even punished a number of times at school for engaging in similar discussions (pp.
In 1919, he traveled to Haifa, Palestine to meet 'Abdu'l Baha, the second leader of the Baháʼí Faith, who appointed him as his secretary for two years.
"[11] As he mentions throughout his book, Sobhi states that he had witnessed many immoral acts from the Baháʼí community and missionaries in both in Iran and abroad and these always irritated him.
'Abdu'l-Baha posing as a Hanafi Sunni and attending the Friday prayers at the Muslim mosque and denying he was part of a new religion (p .
He recounts in many places of his book what he had witnessed from Shoghi including his constant bad-mouthing and cold behavior towards his closest family members (pp .
