<p>How do modern states that claim universal citizenship continue to produce unequal forms of political belonging? This article addresses this question through the case of antisemitism in Iran. It argues that antisemitism operates not only as rhetoric or ideology, but also as a recurring mechanism through which political boundaries are drawn and maintained. The analysis traces how racialized distinctions between “Aryan” and “Semitic” populations, developed in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Iranian nationalist thought, were not abandoned after the 1979 revolution. Instead, they were reworked within the Islamic Republic through the language of Shiʿi political theology. As a result, earlier racial classifications and religious forms of authority now reinforce one another in shaping who belongs and on what terms. The article examines official rhetoric, public statements, and political texts to show how Jews are repeatedly positioned as a moral and political “other.” It demonstrates that antisemitism in Iran is not incidental or reducible to geopolitics, but forms part of a broader mode of rule in which religious legitimacy and national identity are closely intertwined. To capture this configuration, the article develops the concept of ethno-theocratic racialized sovereignty: a form of political order in which sacralized authority and historically rooted racial narratives, articulated through theological arguments, jointly structure hierarchical membership. The Iranian case illustrates how modern states can formally uphold universal citizenship while sustaining enduring patterns of exclusion through institutionalized classifications.</p>