“Islam is dead,” the “mosques are empty,” and “no one follows Islam inside of Iran,” an unidentified Iranian church leader stated in the 2019 film Sheep Among Wolves Volume II. The film marks a widely observed trend in recent decades of Iranians abandoning the cruel theocratic faith of Iran’s 1979-established Islamic Republic for Christianity.
“God is moving powerfully inside of Iran,” the church leader stated as the documentary examined how “Muslim-background Iranians are leading a quiet but mass exodus out of Islam.” Christian evangelists, who reach Iranians via means such as television broadcasting, have for several years reported on Iranians leaving Islam for Christianity. Other media reports have noted that Iranians “are leaving the mosques in droves” as atheists.
Estimates vary about Christianity’s Iranian revival, with some suggesting in 2019 that “70 percent of Iran’s people have rejected Islam.” Like others, Open Doors, an aid organization for Christians persecuted worldwide, cited at least 500,000 Iranian Christians that same year, compared to 500 known evangelical Christians in 1979, while some sources claimed one million covert believers. In a 2016 Christian Broadcasting Network interview, Iranian house church pastor Rahman Salehsafari, an evangelist among Iranians both in Iran and globally via Skype, stated that 100,000 Iranian Christians in 1994 had become three million.
Mark Bradley, a writer about Iranian Christianity, claimed in 2019 that more Iranians had become Christians in the past 25 years than the past 13 centuries combined. Iran has one of the world’s fastest-growing Christian communities, where demand outstrips Bible supply. David Yeghnazar, the executive director of the nonprofit Elam Ministries for Iranian Christians, argued in 2018 that “Iranians have become the most open people to the gospel.”
Iranians often note the role of dreams in conversions from Islam to Christianity. Dabrina Bet Tamraz, the daughter of Iranian parents imprisoned for their Christian evangelism, discussed this factor during a February 5 Family Research Council (FRC) event in Washington, DC. “Have you seen the white man, have you seen Jesus,” these Iranian Muslim converts to Christianity often ask each other.
Reza Safa, an Iranian Muslim convert to Christianity and evangelical pastor, predicted in 2019 that Iran would become the first majority-Muslim country to convert to Christianity, given the evangel’s wildfire spread despite harsh repression. Iranian-American evangelist Hormoz Shariat in 2016 declared that “Islam is experiencing its greatest defeat in its history in Iran today.” Most young Iranians “have been raised in a family where Islam was rejected and even ridiculed, or at least it was a non-issue.”
The “explosive growth of Christianity in Iran has been driven by the almost palpable spiritual hunger and disillusionment with the Islamic regime,” Open Doors has noted, similar to Iranian-American Texas church pastor Afshin Ziafat. “Ironically, because the Islamic Republic in Iran has tied religion and state so closely together, the people’s disappointment with the government has led to great skepticism of Islam,” he has written. For example, “Islam treats women as a second-class citizen,” Maryam Rostampour noted at FRC while discussing her traumatic Iranian imprisonment for her Christian faith.
Voice of the Martyrs Radio show host Todd Nettleton has heard similar irony from Iranian Christians who have told him that
over the past 20 years that the greatest missionary in the history of Iran—a history that predates Daniel in the Lions’ Den—is the Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, leader of the 1979 Islamic Revolution that ended 2,500 years of Persian monarchy in Iran.
Sheep Among Wolves Volume II producers, who denounced that in Islam Satan “has built this entire demonic religion around obedience to a false god,” a “great counterfeit,” reached the same conclusion. “The best evangelist for Jesus was the Ayatollah Khomeini,” as the “ayatollahs brought the true face of Islam to light and people discovered it was a lie.” After four decades under the ayatollah’s Islamic law “utopia,” Iranians “had the worst devastation in the 5,000-year history of Iran.”
International political commentator David Goldman observed in a 2018 interview that many Iranians “see their country falling apart around them.” “Iran is going through really a set of catastrophic events economically, environmentally, and socially.” Accordingly, “Iran is one of the least religious countries in the world as measured by mosque attendance.”
Goldman compared Iran with the declining Soviet Union in 1980s, where “there were really no Communists outside the Central Committee.” As he wrote in 2015, Iran’s “theocratic elite has no more support at the grass roots than did the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in the 1980s.” Before the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, he stated in his interview, “you found fewer communists in Russia than, say, in Cambridge, Massachusetts.”
Iranians’ “deep and intractable national anomie, a loss of personal sense of purpose,” resulted in stunning infertility, Goldman wrote:
Iran’s fertility decline from about seven children per female in 1979 to just 1.6 in 2012 remains a conundrum to demographers. Never before in recorded history has the birth rate of a big country fallen so fast and so far. Iran’s population is aging faster than that of any other country in the world. In 2050, 30% of its people will be over 60, the same ratio as in the United States but with a tenth of America’s per capita GDP.
Another sign of Iranian despair is drug abuse in a country where alcohol and drugs are actually readily available, notwithstanding Islamic strictures. The United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime (UNODC) reported in 2017 that “Iran is confronting the gravest addiction crisis in the world.” Officially 2.8 million people regularly consume drugs amidst Iran’s population of 80 million, but the real figure could be higher.
Iranian agony and Christianity’s message of hope are jeopardizing Iran’s Islamic Republic amidst a historically urbane population not well-disposed towards theocracy. That Iranian literacy rates have improved under the Islamic Republic and now exceed 85 percent only weakens blind faith. For the Islamic Republic, only severe repression can maintain power and forestall the dramatic political changes that an Iranian regime change would bring, as a forthcoming article will analyze.
Ray Jarman says
I hate to say it, but this is one of the few articles here at Jihad Watch where something positive is occurring:
“Iranian agony and Christianity’s message of hope are jeopardizing Iran’s Islamic Republic amidst a historically urbane population not well-disposed towards theocracy. That Iranian literacy rates have improved under the Islamic Republic and now exceed 85 percent only weakens blind faith.”
In my opinion this statement is so true. Take a look at the UK, Sweden and other infested nations where the Muslims stay in their own backward communities and where the children are indoctrinated with the horror of Islam and the schools that the children attend are administered by those who care nothing about children except how it they can maintain an obedient cadre of mosque going followers of Muhammad. Even in the US, Muslims refuse to become part of the melting pot that made the nation what it was until the 1990s. I hope that this trend will continue into the future in Iran.
Honest Ali says
Amen.
Keys says
I love the positive news too, but the Ayatollahs do not and they have the power to make things miserable – at least for awhile.
From Feb. 24, 2020 at Barnabas Fund for full article:
https://barnabasfund.org/en/news/iran-forces-christian-converts-from-islam-to-declare-their-faith-to-obtain-id-cards
“Iran forces Christian converts from Islam to declare their faith to obtain ID cards”
“ Christian converts from Islam no longer have the choice of keeping their faith secret in Iran after the Islamic Republic removed the “other religions” option from the new application form for the national ID card.
The National Census Bureau has narrowed the choices available to new applicants to only the four religions recognised under the Iranian constitution: Christianity, Judaism, Islam and Zoroastrianism.
The Iranian government’s new rule on ID card applications is in line with its strategy of harassing Christian converts from Islam and pressurising them to emigrate
This means that Muslim-born converts to Christianity, who may have preferred not to make public their faith in order to avoid hostility or persecution from their family, employers or the authorities, now have to reveal they are Christian, or lie about their faith and tick the box that says Muslim.“
b.a. freeman says
as a born-again christian, i can understand the reluctance to hide one’s christianity; we are not supposed to hide our light. however, it is not unprecedented to do so; christians hid their faith when they were ruled by the roman empire before it became (nominally) christian, and christians ruled by the socialist empire (russia and other occupied eastern european nations) did as well, all to evade death from the authorities. of course, by *behaving* like a christian, one can reveal oneself, but that is more difficult for the authorities to tease out, and no doubt plays a part in their usual decision to err on the side of killing people just in case.
one need not be silent about the Lord these days, however; the internet offers an excellent way to share one’s new belief anonymously, and to support one’s new community of believers. these messages can be tracked, but via TOR and other anonymization services, one can make it extremely hard for the authorities to find out who and where one is. just because the thugs try to silence believers, regardless of their current or past beliefs, does not mean that they will succeed. i am praying for the people of persia – even the ayahtollahs, who need Jesus most of all.
abad says
Amen!
Henry says
Soon, Christians will have to hide their faith in the West taking into account the anti-Christian and pro-islamic tendencies in the indoctrinated west.
David Cooper says
Amen. Hope for peace and tolerance springs eternal
SKA says
ALOHA SNACKBAR! TAKE BEER!
mortimer says
Good article by Andrew Harrod. A Muslim university teacher in Sweden who studies such matters, determined that about 90% of Iranian migrants in Sweden are secular, if not agnostics. Iran is a secularist volcano that will eventually blow. The mullahs should get out now before the Iranians hang them from the lampposts in the coming revolution. Assassination is the normative way of ‘voting’ in Islamic dictatorships.
James Lincoln says
mortimer says,
“The mullahs should get out now before the Iranians hang them from the lampposts in the coming revolution.”
A thousand times no!
I will gladly buy the rope – and send it airmail…
David Cooper says
If news reports are anything to go by,The corona virus may save us a lot of angst. At least one of their number was seen to be sweatin profusely on stage whilst attending a political fake support rally.
mortimer says
It sounds like the only way for out-of-work Iranians to make money is through petty crime… selling sex, drugs and alcohol.
Walter Sieruk says
After the 1997 Islamic revolution or even better termed “after the rise of that brutal and cruel oppressive Islamic regime ‘ the Iranian people revived a very hard and hash reality check as to the actual essence of that Islam based and likewise Sharia law and thus vicious Islamic tyranny.
For now the Iranian people are very aware true outcome of the Islamic revolution.
A former Muslim revealed an important reality when he wrote “Iran is representative of what Islamic fundamentals desire, an Islamic State, and the consequence of achieving it: State Terror, Instead of utopic, Iran is an Islamic totalitarian nightmare.” He further exposes that “What followed its establishment was the inevitable consequence and inexorable logic of its Islamic premise; state terrorism, a merciless tyranny.” [1]
Furthermore, in the book entitled HOW ISLAM PLANS TO CHANGE THE WORLD, by , the Christian scholar, William Wagner ,on page 208 the reader is informed that “The creation of the Islamic republic in Iran has had the effect that many from that country have become disillusioned with Islam and are looking to leave Iran. ” This is a point worth pondering.
[1] THE ISLAM IN ISLAMIC TERRORISM by Ibn Warraq page 346,.
Walter Sieruk says
That cruel and tyrannical Islamic regime of Iran regime has severely limited to an extreme much knowledge and wisdom from the outside world . This is because that fiendish and murderous ayatollahs and mullahs in power in Iran are very much afraid the Iranian people might discover different ideas . As the idea’s and philosophy of John Locke
For example, Locke views the people living under any genuine government are people retaining their individual rights after a government has been established. In other words, the securing of their rights – the protection of the life, liberty and property of all – is the sole legitimate purpose of government. I If a government begins to abuse those rights it then becomes tyrannical and the governed [the people] retain the right to overthrow that government and replace it with one that does its job properly.
So that heinous ”mullah regime” of Iran , greatly fears such ideas and keeps the people under his hideous control of his tyranny in and the darkness of much limited information .
In addition, about this tyrannical Islamic regime of Iran which has the official title of “The Islamic Republic of Iran” and also about the chief and head Imam, Ayatollah Khomeini, who had a strong hand in establishing this so called “Republic “ The very actual essence of that Islamic tyranny ,Ayatollah Khomeini had made in known that “The Islamic Republic of Iran would be Islamic and nothing but .He declared ‘What the nation wants is an Islamic Republic . Not just a Republic, not a democratic Republic, not a democratic Islamic Republic. Do not use the word “democratic” to describe it. That is the Western style. ‘” [1]
[1]`THE HISTORY OF JIHAD by Robert Spencer, page 318.
YYCAlberta says
I really, really hope this is true. “War is Deceit” and I’ve been told via the Taqiyya method of pacifying the gullible west that positive moves CAN be happening in the Middle East and elsewhere. Turned out to be another lie.
I hate to be the skeptic in the crowd. My hopes are up for change and this sounds promising.
If this is indeed happening in the snake pit of Islam, there may be brighter future for all of us on the horizon.
Peter35 says
Let’s hope it also happens in the Canadian Bible Belt, aka Alberta, where the first move should be to get rid of the fat, arrogant moslem mayor of a certain city. (what in hell were Calgarians thinking?)
Walter Sieruk says
The US sanction ban on oil exports from this the “mullah regime” of Iran is a grand and wise plan. The Trump administration has said that it aims to reduce those exports to zero.” For that Islamic tyranny is hostile against the United States, , the State of Israel and many other nations and the people who are citizens of those countries.
As for those current economic sanctions that are being held against that Islamic tyranny of Iran Is very good and appropriate. This Islamic rough state of Iran inappropriately it has the word “Republic” in its title. America’s National Security Adviser, John Bolton, had said that goal of the sanctions is not to make a “regime chance” but to cause charge for the better in the actions and polices by the heads of state in Iran . For those mullahs and the others in power in Iran are so thoroughly deceitful, demonic, wicked, vicious and cruel that they will not change their malicious ways.
As explain in the Bible “What is crooked cannot be straightened; which is lacking cannot be counted.” Ecclesiastes 1:15. [N.I.V.] Indeed, Those malice -filled and hateful Muslim clerics who have much power in Iran along with the other Islamic stooges who rule Iran “cannot be counted” to make any chances for the better . The ayatollahs and mullahs in their likeminded Muslim partners in total governmental control of Iran are very anti- female m as in extremely misogynistic and oppressive ruthless to both girls and woman as well as all of the Iranian people who are trapped in forced to existed in this diabolical Islamic regime. As it is written in Proverbs 15:15. “All the days of the oppressed are wretched.” Likewise, Ecclesiastes 4:1 reads “ I saw the tears of the oppressed – and they have no comforter; power was in the side of the oppressors …”
Furthermore ,Proverbs 28:15 very well describes such wicked characters who rule Iran as president Rouhani and ayatollah Khamenei . For it reads “Like a roaring lion or a charging bear is a wicked ruler over a helpless people.” Furthermore, such a vicious mindset of heinous arrogance of Rouhani, Khamenei and the other hateful and spiteful Islamic clerics in this “mullah regime” of Iran is reflected in the words from the Bible describing tyrannical villains in power of an oppressive regime. For Psalm 73:6—9 read “Therefore pride is their necklace:: they clothe themselves with violence. From their callous hearts comes iniquity; their evil ;their evil imaginations have no limits. They scoff and speak with malice; with arrogance they threaten oppression. Their mouths lay claim to heaven, and their tongues take possession of the earth.”
About that heinously brutal, cruel vicious tyrannical “mullah regime” of Iran has terribly failed to deliver the lying promises it held out the for Iranian people when is first attempted to and then gained and tool power . Now many of the disillusioned and disappointed Iranians have woke up the lies and harsh rule of this Islamic tyranny which they are trapped and forced to exist in. This is worse than sag it’s totally tragic.
Walter Sieruk says
The foundation of this whole Islamic “Republic “of Iran is based on the “holy book” of Islam the Koran, as in 47;4. Some call this religious book, the Quran. All this leads to a very important question: “Is the Quran the Word of God or is it a fabrication of a man. Thus, is the Quran the truth or a fiction and a hoax ?” The jihadists use many verses from the Quran as the main source of justification for their violence, mayhem and murders. As found in For example, 4:89. 5:33. 9:5,111,123.
The answer is the Quran is true or not is clearly given on pages 145 through 157 in THE ISLAMIC INVASION by Robert Morey in which he wrote a section on the Quran with its self-contradictions. Just two of the many he cited are the following “The Quran differs on whether a day is a thousand years or fifty thousand years in God’s sight’ and “Who was first to believe? Abraham or Moses [Sura 6:14 versus 7:143]? The above is inconsistent and illogical. Further, Morey wrote about “The fact that Judaism and Christianity broke up into different sects was used in the Quran to prove that they are not of God [Suras 30:20-32. 42:13, 14]. Yet Islam has broken up into many warring sects and therefore cannot be true if the Quran is right.”
Moreover, Morey in his book shows many more contradictions and absurdities in the Quran, there are and how Muhammad incorporated extra Biblical and Jewish folklore along with pre-Islamic Arabian myth and parts of Zoroastrian and Hindu stories into the Quran. Furthermore, the Muslims claim that “the Quran is the direct, literal word of God unmodified in any way by the Prophet who uttered them at the bidding of God.”
Nevertheless, in the book UNVEILING ISLAM by Ergun Mehmet and Eethi Caner has shown that the Quran was modified in the following account on pages 45. “Muhammad felt the need to improve on the words of Allah, since he changed Allah’s wisdom for his own on several occasions. A hadith tells of the nonchalant emendations of Muhammad:’ On a number of occasions he [a scribe] had, with the Prophet’s consent changed the closing words of verses.
For example, when the prophet had said ‘God is mighty and wise ‘ Adbollah b. Abi Sarh suggested writing down ‘Knowing and wise’ and the Prophet answered that there was no objection. Having observed a succession of changes of this type, Adbollah renounced Islam on the grounds that revelations, if from God could not be changed at the prompting of a scribe such as himself. After his apostasy he went to Mecca and joined the Qorayshites.’ Other writers reveal that later Muhammad and his people did go war with the Qorayshites and he personally killed Abdollah. Obviously Abdollah knew too much and Muhammad wanted Abdollah’s knowledge to die with him.” In conclusion, the Quran is not only a fiction, it’s also a hoax and therefore This Islamic regime rests on a “house of cards.” That is total and complete falsehood.
Peter Clemerson says
Can you give a reference to this Hadith? In whose collection does it appear?
Infidel says
Welcome news, if true, but I always tend to be skeptical of such stories until they happen
Historically, Iran had the opportunity to throw off islam during the Mongol Ilkhanate, but didn’t. They could have embraced Christianity or Buddhism, but didn’t. Instead, 50 years into it, one Mongol prince Mahmud Ghazan embraced Islam after he came to power, and converted that empire to Islam, expelling all Buddhists back to Mongolia. Wouldn’t have happened had Iranians become Buddhists.
So, I won’t believe these trends until they happen
Mateen Elass says
Once they “happen,” they are no longer trends.
Wellington says
Seconded, Infidel. Like you and YYCAlberta (1:08 P.M. post) I too find this welcoming news IF TRUE. But I won’t hold my breath here.
Westman says
Iranians are Persians, not Arabs, and Islam is a foreign religion that was forced upon Iran.
Hopefully, it is true that Iran’s citizens are awakening to understand the suffocation that Islam has brought to their nation; a nation that should have been on the forefront of human accomplishment instead of burning its energy in a cyclic, redundant, sycophantic, praise to a manufactured deity and a pursuit of jihad war.
I was privileged to know Iranian students in the US before the backward “revolution”, and they had great promise – unlike the radical nut students from Qom’s religious schools. They were swept back into Iran, by the “grand” Ayatollah to die in the 8-years war with Iraq. The war, the “brain drain” to the West, and the stultifying controls of Islam depleted Iran’s capabilities for generations.
The sooner Iran casts off its parasites, the Mullahs from top to bottom, the better for that nation.
Wellington says
Just to second your comment, Westman, I don’t see how any patriotic Persian (Iranian) can be a Muslim—just as no patriotic American can be a Communist.
Infidel says
Westman
While it’s true that islam is a foreign religion in Iran, many Iranians believe that shi’a islam is an Iranian religion, even though sunni islam is not.
Of course, factually, it’s not true. The first few imams – Ali and Husayn – were Arabs from the Quraysh tribe. Now Iranian accounts have it that Husayn married a Sassanid princess and therefore, all his descendants had some Iranian blood in them. While that may be true, the root of shi’a islam remains the Quraysh tribe. It’s not like shi’a islam is about Iranian supremacy, as opposed to Arab
The sooner a majority of Iranians realize this and apostatize, the better. But I’ll only believe it after it happens
gravenimage says
Agreed, Infidel.
Mobuyus says
It’s high time they ditch that stinky desert death cult of islam.
Alice Brackensick says
I agree Islam is a cult and all should call it such. It is, certainly, no religion of peace. It brainwashes its people, brutalizes its women, and sanctions violence in order to maintain its existence.
Mateen Elass says
Very good article, but title should read, “Iranians Are Casting Off Their Islamic Religion.” They are not losing it, but deciding it is not worth retaining, and rightly so.
gravenimage says
Mr. Elass, I believe the title is a reference to the REM song.
Mateen Elass says
Thank you, gravenimage, for the cultural lesson. I’m not well-versed in such matters!
gravenimage says
Here’s the song:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwtdhWltSIg
This song was huge in the 1990s.
eduardo odraude says
Wow, pang of nostalgia hit me listening to that song again…
tim gallagher says
As other commenters have said, this is wonderful news if it is true. If only Muslims everywhere would desert this vile ideology, the world would become such a better and far more peaceful place. If the Iranians are showing the way and leaving Islam behind, that is definitely something worth celebrating.
FYI says
Yes indeed.
Currently ,the god of the Iranians,al LAH the ARAB, doesn’t even subscribe to their language, Farsi.
al lah is the great ARAB sultan in the Sky and inconveniently for the Iranians he can only be understood through Arabic.
{al lah is so parochial,so linguistically challenged, that he finds it hard to believe an Arab would know another language.
“What!A FOREIGN TONGUE and an Arab?”
koran 41:44..}
Imagine a Bible in Farsi:written so that Iranians could read it in their OWN language.
That would be so much more convenient: but alas they have allah the obtuse Arab instead.
tim gallagher says
Yes, FYI, what you say there is almost beyond belief. It fits that saying, you couldn’t make this stuff up, it is so crazy, but, then again, why look for any logic or sanity in Islam. Anyway, hopefully, the Iranian will ditch barbaric Islam and join the civilised part of the human race. It’s obviously going to take ages to achieve, but it would be wonderful for humanity if Islam did wither and die
gravenimage says
Iranians are Losing Their Islamic Religion
……………..
I *hope* so. But we have been hearing for decades now that Iranians are poised to dump the Mullahs–or even dump Islam altogether. It hasn’t happened yet. But no one would be happier to be wrong here than myself.
Lydia Church says
Praise the Lord! That is great news!
People see through the emptiness of false religion. They start to seek God in truth. They hear whispers and hints of Christianity. They enter into a personal relationship with Jesus and their spiritual needs, hunger, and thirst are met. Your heart will overflow with the love of God. You will have His forgiveness for yourself and others. You will have fellowship with God as you walk with Him and you will have peace in your soul no matter what. It’s what we were made for. Nothing else can satisfy your soul. Those who seek will find. And it’s REAL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
commonsense says
I’m not optimistic about the prospects for a non-Islamic Iran. Let’s not forget that the Shah secularized and westernized the country but needed the Savak to keep Islam from becoming resurgent. It seems that the majority of Iranians ultimately rejected Iran’s secularization and clamored for Khomeini and his Mullahs to take over the government, which our clueless president Carter helped make a reality, with, of course, disastrous results not only for us but also for the enlightened Iranians who watched helplessly as their country became a theocratic dystopia. It seems that no matter what, Islam, even after decades of suppression and desuetude, always manages to return, and, in Iran’s case, with an especial vengeance.
Infidel says
Yeah, there was that, and there was that period in history during the Mongol Ilkhanate, when the Mongol rulers of Iran, based in Tabriz, were Buddhist, and allowed everyone – Muslims, Christians, Jews full religious freedom. The Iranian Muslims didn’t take that opportunity to either revert to Zoroastrianism or switch to something else. And once the Ilkhanate itself Islamized, that opportunity was gone, and persecution of non-Muslims resumed.
One thing, though – if there is a successful secession of Arab Khuzestan from Iran – and that is a shi’a but Arab region of the country, that might convince the Farsis that even Arab shi’a have no gratitude for all the support that they got from Teheran over the decades, and therefore, they don’t want any part of even shi’a islam. But I don’t quite see even that happening
SamB says
The remark “… the Ayotollah Khomeini is the greatest missionary…” contextualizes the ordeals the Iranians are facing. Coupled with the stressors of being pariahs in a world that is moving closer, Iranians are feeling the distance. The Iranian experience is not an isolated or individual experience, the whole Arab discontent and their journeys to Europe and elsewhere is the same process. Islam is repressive and the freedom the West extends is linked to their present disenfranchisement . It is a pity though that the USA is extending a hand of friendship to their leaders, viz. a police chief swearing allegiance to the Qur’an instead of to the American constitution and other inane Muslim farcical beliefs
Mark Mulakush says
Jesus hu Akbar (Jesus is Supreme Lord)!
No Muzzies Here says
I can understand why people reject Islam en masse – it is unnatural and abnormal to espouse a violent ideology that forces people to act contrary to human nature.
The reason why they are still officially Muslim, is that Muslims are allowed to kill anyone who leaves the religion.
Infidel says
If they know their numbers and apostatize en masse, the real Muslims – be it the Basij, IRGC, Quds Force, Kataeb Hizbullah or whoever – will be powerless to kill them, as they will be lashing out.
And given how recently, the shi’a Arabs of Iraq and Lebanon have started opposing Teheran, the Iranians should be more furious even w/ shi’a islam: after all, they prioritized the interests of shi’a Arabs in those 2 countries as well as Syria and Yemen, making their own people suffer, and this is the thanks they get? But maybe they should expect it, as gratitude is an alien concept in islam
jca reid says
The sooner this perverted Nazi Bandit ideology is wiped out the better it would be for ALL the World! Not just the 6 point odd billion “non-members”, but the 1,7, or so, BILLION “members”
Demsci says
Great development, if true. I was thinking; in Iraq and Lebanon even the Shiites there now en masse protest against Iranian influence.
Until recently it was conventional wisdom that the Shiite majority in Iraq and it’s militia’s and of course Shiite Hezbollah and Amal in Lebanon and the Syrian Alawites (sbsect of Shiism) were loyal to their co-religionists from Iran. Precisely because of common religion.
But now it seems many Iranians, apart from the ruling elite, are no longer their co-religionists! How will that work out?!
Infidel says
W/ Muslims, once all religious attributes are equal, it’s not like they sit down together and sing kumbaya: other non-religious attributes kick in, which still invoke their deadly islamic instincts. Like if Iraqi or Lebanese shi’a share the same sect w/ the Iranians, then the fact that they are Arabs while the Iranians ain’t becomes a factor in their rivalry. Similarly, in Syria, the Alawites are a completely different sect from the Twelver, and according to some theologians, not even shia, since they have their own priesthood, use wine in their rituals, celebrate Christian and Alawite holidays, don’t worship in mosques, and believe in transmigration of the soul, to progress through successive lives to become a star in the heavens. Whatever that might be, it’s not Islam, Sunni or Shi’a. And in Yemen, there’s the Zaidi, who too are different from the Twelver.
But even assuming that all shi’a bled green, there are other intra-islamic differences in both sunni and shi’a countries. Like in Afghanistan, the Pashtun, Tajiks and Uzbeks are all sunni, but they’re all locked in a power struggle. Same story in Pakistan, where Pashtun, Panjabis and Sindis are all sunnis, but all vying for power. Then there’s the Kurds vs both the Arabs as well as Turks in Iraq and Syria, and Arabs vs Berbers in North Africa.
The Iranians are already sick of all their money going to foreigners, even if they’re fellow shi’a, while they suffer under crippling sanctions and are now gripped by the coronavirus. Maybe the regime can fall if all the major members of it get infected by the virus, like their vice president, deputy health minister and one member of parliament did.
Infidel says
Now, thanks to the coronavirus, Iran is doing what Saudi Arabia is doing, and stopping all pilgrimages within the country. Hopefully, that will loosen the practice of islam even more within Iran
eduardo odraude says
I’ve been hearing for a few years that the Iranians are abandoning Islam, and I hope they are steadily doing so. Sometimes, however, I hear news reports that make Islam seem still the majority faith there, while Christians and Zoroastrians remain small minorities.
May Iran and all Iranians be liberated from Islam’s physical and psychological claws soon.