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Islam in Iran
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Islam in Iran |
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Islam is the religion of 98% of Iranians of which approximately 89 % are Shi'a and 9% are Sunni, mostly Turkomen, a minority of Arabs, Pashtuns, Baluchs, and Kurds living in the southwest, southeast, northeast and northwest.[1] Almost all of Iranian Shi'as are Twelvers.
Islam has been the official religion of Iran since the Islamic conquest of Iran except short duration after Mongol raid and establishment of Ilkhanate. Iran became an Islamic republic in 1979 after Islamic Republic of Iran on the basis of its constitution.
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The Islamic conquest of Persia (637-651) led to the end of the Sassanid Empire and the eventual decline of the Zoroastrian religion in Persia. However, the achievements of the previous Persian civilizations were not lost, but were to a great extent absorbed by the new Islamic polity.
Before the conquest, the Persians had been mainly Zoroastrian, however, there were also large and thriving Christian and Jewish communities. However, there was a slow but steady movement of the population toward Islam. The nobility and city-dwellers were the first to convert, most likely to preserve the economic and social status and advantages; Islam spread more slowly among the peasantry and the dihqans, or landed gentry. By the late 10th century, the majority of Persians had become Muslim, at least nominally. Most Persian Muslims were Sunni Muslims. Though Iran is known today as a stronghold of the Shi'a Muslim faith, it did not become so until much later around the 15th century. The Iranian Muslims projected many of their own Persian moral and ethical values that predates Islam into the religion, while recognizing Islam as their religion and the prophet's son in law, Ali as an enduring symbol of justice.
According to Bernard Lewis:
"Iran was indeed Islamized, but it was not Arabized. Persians remained Persians. And after an interval of silence, Iran reemerged as a separate, different and distinctive element within Islam, eventually adding a new element even to Islam itself. Culturally, politically, and most remarkable of all even religiously, the Iranian contribution to this new Islamic civilization is of immense importance. The work of Iranians can be seen in every field of cultural endeavor, including Arabic poetry, to which poets of Iranian origin composing their poems in Arabic made a very significant contribution. In a sense, Iranian Islam is a second advent of Islam itself, a new Islam sometimes referred to as Islam-i Ajam. It was this Persian Islam, rather than the original Arab Islam, that was brought to new areas and new peoples: to the Turks, first in Central Asia and then in the Middle East in the country which came to be called Turkey, and of course to India. The Ottoman Turks brought a form of Iranian civilization to the walls of Vienna...[2]"
Although Shi'as have lived in Iran since the earliest days of Islam, and there was one Shi'a dynasty in part of Iran during the tenth and eleventh centuries, it is believed that most Iranians were Sunnis until the seventeenth century. The Safavid dynasty made Shi'a Islam the official state religion in the sixteenth century and aggressively proselytized on its behalf. It is also believed that by the mid-seventeenth century most people in Iran had become Shi'as, an affiliation that has continued.
Sunni Muslims constitute approximately 8% of the Iranian population. A majority of Kurds, virtually all Baluchis and Turkomans, and a minority of Arabs are Sunnis, as are small communities of Persians in southern Iran and Khorasan. Shi'a clergy tend to view missionary work among Sunnis to convert them to Shia Islam as a worthwhile religious endeavor. Since the Sunnis generally live in the border regions of the country, there has been no occasion for Shia-Sunni conflict in most of Iran. In those towns with mixed populations in West Azarbaijan, the Persian Gulf region, and Sistan and Baluchistan, tensions between Shi'as and Sunnis existed both before and after the Revolution. Religious tensions have been highest during major Shi'a observances, especially Moharram.[2]
See: Iranian Revolution
- Islam by country
- History of Iran
- Islamicization in post-conquest Iran
- History of fundamentalist Islam in Iran
- Religious minorities in Iran
- Christians in Iran
- Judaism in Iran
- Status of religious freedom in Iran
- A Country Study: Iran:This article contains material from the Library of Congress Country Studies, which are United States government publications in the public domain.
- Petrushevsky, I. P.,(1985) Islam in Iran , State University of New York Press , ISBN-13: 978-0887060700
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1 Has some territory in Europe.