After saying goodbye to his daughters, Morteza (the family’s names have been changed at their request) jumps on his red scooter and motors through Tehran’s nightmarish traffic to his generator-repair shop. Business is good: two years ago he saved enough money to take his entire family on a pilgrimage to Mashad, Iran’s holiest city, where the revered Shiite saint Imam Reza is buried. His fondest memories are of the early days of the Islamic Revolution in 1979. “The clerics came into power wearing the Prophet Muhammad’s robes and claiming they were going to give us a pious government,” he says. “It was like a dream come true.”
Morteza, a gentle 45-year-old who sports a well-trimmed salt-and-pepper mustache, sounds like a loyal soldier in Iran’s army of faithful, right? Wrong. Lately his religious fervor has dimmed. He used to march in the Islamic festival of Ashura and Tasua (commemorating the death of the Prophet Muhammad’s grandchildren Hassan and Hussein) and beat himself with a chain as a symbol of self-sacrifice. Now, he no longer takes part in official religious ceremonies, and prefers to worship at home. “Things have changed. Religion is getting exploited for political purposes these days,” he says. “Going to Friday prayers has become a political, rather than a religious, act.”
Plenty of others feel the same way. After the fall of the Taliban in Afghanistan, Iran is now the world’s only theocracy. And experts say citizens are feeling increasingly oppressed by an Islam imposed from above. In many quarters, worship is no longer considered an appropriate arena for politics. “There is a backlash against state-driven religion,” says Hamid Reza Jalaipour, 45, a professor of sociology at Tehran University. “Many Iranians are still religious. But clerics who don’t mix their sermons with political overtones draw a bigger crowd to their mosques than those who do.” For the hard-liners who draw their governing legitimacy from religion, not elections, the trend is ominous.
Nearly 90 percent of Iranians are Shiite. Sunni Muslims make up 10 percent, and the rest of the population is broken down into tiny minorities of Jews, Christians and Zoroastrians. Islamic messages and symbolism are woven into the fabric of everyday life. The public-school system mandates Arabic classes and study of the Qur’an. More than half of all TV programs, ranging from talk shows to soap operas, have an Islamic theme. Even bits of Western culture are given a religious twist. At Super Star, a fast-food restaurant in Tehran, Qur’anic Scripture is posted on the wall. A sign reminds women to observe hijab, and checkout lines are divided for men and women.
But in many ways this is what religion has become in Iran: something that is accepted, not rallied round. Most Iranians visit mosques. Imamzadeh Saleh, one of the busiest mosques in the capital, attracts a diverse and sometimes casual crowd. Young men with gelled hair and sunglasses stroll in next to religious students with brown robes and turbans. There are no frenzied mobs chanting “Death to America,” and no political sermons. Inside, Islamic and social codes are maintained, but without fuss: men and women, divided by a partition, press their lips to the rectangular shrine of Saleh, Imam Reza’s brother. Visitors push crumpled rial notes into cracks to express their devotion.
Decked out in a white, fur-lined jacket, Neda Jahanshah, 20, hardly seems like a mosque regular. But she and her friend Zohreh Halajeh, 21, who wears heavy eyeliner and glossy brown lipstick, have been attending for several weeks to fulfill a nazr, or religious pledge. They usually come on Wednesdays, renting chadors before going inside the mirrored central hall to say their prayers. “I wouldn’t say I’m especially religious, but I do pray regularly,” says Jahanshah, a student at Tehran’s Azad University. “Coming here is a peaceful experience.” Her only complaint: “I don’t mind covering up to go inside the mosque. But hijab shouldn’t be mandatory, it should be a choice.”
The strict dress code and other social restrictions in Iran, such as the mingling of the sexes, are justified by reference to Islam and codified into law. Many Iranians resent this mix of religion and government, especially those from upper-income households, and they are growing more confident about interpreting the rules their own way.
Mitra (not her real name), 34, a freelance architect who lives with her parents in a spacious north Tehran home, is one such person. “I’ve lived almost my entire life in an environment of Islamic propaganda and restrictions,” she says. “It used to make me angry, but now I’ve adapted.” During her university days, Mitra, a petite brunette, was frequently chastised for improper dress and behavior. “Everybody, from the university doorman to the dean of my college, shouted, ‘Pull your scarf down!’ at least once,” she says with a giggle. Her architecture classes included hands-on workshops, but she was allowed to interact only with other women. On one occasion, a university guard called her in for talking to one of her male classmates. “He asked me, ‘Why were you talking to that boy alone?’ " she recalls. “I told him, ‘I’m talking to you alone right now. Why is that any different?’ He sputtered for a while, but that shut him up.”
Since her graduation eight years ago, Mitra hasn’t missed her university days, especially the Islamic minders. Because her parents are not particularly religious, she’s been able to live an independent, and largely secular, life. She drives her red Honda, classical Iranian music blaring on the stereo, to an office she shares with two male colleagues. If there aren’t any customers around, she usually takes her scarf off at work.
In the past couple of years, Mitra has been working as a consultant for a software company, a job that frequently requires travel to Kuwait and Dubai. (For most Iranians, regional travel is still rare.) She likes to socialize there and at home. “Up until the age of 30, I was in bed by midnight,” she says, while knocking ash off her Kent Light cigarette. “Then I decided to hell with it–you have to experience everything. I started going to parties and drinking. It’s a good way to let off steam.” At a recent wedding, Mitra shed her overcoat to reveal a form-fitting black miniskirt and black suede boots with soaring heels. A DJ mixed Iranian and European pop songs that sent Mitra, and a handful of her friends, straight to the dance floor. Though she enjoys an active social life, Mitra hasn’t completely abandoned spirituality. “I have my own set of beliefs,” she says. “I meditate. I do yoga. To me, religion is a very personal and private choice.”
That certain segments of the population, particularly Iranian youth, are turned off by the government’s official religious line is no secret. Girls try to test the dress code by wearing pants that are cut too high or jackets that are too tight. Both sexes flout restrictions on mingling and drinking by getting together for parties, even raves, in private. “We’re experiencing a social transformation,” says Amir Mohebian, columnist for the conservative daily Resalat. “Many of the youth don’t want the government to meddle in their personal affairs. They feel the conservative political platform has become outdated. We need to modernize our pitch to keep young people interested.”
What’s worrying for the clergy is that, after a baby boom in the 1980s, 65 percent of Iran’s population is now under the age of 30. This generation, the clerical regime’s future constituency, is drifting toward secular distractions like the Internet, computer games and satellite TV. Some clerics are looking across the border to Turkey, and wondering whether pushing religion so forcefully isn’t counterproductive. “Many more people are gravitating toward Islam in Turkey than they are here,” says Ayatollah Seyed Hossein Mousavi-Tabrizi, 56, a prominent reformist cleric in Qom. “Secularism doesn’t necessarily mean being against religion.”
Sociologist Jalaipour agrees. “What’s happening in Turkey is an important point for our government to recognize,” he says. “The Army and secular powers in Turkey have tried to push religion into the private sphere–clerics can’t wear their clothes outside the mosque and women aren’t allowed to wear hijab. But it’s had the opposite effect. People are flocking to the mosques. Even in Istanbul, which is a Europeanized city, people are going to the mosques.”
The clerics are doing their best to compete with Western culture. Many of the theological schools in Qom, Iran’s center of religious teaching, have Web pages with links to reference texts from the Qur’an and tracts that explain the benefits of remaining a dedicated Muslim.
Those young Iranians who remain fierce about their religion often harbor a deep animosity toward those who don’t share their zeal. Ibrahim Zargar, 20, is a member of the Basij, a conservative religious militia linked to hard-liners in the Iranian government. Zargar, a civil-engineering student at Tehran University, belongs to the student branch of the group. Other branches, some of them armed, are tasked with gathering intelligence. All Basijis, regardless of their particular assignment, believe it’s their moral duty to enforce religious social restrictions laid down by the government. “If I see a prostitute on the street, I would be very offended,” says Zargar, stroking his trim beard. “The idea disgusts me. I would tell her to get off the street, and if she didn’t listen I would beat her up.”
In recent weeks, the Basijis have been grabbing headlines because of their violent confrontations with students who’ve been calling for a secular government. Zargar, who comes from a devout family, joined the organization one year ago because he believed he shared the same religious and political views as members at the university. He maintains that many of the student protesters are friends, and he says they often engage in heated debates about the role of religion in Iranian society. “We can’t answer words or ideas we don’t like with a fist,” he says.
Though he spent part of his childhood in England while his father was pursuing graduate studies in architecture, Zargar insists that many Western cultural influences have a negative impact on his peers. “I think there’s too much freedom in Iran right now. You see boys and girls driving in cars with their heads resting on each other’s shoulders. This is unacceptable.” He was appalled recently by the sight of scantily clad women and blood in videogames.
Although his is increasingly a minority view, that doesn’t mean Iranian society is heading toward secularism. Rather, many are struggling to balance faith with a modernity that is accepted, with moderation. Soraya and Morteza, for their part, have tried to raise their children with a broader world view, while still expecting them to be devout. The girls can listen to their CDs (Venga Boys and Enrique Iglesias) after school–knowing that their father will wake them up early the next morning to pray. And they’ll all be on their knees in their living room, rather than at the mosque next door.
