Religion and Politics in Iran

Religion and politics in Iran

INTRODUCTION

Iran is an overall, religious country and it is influenced by religion widely. Iran’s politics are directly influenced by religion because of the fact that the people and the state as a whole are influenced by religion. Majority of the population living in Iran follow same religion which gives this religion a very intense power to rule over the country and all of its areas and aspects like politics and government. This also shows that the greater power is the power of religion and that is why Iran is said to be run by God as most of its decisions are taken up by the religion and its laws. The religion gave powers to the religious leaders and hence, the political leaders felt the shift of power to the religious leaders in the politics of the state more than the political leaders. The result suggests that the power shift towards the religious side made Iran theocratic and this made religion the most powerful entity of Iran. Iran has been described as a theocratic republic by the CIA world fact book which means that the state is seen as a theocratic state from the point of view of the whole world. Francis Fukuyama describes the constitution of Iran as a hybrid state where politics is a mixture of democratic and theocratic elements. Democratic elements include the political parties and the system of government that governs the democracy of Iran while the theocratic features include the religious laws and institutions that influence all other institutions that are present in Iran. Iran voted by the national referendum to become an Islamic state or an Islamic republic on April 1, 1979, this made the state theocratic-republican and Khomeini became the leader of the state in December 1979. This was defined as the most surprising and unusual revolution in history. After this declaration, the state now maintains religious laws, religious courts, and all other aspects or the rules of religion that are required by any religious or Islamic state. Hence, religion and politics became the two main aspects that control the country now and it is seen as the most major highlight of Iranian state from the eye of the whole world.

BACKGROUND

The politics and religion dramatically transformed the landscapes of Iran under Khomeini making Shia Islam an inseparable element of the political structure of the country. The two major domains of Islam are Shia Islam and Sunni Islam. In Iran, Shia Islam is the dominant type of Islam and most of the population follows that domain of Islam. Shia Islam is the most followed Islam and its fundamentals are incorporated into the politics of Iran as well. Some conflicts of Shias and Sunnis were also seen in the past where the Shia-muslims that follow Shi’ism and the Sunni Muslims that follow Sunni’sm fought over the argument that the religion they follow is better than the other.

Khomeini changed and revolutionized the constitution of the state and changed the basis of the government to the three specific basis or pillars of power which are the legislative, executive, and judicial basis of power and on top of that the Khomeini has all the powers as he is sitting at top of the state as a leader. The foreign policy and rules also changed and the relationships of Iran with the foreign countries were also influenced by these changes (Soltani &Amiri, 2010). Shi’ism is the implemented religion of Iran now and on many occasions, it has aided governing institutions as it has a hold over the state because the majority of the population follows this domain of religion and has a very strong influence on the state and its citizen.

The importance and influence of the religion were supposed to decrease with time as stated that “Every major religion on every continent seemed to be rapidly losing its influence on politics, economics, and culture” but Khomeini and the followers of Islam wanted to separate religion and state so that the whole state will become a theocratic state (Toft, Philpott, Timothy, Shah, 2011). This was suggested because the major percentage of the population was following the same religion and by the ideology of Khomeini, religion had more power than politics of Iran. This attempt of Khomeini was not successful to an extent and the technological advances were also invading or dominating the society and its people. Democracy was also there to make the people aware of their rights and it was giving people space to think and express their views in the way they want it them express and hence, it gave every citizen of the country, the freedom to speech irrespective of the religious point of view. This made the state hybrid as discussed before that the state is now running on the combination of democracy and religion and the power is distributed over the whole area while religion stays the most important tool in paving the decisions of Iran.

RELEGION IN IRAN

Iran is playing a major role in embracing Islam, and they are trying to carry the reflection of the early Islamic period. The Arabs were cruel and uncultured people before the advent of Islam and prophet and that is Quran and Islam were projected on them so that they can be aware of their purpose of living here on earth. The Quran made it very clear that the purpose of life is to be civilized and to follow religion. The Arabs would also not accept Islam even after the struggles of the prophet and the Iranian legacy goes back to the time of imam Jaffar al-Sadeq who made the Iranians accept and embrace Islam. Iranians owning their sophisticated mentality and culture saw the superiority of Islam and then embraced it rather than the Arabs that could not see the potential and took a long time to accept it. The present day Iranian case of theocracy defines two purposes of the state. One of which is to dominate Shi’ism over the Sunni Arabs while the other is to serve the state’s ideological agenda which differentiates the state from the west and its ideologies. According to these purposes of the state of Iran, the state is strongly suffused with religious content and it is trying to stay strong against the agenda of the west and against the radical jihadi- Sunni organizations which can be a part of terror attacks and spread across the region (Litvak, 2020). The Shia Sunni conflict is thus seen in the country and the political biases is also not allowing the country to solve these conflicts because the country is based on the theocratic ideology.

POLITICS IN IRAN

Iran is officially an Islamic republic of Iran which means that the politics in Iran are also influenced by religion on a wide scale. There are certain different political parties in present Iran like national front, freedom movement, the council of nationalist-religious activists, pan-Iranist party, and nation party. The Islamic Republic of Iran is being controlled by the supreme leader, president, parliament, and judicial system in which all of these institutions have powers which they are collectively using in order to rule the country according to the constitution. All of the ranks stated here are the people who are counted as higher authorities and they have powers to make decisions of the country. The president of Iran is Ebrahim Raisi who has been the president since 3 august 2021. The style of this government is the one where most of the powers are in the hands of Mr. President and he is the head of the government and takes all the basic decisions of the state. He is also a member of the cabinet expediency discernment supreme council of the Cultural Revolution which shows the strong connection of the government with the rich culture and religion of Iran (Bashiriyeh, 2011). Overall, the government of Iran is operated by the unitary system where the president or parliament has all the powers and controls but looking at the structure deeply, the structure of power is very complex and it is incorporating religion into the politics of Iran. The complex and unusual system of politics and government in Iran clearly shows us the theocratic nature of the political system where the modern Islamic theocracy combines with democracy in order to rule the state. This network is controlled by the supreme leader who functions alongside a president and the parliament elected by the citizen of the state as well as the unelected institutions of the state. All of these institutions and leaders work in harmony to control the decisions of the state. The assembly of experts and the council of guardians serve the purpose of selecting the right people who can be the potential supreme leaders and conduct the election in order to gain the validation of the public so that the public can play its part in selecting the people they want to be on the superior lists of leaders (Boroumand, 2009). Judiciary is also playing a very important role in the complex structure of the government of Iran. The judicial system is trying to combine both judiciary and Islamic constitutions in order to be successful in taking the decisions of law in Iran. Religion is intervening on this part of the government more than any other. The Iranian law does not allow the judicial system to take decisions solely on the basis of the judicial knowledge rather they are supposed to include all the rules and regulations of the religion that is followed there and the members of the judiciary are supposed to be very vigilant in order to make decisions related to the justice system or else it can create a situation of conflict between the state and the judicial system of the state which can lead to the imbalance of the overall system of the state. The politics and religion have been discussed in detail above and it shows that the politics and the religion of Iran are too much connected to each other and they are the necessary part of each other as well. The details stated above shows that the theocratic state of Iran has a very complex structure where the religion is intervening in the major areas of the state as well as the minor areas. The state is actually majorly controlled by religion rather than the political government or any other competent institution. All the governmental and non-governmental institutions are led by religion and religious rights and wrongs and everyone is supposed to follow the rules and regulations of the religion followed there. As discussed above the dominant object between politics and religion is the religion of Iran which is incorporated into the roots of Iran and people follow their religion very seriously. Hence, any decisions that can be taken on behalf of any other knowledge or rules other than the rules or knowledge of the religion can be the source of conflict in Iran. Hence, it is said that the topic of religion is very sensitive in the states like Iran where religion is very sacred for its followers and the majority follows it. The judiciary, the parliament, and the political parties all are supposed to follow the rules and regulations of religion which clearly shows the importance and dominancy of religion in Iran. This intervening of religion and politics can be seen in a lot of other theocratic states like Iran. One of the conflicts in the theocratic states is that the minorities are ignored and their religions are also ignored under the umbrella of the dominant religion and that can be source of conflict but the minorities don’t have any powers over the majorities in such cases. Before the revolution that dominated religion, religion was getting weak and the power was distributed among other different institutions which had no link with religion. The woman began to work and had the right to divorce and the country was secular. With the advent of Islam and the Islamic revolution, the system changed totally and made it possible for the country and its citizens to make it an Islamic regime. After this development, religion came back into power and took the control of the country in the most powerful way ever (Rizvi, 2010). So even after the attempts to weaken the religion and dominate the overall political system in Iran, there was no lag in the strength of the implemented religion because of a lot of reasons including the fact that Shi’ism is followed by more than 90 percent of the citizens of Iran and hence, religion is the most powerful entity in Iran which is intervening with all other entities especially the politics and the political system.

CONCLUSION

In conclusion, the Iranian culture, rules, laws, politics, and citizens are majorly influenced by the religion that is followed there by the majority of the people. All the states which are theocratic in nature are the states which do not separate their churches or religion from the rest of their entities like Iran where religion plays a very important role in the decisions of the state. The as discussed in the paper, the revolution that took over Iran made it clear that religion is the highest entity of the country and that all governmental and non-governmental organizations are supposed to follow the laws and rules of religion in order to make decisions that they are supposed to take. The structure of power in Iran is also combining the forces of religion with the practical implications of the decisions taken by the government and the politics of the region are highly influenced by religion and its rules. This makes the structure of Iran very complex as everything is happening by the combination of all of these forces and the powers are distributed all over the country as religion is owned by the sophisticated Iranians equally and widely (Gleave, 2012). This makes it possible for the citizens of Iran to have control over the political happenings as if anything that goes out of the track of religion gives them the right to have an open conflict with the higher authorities who took that decision. Iran has nationalized Islam and the complementary elements that favor each other come from the nationalized Islam and Islamized nationalism and their elements complement each other in a way that is making Iran the natural and destined leadership of the Islamic world.

References:

Boroumand, L. (2009). Iran in Ferment: Civil Society's Choice. Journal of Democracy, 20(4), 16-20. Bashiriyeh, H. (2011). The state and revolution in Iran (Vol. 27). Routledge. Gleave, R. (2012). How to train a mulla: Seminaries in Shi’ite Islam. British Academy Review, 19, 5-7. Philpott, D., Shah, T. S., & Toft, M. (2011). From faith to freedom: The role of religious actors in global democratic progress. Available at SSRN 1909465.
Rizvi, S. (2010). Political mobilization and the Shi'i religious establishment (marja'iyya). International Affairs, 86(6), 1299-1313. Soltani, F., & Amiri, R. E. (2010). Foreign policy of Iran after Islamic revolution. J. Pol. & L., 3, 199. Litvak, M. (2020). “God’s Favored Nation”: The New Religious Nationalism in Iran. Religions, 11(10), 541.