Introduction and Relevant Background

Much has been written concerning the disheartening rise of “authoritarianism” in the modern world, given impetus by the growing prevalence of authoritarian (iqtidār-girā)Footnote ¹ regimes around the globe. Some of that attention has been on Muslim nations that have adopted versions of Islam to promote and maintain their governments.Footnote ² “With the help of the religious bureaucracy, state-sponsored Islam produces an orthodox, conformist version of Islam [‘state Islam’ or ‘official Islam’] that endeavors to legitimize the prevailing regime and support its strategic choices policies” (Reference HmimnatHmimnat 2021: 1).Footnote ³ Much of that literature, however, has been based on analyses that are historical in nature or that adopt a perspective derived mainly from political science (e.g., Reference KarawanKarawan 1992; Reference HakimHakim 1998; Reference OmelichevaOmelicheva 2016; Reference Sheikh and AhmedSheikh and Ahmed 2020). This Element focuses attention on theoretical traditions from the sociology of religion and the sociology of law to address developments in the realm of the phenomenon of religion and spirituality in one such country, Iran. Undoubtedly, such regimes must often grapple with competition from newer religious and spiritual ideas and movements. Of course, not all Muslim governments are authoritarian and restrict religious freedom. Reference PhilpottPhilpott (2019) divides the Muslim world’s states into three categories: religiously free states (e.g., Senegal and Sierra Leone), secular repressive states (e.g., Uzbekistan and Egypt), and religiously repressive states (e.g., Iran and Saudi Arabia). Reference SarkissianSarkissian (2015) also specifically identifies three classifications of regimes practicing religious repression: states that repress all religious groups, countries that repress all religious groups but one, and nations that selectively repress some religious groups.

Iran is a theocratic polity characterized by Shiʿite clerical governance with the assumed superiority and hegemony of ShariʿaFootnote ⁴ and state enforcement of an Iranian version of Islam.Footnote ⁵ It furnishes an instructive example of how such authoritarian governments manage religion, including traditional minority faiths as well as new religious movements (NRMs) and spiritual currents.Footnote ⁶ Indeed, present-day Iran is a prototypical case of an authoritarian regime based on a specific interpretation of Islam that seems designed mainly to guarantee the continuation of the government that evolved out of the 1979 Iranian Revolution. This mirrors the “political activism” approach within Shiʿa Islam, developed in the latter half of the twentieth century by the Najaf-trained faqīhs Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr and Ruhollah Khomeini: it is for the juristic class to seize the reins of power directly and enact positive state law themselves on the basis of the rules derived by the faqīhs over the centuries.Footnote ⁷ Such a legal system might not be ideal in the absence of the infallible Imam, given the very real possibility of juristic errors and omissions in interpretation. However, it is argued that this should not deter trying to establish a legal system based on ideal Islamic law during Imam Mahdi’s occultation.Footnote ⁸

This Element describes and analyzes the years-long government-based religious discrimination (GRD) and efforts to regulate religion in Iran. Fox defines GRD as “restrictions placed by governments or their agents on the religious practices or institutions of religious minorities that are not placed on the majority religion” (Reference Fox2020: 10). Referring to the actions of the state that deny religious freedoms or inhibit their full realization and flourishing, Grim and Finke define governmental regulation of religion as “any laws, policies, or administrative actions that impinge on the practice, profession, or selection of religion” (Reference Grim and Finke2006: 13). These regulatory efforts have particularly affected the growing interest in newer religious and spiritual movements of various kinds that have developed in Iran. It is argued that seemingly benign and legal forms of regulations, requirements, and restrictions on religion are important tools by which nondemocratic leaders repress independent civic activity and thus hold on to their power. Human rights violations, specifically in regard to religious freedom, are disputed and politicized (see Reference AfshariAfshari 2011: 147–50), resulting in the Iranian rule sometimes being portrayed as “Islamofascist” (Reference AmirpurAmirpur 2012).Footnote ⁹ This is why the United Nations (UN) Special Rapporteur referred to the investigation of human rights in Iran as “particularly complex and complicated,” which is “one of the most controversial of all the mandates on which international monitoring has focused in particular countries” (UN Doc. 1991a: 90). Nonetheless, this controversy has gone on in “prejudiced and speculative terms, which have been accompanied by reactions of hypersensitivity” (91), ergo, it needs to be explored, taking a scientific approach. We hope to contribute to such an effort.

Section 1 of this Element explores key provisions within the Iranian Constitution that are germane to the treatment of minority faiths and other religious and spiritual movements within Iran, hence demonstrating the internally contradictory nature of the Constitution and also the clear primacy of Islam in the document. Section 2 describes how non-Muslim religious groups have been defined and treated within the Islamic government of Iran. Section 3 is devoted to the discussion of major cultural shifts that have occurred (and are continuing) in Iran among the general public in how they approach religious and spiritual issues. The influence of Western ideas about newer religious and spiritual phenomena is analyzed, as is the rise of unapproved derivatives of Islam that have grown in popularity. These developments have led to considerable disquiet among Iranian clerics and political authorities. In Section 4, we present in considerable detail efforts over the years to generate new legislation for the government to exercise social control over NRMs in Iran. This controversial attempt finally came to fruition in 2021 with the adoption of a major change in the Iranian criminal statute – the additional Article 500 bis – that can facilitate social control of minority faiths and NRMs of all types. In Section 5, we close our Element with a discussion of specific applications of sociologically oriented theoretical perspectives to what has happened in Iran and, by implication, what may be occurring in other authoritarian Islamic regimes. Before presenting details of the situation in Iran, we offer some useful background information that includes a brief commentary on the right to freedom of religion or belief (FoRB).

1 Religion and Religious Freedom in Iran’s Post-Revolutionary Constitution

Francis Fukuyama asserts that the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran, adopted after the 1979 Revolution (and last amended in 1989), is “a curious hybrid of authoritarian, theocratic and democratic elements” (quoted in Reference JahanbeglooJahanbegloo 2011: 129). The Iranian Constitution exhibits “Pro-Center Dogmatic Authoritarianism and Pro-Persian Cosmopolitanism” as the two foundations of Iran’s political system (Reference Asim and HosseiniAsim 2023). It contains provisions that call for religious freedom, such as this statement in Article 23: “The investigation of the beliefs of a person is forbidden, and no one may be molested or prosecuted for holding a belief.” There are also two more provisions stating that the Constitution recognizes some religions other than Islam and the Iranian state is obliged to deal with non-Muslims fairly:

The term “Islamic justice and equity” in Article 14 means that Islamic law shapes the rights of non-Muslims. Far from granting non-Muslims protections for the rights to which they are entitled under international law, the Constitution reinforces the principle that their human rights are subject to Iran’s version of Islamic criteria. Other lines in Article 14 reveal that the drafters presumed that non-Muslims are inclined to act against Islam and are disposed to be disloyal to Iran’s Islamic Republic. Given the bias in the Iranian constitutional system, such things would seem only natural. Having promised Islamic justice to non-Muslims, the limited human rights that non-Muslims supposedly enjoy are to be forfeited when conspiracies against the state are assumed – a vague standard affording a broad range of justifications for curbing their rights. Mayer writes in the analysis of Article 14:

Moreover, Articles 13, 14, and 23 are preempted or contradicted by the substantial Preamble to the Constitution (see Reference RamazaniRamazani 1980: 184–7) and other provisions (e.g., Article 1) that make it plain that Iran is an Islamic country with quite limited religious freedom for minority religious communities. The existence of such contradictions and the foundational tensions they reflect call for an urgent and candid discussion of the problem. The Iranian principle and practice of a democratic republic is secondary and subordinate to Islamic criteria. Notwithstanding the Constitution’s ostensible recognition of universal human rights, the overarching and ultimate hallmark and benchmark of rights under the Constitution is captured and constrained by the phrase “Islamic criteria” and is subject to clerical interpretation. Article 4 of the Constitution prescribes:

Indeed, by positioning this article prior to other articles, the framers of the Constitution symbolically emphasized that a specific religion forms the basis for government action in Iran. In this regard, Reference Gouda and GutmannGouda and Gutmann (2021) examine the effects of constitutions prescribing Shariʿa as a source of legislation on discrimination against religious minorities. Their empirical analysis shows that religious minorities in countries where the status and supremacy of Shariʿa is entrenched constitutionally are likely to face more discrimination than they do elsewhere:Footnote ¹¹

The study by Gouda and Gutmann has demonstrated once more the grave menace of institutionalizing supreme values, be they communist or Islamic. Constitutions that propagate absolute truths and expect all members of society to adhere to those principles are inherently incompatible with the protection of minority rights. However, declaring that the state has an official religion can mean many things, ranging from a symbolic connection with no practical implications to a state governed by a specific religious law. While the official religion clauses and practical commitment are correlated, it is only actual levels of state support for religion consistently, significantly, and strongly that predict GRD (Reference FoxFox 2023). Thus, government backing of religion, as reflected in laws, governmental practices, and court rulings, is the key measure of a state’s relationship with religion that influences GRD.

Islamic constitutions can be quite problematic for minority religious groups when they are interpreted directly by courts as criminalizing certain actions by such groups, but also when they furnish the legal foundation for legislation curtailing the rights and freedoms of minorities. Sharply contrasted with high degrees of autonomy are situations where the courts serve only at the pleasure of rulers, with their functionaries appointed by such entities. One only needs to contemplate a country such as Iran to grasp this point. Judges in Iran understand that they have little autonomy and that if they choose to exercise independent judgment, their jobs may be jeopardized (UN Doc. 2022: 16). Judges under such a system realize that they are to assist in implementing the ideology and maintaining the omnipotence of the Establishment. “[O]nly a male candidate who has faith and is deemed just and in possession of ‘a practical commitment to Islamic principles and loyalty to the system of the Islamic Republic’ may be considered as a judge or a prosecutor” (Reference Banakar and ZiaeeBanakar and Ziaee 2018: 723). Along the same line, a major form of potential risk against religious freedom appears when Islamic constitutions empower the courts of law to find persons guilty solely on the basis of Islamic rules, whereas there is no legal basis for the criminality of the attributed accusation (lack of the élément légal). An example from the Iranian Constitution is:

Even though no explicit statutory provision criminalizes abandonment of Islam or conversion from it, converts regularly receive death penalty threats under the classical jurisprudential charge of “apostasy,” invoking Article 167 of the Constitution.Footnote ¹² For instance, branch 11 of the Appeal and Criminal Court of Gilan province, in decision No. 8909971314400980, dated 22 September 2010, found an Iranian citizen who converted to Christianity at the age of nineteen guilty as murtadd-i fiṭrī.Footnote ¹³ The court condemned him to execution, citing Article 167 and fatwas of several Shiʿa faqīhs, notably Ayatollah Khomeini and the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei. However, this judgment was subsequently overturned by decision No. 212, dated 12 June 2011, of branch 27 of the Supreme Court of Iran because it was determined that inquiries into his life and beliefs were defective:

Iranian legal scholars have frequently criticized the controversial and awkward Article 167 since it transgresses the consensual principle of “legality,” that is to say the legal maxim of nullum crimen, nulla poena sine lege.Footnote ¹⁴ Of greater concern is the association of apostasy with crimes against the state. Schirazi’s interpretation of the scope of apostasy laws in contemporary Iran is that “apostates … are threatened with the harshest of punishments, namely the death penalty, a threat which may be carried out suddenly at any moment that suits the interests of the hierocracy” (Reference Schirazi1997: 139). Herein the punishment can be seen not only as a criminal justice deterrent instrument but also as subject to being manipulated by the government in order to enforce conformity.

In Article 13, the key phrases are “within the limits of the law” and the limitation “in matters of personal law and religious education.” The Constitution and various laws make clear that nothing should impede the Islamic nature of the Islamic Republic of Iran, as defined by the clerics who oversee and control the government. Of course, even those two exceptions have been severely limited for the three approved faiths listed in Article 13. Other NRMs are more drastically controlled or even defined as illegal (e.g., Mysticism of the RingFootnote ¹⁵ and the Ahmad al-Hassan al-Yamānī movementFootnote ¹⁶). The limitations indicated mean that activities other than education and personal law are strictly verboten (e.g., proselytizing). For example, branch 101 of the Criminal Court of Golpayegan, in decision No. 9209973720700356, dated 13 May 2013, sentenced a Sufi citizen to seventy-four lashes, invoking Article 167 and the book Taḥrīr al-Wasīla. He was charged with “committing the ḥarām act by promoting the beliefs of the Gonabadi Sufi cult.” The defendant made reference to the constitutional protection of the right to freedom of expression in his defense before the court, but the judge dismissed it: “The scope of freedom is, not harming the rights of others and not infringing the Shariʿa principles and rules, and no one can, by having recourse to freedom, provide for the assault on individual rights and the Shariʿa sanctities.”

This analysis of the demanding features and interpretations of the Iranian Constitution notwithstanding, we will now offer an assessment of minority religions’ situation in Iran before discussing dramatic changes that have occurred (and are continuing) with the religious and spiritual life of Iranian citizens.

2 Religious Freedom Status of Minority Religious Groups in Iran: An Overview

Muslim popular prejudice and Islamic authority have always had difficulty accommodating new religions that arose after the dawn of Islam, especially those that emerged from within Muslim society and have developed separate traditions and communities of their own, often with a global expanse. For instance, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (1835–1908) and Mirza Husayn-ʿAli Nuri (known as Bahāʾu’llāh) (1817–1892), who perceived themselves to be messianic individuals on a divinely sanctioned mission to herald a new millennium, are of particular significance, for their teachings led to the emergence of two highly controversial movements in modern Islamic history – the Ahmadiyya Jamāʿat and the Bahaʾi Faith. The Ahmadiyya movement claims to be a branch and sect of Islam, but its members have been officially declared non-Muslim in Pakistan and orthodox Muslims see them as unorthodox or zindīq. This has led to the widespread religious persecution of Ahmadis (Uddin 2013). Also, the presence of the post-qurʾanic monotheistic faith of Bahaʾism, defining itself as an independent religion, poses an unprecedented problem for Shariʿa (Reference PinkPink 2003). From the ʿulamāʾ’s point of view, Bahaʾis are kafirs, apostates, heretics, najis, Islamophobic, and the enemy of Islam because they have violated the theological idea of “the finality of prophethood” (khātm-i Nubuwwat). Bernard Lewis asserts: “The followers of such religions cannot be dismissed either as benighted heathens, like the polytheists of Asia and the animists of Africa, nor as outdated precursors, like the Jews and Christians, and their very existence presents a challenge to the Islamic doctrine of the perfection and finality of Muhammad’s revelation” (2014: 20–1).

When contemporary Middle Eastern governments have pressed forward with Islamization campaigns, they have tended to impose a uniform standard of orthodoxy on their Muslim citizens and to reject the legitimacy of the positions of Muslim groups that do not accept what is being presented as the official norms of Islam. As the formal orthodoxy becomes identified with the regime’s own ideology and legitimacy, modern governments have shown themselves inclined to label Muslims who do not accept the official Islam as heretics and apostates. According to some scholars:

Reference ArztArzt (1995) contends that throughout Muslim history, and particularly in the contemporary era, much of the persecution of alleged apostates, heretics, and infidels has been politically motivated, designed to benefit controlling, orthodox groups who have resorted to religious justifications to legitimize their abusive power. In this regard, the notorious case of Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd (1943–2010), a Muslim intellectual and Cairo University professor, demonstrates that Egyptian courts were prepared to penalize progressive Islamic thought by classifying it as apostasy.Footnote ¹⁷ In fact, in many such contemporary cases, religious themes, doctrines, and rationales are intertwined with political slogans, motivations, and objectives. Often, a traditional religious veneer camouflages a politically motivated or radically violent core. Since Islam, especially as some clerics in Iran interpret it, makes no real distinction between state and religion, or between community politics and Shariʿa law, it may be impossible to separate out these influences.Footnote ¹⁸ The power of state-sanctioned legislation and judicial decision-making (or fatwa-issuing clergy) can be used to accomplish dual purposes: spiritual supremacy and physical domination over the society. Yet Muslim history also teaches that Islam is simultaneously capable of sectarian diversity and sectarian intolerance. While threats to public order and safety may, in appropriate cases, justify a limitation on the public expression of heretical religious views, “an Islamic regime or ‘network’ of any size or purpose that uses a religious rationale to silence its political enemies abuses both human rights and its Muslim cultural heritage” (Reference 59ArztArzt 2002: 44; see also Reference Künkler, Arjomand and BrownKünkler 2013).

The overall thrust of the Iranian Constitution and various laws is the primacy of measures that promote and protect the government, which is itself dominated by clerics of the Shiʿa Islamic tradition. This law-based effort to maintain control of all aspects of society has undercut the cause of religious freedom and means that even historical non-Shiʿi religious groups listed in Article 13 of the Constitution encounter many difficulties and considerable rancor as they practice their religion. Discrimination toward and maltreatment of members of historical religious minorities occurs in Iran, as is well documented by Reference Tamadonfar, Lewis, Djupe, Rozell and JelenTamadonfar and Lewis (2020), who discuss many problems experienced by the three approved minority religions listed in Article 13.

Contemporary Zoroastrians in Iran are a tiny population famous for keeping alive the ancient religion of Iranians’ ancestors despite centuries of marginalization, discrimination, and persecution after the Islamization of the region (Reference Stausberg, Longva and RoaldStausberg 2012). After the majority of Iran’s population converted to Islam as a consequence of the seventh-century Arab conquest of Persia, Zoroastrians grouped themselves in the Yazd and Kerman provinces, finding there “last bastions” to maintain their religion (Reference Niechciał and HosseiniNiechciał 2023). With minor exceptions, Zoroastrians, who had historically been relatively well treated in Iran, faced challenges under the Islamic Republic from the outset. During the Interim Government of Iran (4 February–6 November 1979), guerrillas walked into the main Tehran fire temple, removed the portrait of the Prophet Zoroaster, and replaced it with one of Ayatollah Khomeini (Reference FischerFischer 2003: 229). Sayyid Ruhollah Khomeini, the architect of the Islamic Republic, dismissed Zoroastrianism as an “old and inveterate sect” and referred to Zoroastrians as “reactionary fire-worshippers,” calling them by the derogatory term “gabr” (Reference FoltzFoltz 2011: 77). But, interestingly, as a religious minority, Zoroastrians enjoy certain freedoms denied to the Muslim majority, including some leniency in holding social and community events free from heavy-handed governmental intrusion, and freedom to have closed events with mixed genders,Footnote ¹⁹ performing their religious rituals, and consuming alcohol.Footnote ²⁰ Yet these freedoms are subject to local circumstances that govern communal relationships and general trends in governmental policies toward treatment of religious minorities.

In reference to Jews, those who voluntarily live in Iran have a special Iranian–Islamic identity and have been influenced by the mainstream culture (Reference Hasannia, Fazeli, Fazeli and HosseiniHasannia, Fazeli, and Fazeli 2023). Though they usually lead a peaceful life alongside others and are socially recognized, they feel scrutinized by the government and the majority, which makes them feel marginalized. Thus they are careful in their relationships with others, behavior that is more prevalent among Jews than other minorities because their population is very small and they sense a need to be more cautious.

Anti-Zionism is today one of the most radical ideological pillars of Iran’s regime (Reference MenashriMenashri 2006; Reference RezaeiRezaei 2019: 215–42), and antisemitism is one of its political byproducts and a manifestation of intense sentiments toward Israel. While it serves Iran’s regional aspirations, antisemitism also constitutes an important component of the Islamic Republic’s official ideology directed at both Iranian and foreign audiences.Footnote ²¹ This stems from failing to sufficiently differentiate the borderline between Jews and Judaism (the religious dimension) on the one hand and Zionists and Zionism (the political dimension) on the other. The two are often regarded as similar constructs in Iran, especially among the general population (Reference ShahvarShahvar 2009; Reference JaspalJaspal 2015). Furthermore, “[a]bundant evidence traces Iranian anti-Semitism to Shiite Muslim ideology … [T]he maintenance of Khomeini’s overt anti-Semitic and anti-Zionist ideology may constitute a means of safeguarding the continuity principle amid important social and political change in Iran … [T]he ‘Jewish threat’ to continuity is actively accentuated by the regime” (Reference JaspalJaspal 2013: 252; see also Reference LitvakLitvak 2021: 73–111). Reference Fox and ToporFox and Topor (2021) argue that antisemitism and discrimination are two distinct concepts. While antisemitism is a negative attitude toward Jews, discrimination is a negative real-world action taken against Jews. From this perspective, one can hold antisemitic beliefs but not discriminate, while another can discriminate against Jews but be less antisemitic in general. In this context, antisemitism is seen as a potential cause of discrimination against Jews, but not the only one. Fox and Topor also found that GRD against Jews is below average in Christian-majority countries, but societal discrimination is far higher than that most other religious minorities confront.Footnote ²² In Muslim-majority nations, most Jewish minorities are very small and societal-based religious discrimination (SRD), on average, is lower than SRD against Christians but higher than SRD against other religious minorities. However, they assessed the condition in Iran to the contrary, with GRD against Jews almost three times higher than SRD.

Faced with the constraints of international expectations and the pressure of Western public opinion sensitive to expressions of antisemitism, Iranian officials reject antisemitism as a Western phenomenon with no precedent in the history of the Islamic Republic. However, “Jews have been the subject of … accusations, such as having a desire for world control, exaggerating the dimensions of the Holocaust, committing genocide, using blood in making unleavened bread, and distorting Holy Scriptures” (Reference ShahvarShahvar 2009: 82; see also Reference Litvak, McElligott and HerfLitvak 2017). Moreover, hate crime has been reported against Jews in Iran, specifically several bombings of a synagogue (Reference Nikookar and HemmatpourNikookar and Hemmatpour 2012: 115).

Bans on proselytizing and conversion away from Islam are among the most common forms of religious discrimination in the Islamdom (Reference FoxFox 2016: 158). The Iranian Establishment is no exception and has shown a fierce preoccupation with non- and anti-Islamic religious propagation and the conversion of Iranian Muslim citizens to other faiths and regards this as a “national security threat” (Reference Meral and KirkhamMeral 2013). To this end, for instance, religious minority leaders are forced to prohibit Muslims from entering their religious sites and engaging in their religious rituals. Reference ChoksyChoksy (2012) claimed that several Zoroastrians and Muslim converts to this ancient faith were arrested in August 2011 and sentenced to public lashings plus many years in prison for ostensibly “propagating Zoroastrianism and organising ancient ceremonies.” Further, significant restrictions are imposed on religious books, especially the Bible and any other books deemed to propagate and promote Christianity, which under the law may not be printed in or imported into Iran.Footnote ²³

Proselytizing and conversion come under regular public scrutiny, especially where conversionist/conversion-oriented movements are believed to be threatening to or disruptive of the social balance between majorities and minorities. Conversion primarily concerns the transformation of individuals and their identities (Reference Paloutzian, Richardson and RamboPaloutzian, Richardson, and Rambo 1999), but it also typically involves an important change in the membership in a community. Following Durkheim, Robertson contends that religion is constitutive of individual, diasporic, and transnational identity (Reference Robertson, Beyer and Beaman2007: 23). Particularly, “religion has become a major vehicle for the expression of national identities” in the global era (Reference Robertson and ClarkeRobertson 2009: 461). Hence, it would seem reasonable to assume a change of religious identity has important implications for national character. In this sense, conversions may be disruptive, especially when they occur systematically to certain social groups rather than apparently at random to individuals. Conversion is not just the experience of an isolated individual; it can involve the transformation of the status and identity of whole families and entire communities as well. For these reasons, the state may often quash proselytizing movements. Such conversionist movements threaten to disturb the balance of populations in societies that are diverse rather than homogeneous. Moreover, when proselytism is perceived to be associated with colonial powers, conversion can also be read as a cultural threat to an indigenous community. The response from a local community to such invasions can set off aggressive religious competition, resulting in violent civil conflict. Consequently, conversion is important socially and politically because changing individual allegiances almost inevitably changes social and political identities. Therefore, conversion movements often represent a challenge to the cultural definition of membership and the criteria of inclusion in society. This is particularly the case with Muslim-majority societies such as Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt, where religious affiliation is closely entangled with the definition of citizenship. “Religious faith” is indeed a double-edged sword that can either hinder or enhance someone’s citizenship, as when state laws assign more rights and privileges to practitioners of some religions than to others (Reference Nyhagen and HalsaaNyhagen and Halsaa 2016: 114–52).

Despite defining “persecution on religious grounds” as a “crime against humanity” in Article 7(h) of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, the global persecution of Christian minority communities occurs. Governments brandish different varieties of control efforts with different kinds of objectives, ranging from the annoyance and harassment of Christians to their outright extermination. The regimes in which persecution occurs are highly diverse – from Muslim-majority countries to brutal authoritarian regimes and failed states but also relatively stable and well-established electoral democracies such as India and Sri Lanka, whose very democratic structures incentivize groups to target Christian minorities in order to solidify the political support of non-Christian majorities (Reference Philpott and ShahPhilpott and Shah 2017).

At the time of the 1979 Revolution, there was no sizable community formed by converts from Islam to Christianity, but today Iran is home to a large number of Muslim-background Christians (MBCs). Notwithstanding some unrealistic statistics (e.g., Reference Miller and JohnstoneMiller and Johnstone 2015), researchers estimate thousands of MBCs are in the country, most of whom have been recruited to Protestant evangelical denominations and Pentecostalism. These groups, although making up only a small percentage of the Christian population living in Iran, have been invariably treated harshly by Iranian authorities (Reference Van Gorder, Philpott and ShahVan Gorder 2018). Specifically, authorities have taken legal action against evangelical Christians who set up, lead and run, or simply take part in home churches and purportedly promote Zionist evangelical Christianity. For example, branch 26 of the Islamic Revolutionary Court of Tehran, in decision No. 26/35/96, dated 24 June 2017, sentenced four Christian converts to ten years of imprisonment for “acting against national security by the administration and establishment [idārih wa tashkīl] of the illegal house church and promotion of Zionist Christianity.” Also, as a complementary punishment, the court sentenced two of them to be sent into exile for two years, one in Nik-Shahr and the other in Borazjan.Footnote ²⁴ In another case, branch 1 of the Islamic Revolutionary Court of Karaj, in decision No. 9709972664101098, dated 9 March 2019, convicted five Christian converts of “propaganda activity against the sacred niẓām of the Islamic Republic of Iran.” One of the converts was condemned to fourteen months, taking into account recidivism rules, and the rest of the accused received four-month prison terms. In another case No. 9309980264001044, four Christian converts were deemed guilty by branch 2 of the Islamic Revolutionary Court of Isfahan of “propaganda against the niẓām of the Islamic Republic by organizing secret meetings, counter-revolutionary movements under the guise of Zionist Christianity, and communicating with Seven, Nejat, and Mohabbat satellite television channels [all affiliated with evangelical Christianity]” (decision No. 9309970367301107, dated 26 November 2014). The court sentenced one of them to one year and the others to nine months in prison. In another case, branch 26 of the Islamic Revolutionary Court of Tehran, in decision No. 26/34/97, dated 29 April 2018, sentenced a Christian convert to six months’ imprisonment due to “membership in the unauthorized house church.”

According to Philpott and Shah, the reasons motivating so many state and non-state entities to inflict different kinds of persecution on Christians are remarkably diverse:

On the strength of the “perceived threat” narrative, religious persecution is seen not as an act of belligerence but as a requisite means of legitimate political and cultural self-defense. This “necessity defense” is used to justify extreme actions against an enemy whose very existence is believed to constitute a danger. Partly because of long and painful histories of Western exploitation and colonial domination, in which Christianity often played a role, this narrative of the Christian “fifth column” enjoys significant resonance and influence in numerous contexts, particularly the Middle East and North Africa, as well as in South and Southeast Asia.

Other religious minorities do not have even the meager protections Article 13 of the Constitution allegedly offers (UN Doc. 2019: 10–18). For example, Bahaʾis are systematically discriminated against and deprived of some fundamental and citizenship rights, such as higher education and state-sector employment (Reference YazdaniYazdani 2015).Footnote ²⁵ Despite discrimination and repression, the state has paradoxically asserted: “[T]he situation of Baha’is in Iran is improving … Muslim Ulamas have declared Baha’ism as heresy. The centre of Baha’ism is located in Israel and is under the direct control of Zionism. Baha’is are enjoying the same rights as any other citizen in the Islamic Republic of Iran and no one is persecuted for being a Baha’i” (UN Doc. 1991b: 105).Footnote ²⁶ They commonly face prosecution and punishment for the charge of acting against the national security of the country through such deeds as “propaganda against the niẓām,” “establishing and/or organizing and running, or membership in illegal associations or groups,” and “espionage,” which are strongly assumed to be perpetrated in the interests and on behalf of foes, particularly the Zionist regime.Footnote ²⁷

Iranian courts have hitherto found a fair number of Bahaʾi believers guilty of various forms of conspiring against the niẓām and the established order. For example, branch 2 of the Islamic Revolutionary Court of Sari, in decision No. 9109971512600010, dated 3 April 2012, sentenced a Bahaʾi citizen to one year in prison under the charge of “propaganda against the niẓām by the propagation of the ḍāllih Bahaʾi cult.”Footnote ²⁸ In another case, branch 1 of the Islamic Revolutionary Court of Kashan, in decision No. 9109973659000330, dated 6 June 2021, condemned two Bahaʾi citizens to five months’ imprisonment on the charge of “propaganda activity against the niẓām of the Islamic Republic of Iran (propaganda in favor of the cult of Bahaʾism).” Nevertheless, the court suspended the penalty for four years. In another case, the first branch of the Islamic Revolutionary Court of Bushehr, in decision No. 9800106, dated 5 May 2019, convicted seven Bahaʾi citizens of “membership in the ḍāllih group and cult of Bahaʾism with the intent to disrupt the country’s security,” and sentenced each of them to three years in prison, as well as a two-year ne exeat republica (i.e., the court barred them from leaving the country). Those convicted petitioned for appellate review, but branch 4 of the Court of Appeal of Bushehr province upheld the trial court’s verdict and made an important remark: “The Bahaʾi cult is of the cults hostile [muʿānid] to the niẓām, and the purpose of the said cult is to disturb the security of the country; hence, membership in it constitutes a criminal offense” (decision No. 9809977740401188, dated 17 November 2019). In another case, branch 1 of the Islamic Revolutionary Court of Semnan, in decision No. 9109972317300319, dated 16 August 2012, sentenced a Bahaʾi citizen to two years in prison for “formation of and membership in unlawful groups and committees [hiyʾat-hā] affiliated with the Bahaʾism establishment” and to one year in prison for “propaganda against the niẓām and in favor of the said cult,” and also to the seizure of the discovered documents (such as Bahaʾi religious books and pamphlets) (the verdict was upheld by branch 4 of the Appeals Court of Semnan province by decision No. 9109972315401004, dated 20 November 2012). The crackdown on the Bahaʾi minority is officially explained by their supposed “wickedness and perilousness.” Indeed, in the case of Bahaʾism, the government of Iran has sought to fuse theology and politics with accusations of depravity and danger (Reference KarlbergKarlberg 2010). Exclusionary and extensive discriminatory practices against Bahaʾis and their predecessors are not limited to Iran – they also were persecuted in 1962 in Morocco, and their activities were banned in 1960 in Egypt and 1970 in Iraq (Reference SanasarianSanasarian 2000: 53).

A 1993 document revealed the government had adopted a blueprint for the silent strangulation of the Bahaʾi community. The blueprint came in the shape of a memorandum on how to deal with “The Bahaʾi Question,” which had been drawn up by the Supreme Council of the Cultural Revolution (SCCR) on 25 February 1991 (Baháʼí International Community 1993: 36–41). The memo came to the attention of the international community in 1993 via the UN Special Rapporteur’s account. According to Reynaldo Galindo Pohl, the document was obtained as “reliable information” just as the annual report on Iran to the UN Commission on Human Rights was being completed (UN Doc. 1993: 55). The memorandum’s central focus was that the Bahaʾis of Iran were treated in such a way that “their progress and development are blocked” and it revealed for the first time that the campaign against the Bahaʾi minority was centrally steered and directed by the government.

Of course, the anti-Bahaʾism tradition predates 1979, at the governmental level as well as the level of social stigma and popular discrimination (Reference MartinMartin 1984; Reference Tavakoli-Targhi, Brookshaw and FazelTavakoli-Targhi 2008; Reference YazdaniYazdani 2011; Reference AminiAmini 2012, Reference Amini2014; Reference VahmanVahman 2019).Footnote ²⁹ Bahaʾism traces its origin to 1844 in Iran as the millenarian movement of Babism, led by a young merchant, Sayyid ʿAli-Muhammad Shirazi (1819–1850), who took the title “the Bāb.” He put forward claims until his death: he claimed to be the Gate (Bāb) to Imam Mahdi (pbuh), the messianic figure expected by the majority religion of Iran, Twelver Shiʿi Islam; to be Imam Mahdi himself; and, beyond this, to be an agent of the Divine and a messenger (rasūl) of God, the inaugurator of a new religious dispensation superseding and abrogating Islam and the Qurʾan (Reference Saiedi and StockmanSaiedi 2022). The Babi faith met opposition from its very beginning. Less than one year after the Bāb put forward his initial claim in May 1844, a combined panel of Sunni and Shiʿi ʿulamāʾ in a trial in Baghdad of the Bāb’s emissary to Iraq unanimously condemned the Bāb as a heretic and apostate. By a majority, they sentenced his emissary to death for spreading the heresy (Reference MomenMomen 1982). The writings and actions of the Bāb were provocative, but nothing in them suggested an initiation of violence. Over a period of time, however, Shiʿite religious leaders escalated matters, calling on the state to halt the spread of the movement. This led eventually to violent confrontations in three locations of Iran in 1848–1850 (Reference MomenMomen 1983, Reference Momen2018; Reference WalbridgeWalbridge 1996; Reference Zabihi-MoghaddamZabihi-Moghaddam 2002). In 1850, Prime Minister Amir Kabir decided that the best way of putting an end to the Babi upheavals and insurrections was to execute the founder of the movement, who was being held in prison. The fatwas of two clerics who condemned the Bāb to death on the grounds of apostasy aided this idea as well (Reference AmanatAmanat 2005: 394–403). At last, the Bāb was executed in Tabriz on 9 July 1850 (Reference MacEoinMacEoin 2009: 409–49).

Following the severe persecutions of the Babis in 1848–1850 and the execution of the Bāb, Babism was left shattered and with no clear leadership. In Tehran, two differing groups appeared among the Babis of the city. One group, under the leadership of Mullā Shaykh ʿAlī Turshīzī (known as ʿAẓīm) and Mirza Yahya Nuri (known as Ṣobḥ-i Azal), wanted to go to war with the Iranian state, partly to fulfill their apocalyptic and millennialist vision and partly out of revenge for the persecution they had suffered. The other, under the leadership of Bahāʾu’llāh, looked to rebuild relationships with the government and advance the Babi cause by persuasion and the example of virtuous living. On 15 August 1852, a small, radicalized faction of the Babi community attempted to assassinate the monarch of Iran, Naser al-Din Shah Qajar (Reference MomenMomen 2008a). The attempt on the life of the shah failed and unleashed a nationwide general massacre of the Babis. Repercussions of the attempted assassination last to the present day. Although Bahāʾu’llāh’s policies were the opposite of those that inspired and fired up the attempted assassination, most Iranians knew the Bahaʾis as the Babis until well into the twentieth century, and the atmosphere of hatred and fear created by the attempted assassination was transferred to them. This enabled the clerical and cultural enemies of the Bahaʾis in Iran in subsequent generations to persecute them, target them by labeling, and implicate them in conspiracy theories.Footnote ³⁰ The ultimate goal of these continuing efforts is to stigmatize and stir antipathy toward Bahaʾism among the population.

Perceived betrayals and conspiracies of some Bahaʾis against Iran’s national sovereignty have led the Islamist regime presiding over the country to lump all adherents of the group together, as though they are a single entity sharing communal guilt – “the sins of one being visited upon all.” This has created an agenda aimed at obliterating and forcing Bahaʾism out of existence.Footnote ³¹ This collective culpability approach has replaced individual liability, which relies on fundamental principles of modern criminal law, that of the presumption of innocence and individual criminal responsibility.Footnote ³² The tactics of suppression have always existed; however, the current pattern has changed from “a brutal and partly chaotic campaign in the aftermath of the 1979 Islamic Revolution to an institutionalized process with well-defined policies” (Reference Zabihi-MoghaddamZabihi-Moghaddam 2016: 124). Meanwhile, fatwas and opinions of the late leader and the current leader of Iran, as well as other senior conservative members of the clergy, have facilitated this campaign against the Bahaʾis (Baháʼí International Community 2023: 143–6; Reference KhameneiKhamenei 2023: 87–8; see also Reference YazdaniYazdani 2012 and Reference SanyalSanyal 2019).

Meral briefly comments on the status of religious freedom in Iran, accounting for the repression of this internationally protected human right:

Tamadonfar and Lewis argue that the systemic controls exercised over minority religions and even the three groups listed in Article 13 derive not from Islam directly but from an effort to exert control over Iranian society:

These explanations can be reinforced by Reference SarkissianSarkissian’s (2015) argument, which maintains that, due to the costs of enforcement, politicians are unlikely to seek to regulate religion in the absence of political motivations. Aside from suppressing the potential oppositional capabilities of religious groups, governments may target specific religious groups because they threaten the identity or unity of a society. Maintaining control of Iranian society with its various minority religious and spiritual groups and currents, both approved and unapproved, as well as its politically oriented movements, is difficult and has contributed to governmental efforts to stifle nascent movements that develop. However, this is problematic given the apparent attitude changes of many citizens in post-Revolution Iran, as will be presented in Section 3.

3 Religious Life, Cultural Diffusion, and Religious Pluralism in Iran

The occurrence of the Islamic Revolution in Iran in 1979, followed by an extensive Islamization of society, resulted in unique developments concerning religious life in this theocracy. Since 2000, social scientists have engaged in lively debate on the nature of such developments and their implications for other Middle Eastern and Islamic communities. Reference Kazemipur and RezaeiKazemipur and Rezaei (2003) attempted to address this issue by relying on a rich set of empirical data gathered through a large-scale national survey of values and attitudes in Iran. The major finding of this research was that:

The analysis ends with a brief discussion of the implications of such developments for the debate among sociologists of religion concerning secularization and desecularization. Their findings indicate that any linear viewpoint on the demise or survival of religion in society will unreasonably brush aside the fact that religion is not merely a social institution, but also a “cultural resource” that individuals may draw upon, depending on their surrounding sociopolitical circumstances and their reading of those circumstances.

Hossein Reference GodazgarGodazgar (2020) offers a similar observation, claiming that dramatic shifts have occurred in the religiosity of Iranian citizens since the installation of the Islamic Republic. He discusses various historical and cultural developments that have resulted in the social construction of a much less dogmatic and more “spiritual” approach to Islam on the part of many Iranian citizens – for instance, the dramatic decline in participation in Friday prayers and related activities in Iran, among other things.

He asserts that “‘spiritualism’ avoids and often loathes organized ‘Islamism’ or the political ideology of Islam” (7). Not only do “these forms … go beyond the requirements of an institutional Islam, such as the objective obedience of Shari’a and Shi’ite authority,” Godazgar concludes, “but also dangerously oppose these requirements in some cases” (23).

Along with the shift in how Iranians experience Islam, Iran has witnessed the advent and burgeoning of “new spirituality” (maʿnawīyat-girāyī-yi jadīd) and new forms of religiosity, and many citizens have expressed an interest in a plethora of religious and spiritual ideas and philosophies.Footnote ³³ This has prompted scholars to research why these phenomena have appeared in Iran and the rationales for some Iranian people’s interest in and tendency toward them (see, e.g., Reference Gholamizadeh BehbahaniGholamizadeh Behbahani 2006, Reference Gholamizadeh Behbahani2016; Reference Talebi DarabiTalebi Darabi 2012; Talebi and Talebi Darabi 2013; Reference Ramezani TamijaniRamezani Tamijani 2016, Reference Ramezani Tamijani2020; Reference Jaberian, Rabiei, Mohaddesi Gilvaei and Zahedi MazandaraniJaberian et al. 2017). An arena of unregulated religious and spiritual groups and currents now stands alongside the highly regulated, rigidly denominational religious market structured by the government. In the pluralistic religious and spiritual marketplace contemporary Iran has become, individuals become consumers of religious and spiritual “goods and services” and want to exercise a right to choose within a diversity of options, not exclusively what the government prefers.

Tellingly, Paul Heelas’s description of the New Age movement in Europe and North America in the 1990s could also be applied to the terrain of Iranian alternative religions and spiritualities in the early 2000s:

Iranian sociologist Sara Shariʿati Mazinani illustrates the validity of our claim about the cultural diffusion of religious and spiritual ideas from the West into contemporary Iran:

Dozens of NRMs and spiritual currents are present in Iran, including Sufism, Mysticism of the Ring/Cosmic Mysticism, Satanism, Yoga, Eckankar, the El-Yasin Community, the Bahaʾi Faith, Osho, Paulo Coelho, Technical Self-Meditation (TSM), Sai Baba, Dalai Lama, and New Thought, among many others (see Reference FaʿʿālīFaʿʿālī 2010, Reference Faʿʿālī2022; Reference Sharifi-doostSharifi-doost 2020).Footnote ³⁴ It appears that via modern means of communication, Iranian citizens have obtained information about many of the same ideas, movements, and groups that comprise the religious and mystical experiences of citizens of Western societies. Computer-based communication has enabled people to become familiar with a wide range of religious and spiritual beliefs and practices. Indeed, many of the new religions and alternative spiritualities have availed themselves of the opportunity to develop an internet presence. The prestige value of a web page is no doubt a contributory reason; however, more importantly, numerous religious organizations have realized internet surfers are using the internet to find ways to fulfill their spiritual needs. Even if surfers do not convert to the religions they find, they can learn of religious and spiritual beliefs and practices and savor something of them without having to seek out any organization.

The popularity of new religious and spiritual ideas in Iran should be understood within the context of considerable economic and sociocultural shifts in the years following the 1980s war with Iraq, which facilitated the rise of such alternative models in competition with traditional models of religion and spirituality. According to Doostdar, “economic and cultural liberalization enabled the rise of alternative spiritual models, on the one hand encouraging entrepreneurship, material ambition, and self-realization, and on the other hand lessening restrictions on publishing, such that a wide variety of mostly translated texts on spirituality (maʿnaviyyat) and mysticism (ʿerfan) could be printed and find a wide readership” (Reference Doostdar2018: 147).

Mohammad-Reza Reference AnvāriAnvāri (2012) offers a useful analysis of the stages of this growing interest in emergent religions and mysticisms and how the move toward newer religious and spiritual ideas has developed. His analysis reveals that the early period involved promoters of new ideas stressing that the ideas were not opposed to Islam but complemented it and that some of the new ideas meshed well with mystical tendencies within Islam. This first period lasted until about 1997 when a reformist era came into the open. Under the presidency of Sayyid Mohammad Khatami between 1997 and 2005, alternative religious and spiritual beliefs and practices (some of which had already circulated prior to the 1979 Revolution) proliferated and were even promoted by some government officials. This was a time of lessening restrictions on publishing, with major efforts to translate many Western sources on various newer religious and spiritual phenomena. This resulted in a variety of mostly Western translated texts pertaining to religion and spirituality being printed and distributed within Iran.

For example, novelist Paulo Coelho’s books have been well received within Iran, and his classic The Alchemist was translated in 1995 and has since been reprinted more than 100 times by different publishers in Iran. Coelho also visited Iran on 24 May 2000 and gave a number of public talks at a time when such activities were still allowed. Well-known Western works by Carlos Castaneda, Jiddu Krishnamurti, and others have also been translated and have had commercial success in Iran. One source claimed that more than 400 books dealing with yoga were published in Persian, most of them translated from Western sources (Behdasht Reference Maʿnavi News WebsiteMaʿnavi News Website 2019). More than 100 foreign writers in the area of New Thought have been translated into Persian. Reference Hasanzadeh TabatabaeiHasanzadeh Tabatabaei (2019) studied the penetration of ideas of the New Thought movement into Iranian society. He writes about the availability of translated works of the prominent figures of this movement:

He concludes, “[T]he New Thought movement, with nearly eight million and five hundred thousand copies of written works in Persian, has been the most important and dangerous influential and newly emerging spiritual movement in Iran in the last two decades” (114).

However, a change of government occurred in the mid-2000s, when Mahmoud Ahmadinejad assumed the presidency. From this time on, new authorities were much less inclined to allow the importation of new religions and spiritualities into the culture. Indeed, people in positions of power and influence seemed to view this influx of Western ideas as part of an effort to undermine Iran’s Islamic system of governance. Thus the wave of new mysticisms came to be viewed not as a scientifically interesting development but as a major threat to the state religion, the welfare of the nation, and the security and legitimacy of the government itself.

Henceforth, interest in alternative religions and philosophies was not so openly expressed by virtue of severe penalties that could be associated with anything construed as detrimental to the official ideological underpinning of the prevailing Islamic order. Research by Reference FarshchiFarshchi (2024) clearly demonstrates that governmental repression is a reality for NRMs in Iran. His study reveals that the level of repressing an NRM varied somewhat by the level of movement strength (operationalized in terms of membership size and geographic expanse), ideological origin (i.e., whether the movement is imported or indigenous and innovative), and the level of reaction to repressive measures against the movement. It also seemed that protests against repression of a given movement offer some limits to the repression experienced and reduce the severity of the state’s actions against it. In Farshchi’s analysis, a high level of strength for an NRM resulted in state repression, primarily through targeting the leader(s) with punitive actions, including short- and long-term incarceration and even capital punishment in some cases. For example, in decision No. 26/16/94, dated 26 July 2015, issued by branch 26 of the Islamic Revolutionary Court of Tehran, Mohammad-Ali Taheri, a so-called spiritual teacher and alternative medicine practitioner as well as the founder and leader of Mysticism of the Ring, was condemned to death for “spreading corruption on earth [ifsād-i fī al-ʾarḍ] by creating the cult of Cosmic Mysticism, and forming class[es], and expanding anti-religion and Shariʿa-contrary [khalāf-i Sharʿ] deviant thoughts, and unfounded claims, and weakening people’s religious attitude and their religious beliefs in a wide and active manner at the domestic and foreign level.” In a recent case No. 140168920006517965, a sixty-one-year-old citizen by the name of Saeed Khademi died on 6 November 2023 amidst trial in branch 29 of the Islamic Revolutionary Court of Tehran due to a heart attack. Hosein Askari Rad, the attorney who appeared for the deceased, attributed the death to the intense psychological stress and anxiety his client experienced in the courtroom (phone conversation with Sajjad Adeliyan Tous, 18 November 2023). Khademi was accused of “propagational and educational activity contrary to the holy Shariʿa of Islam” by practicing and instructing a form of Raja Yoga meditation known as Sahaj Marg.

As the reform period ended, concerns grew among Iranian religious authorities and conservative politicians about the rising interest in forms of religion and spirituality that were not approved and accepted by the state, and a number of critical publications on the newer religious and spiritual phenomena appeared correspondingly (e.g., Reference SharifiSharifi 2013; Reference Mazaheri SeifMazaheri Seif 2016, Reference Mazaheri Seif2020; Reference HamidiehHamidieh 2020).Footnote ³⁵ In one significant triggering event, on 25 February 2008, a special edition titled Crooked Path (Kazhrāhih) was made available to the public as a free supplement to the Jam-e Jam daily, a newspaper owned by the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB). This issue – a collection of critical reports, articles, interviews, and so on devoted to attacking so-called emergent quasi-religious and spiritual movements and currents – was distributed in a large circulation of 300,000 copies throughout Iran and contributed to an unfavorable attitude toward the groups and currents discussed therein. Another specific publication claiming to summarize Western efforts to control cults has been influential as well (Reference SharifiyanSharifiyan 2018), but this source is quite incomplete and misleading in its descriptions of alleged anticult activities in Western societies.

Many researchers and authors working in this area of study view these newer phenomena as a threat to officially sanctioned Islam. Their often theologically oriented writings argue forcefully for the control of so-called false mysticisms and support governmental efforts to limit such movements, groups, and currents of thought. In contrast, a few scholars have expressed concern about this approach. For example, Reference Sadeghnia, Vakili and ShakernejadSadeghnia (2020) believes that the usual theological literature in Iran offers an incomplete and even erroneous approach, and that such phenomena are products of modernity and should be taken as social facts and explained sociologically rather than theologically. Reference SaeediSaeedi (2022) describes two main stances toward NRMs in Iran. Some researchers and cultural practitioners see NRMs as a “superficial and fleeting phenomenon” that, due to the special circumstances of Iranian society, have been designed by foreign agents with “political aims and objectives” and in the direction of cultural destruction and societal collapse. These people usually recommend “physical and extreme solutions” to confront emergent mysticisms. Other commentators look on the new religious–spiritual developments as a “marginal counterculture and of little importance” in comparison with the surrounding dominant culture of the society. Saeedi criticizes the two positions:

Of particular note are the writings of two leading lights of the Western anticult movement. Margaret Singer’s Cults in Our Midst (2003) and Steven Hassan’s Releasing the Bonds (2000) have been readily diffused in Iran and have become very prominent in official efforts to suppress newer religious and spiritual phenomena in Iran.Footnote ³⁶ The book by Singer was translated in 2010Footnote ³⁷ and the one by Hassan was translated in 2013.Footnote ³⁸ Officials in Iran have accepted both as scientific treatments of cults in the Western world. Thousands of copies of the translations have been sold, and they have served as the major sources of many attacks launched by Iranian scholars and intelligence and security services.Footnote ³⁹ Singer’s “brainwashing” and Hassan’s “mind control” notions espoused in their writings were prominent features of these treatments.Footnote ⁴⁰ Singer’s book has also been an inspiration for a few mass media films and serials dealing with so-called cults in Iran, some of which have been broadcast by national, government-run media outlets.Footnote ⁴¹

In addition, two classic writings of British psychiatrist William Sargant (1907–1988) – Battle for the Mind: A Physiology of Conversion and Brainwashing (1957) and The Mind Possessed: A Physiology of Possession, Mysticism and Faith Healing (1973) – were translated into Persian in the 1990s and became available in Iran. The following books, among others, were translated in the twenty-first century: Brainwashing: The Science of Thought Control (2004) by Kathleen Taylor,Footnote ⁴² Bounded Choice: True Believers and Charismatic Cults (2004) by Janja Lalich,Footnote ⁴³ The Cult of Trump (2020)Footnote ⁴⁴ and Combatting Cult Mind Control (1988) by Steven Hassan,Footnote ⁴⁵ Cults Uncovered: True Stories of Mind Control and Murder (2020) by Emily Thompson,Footnote ⁴⁶ and Dark Persuasion: A History of Brainwashing from Pavlov to Social Media (2021) by Joel Dimsdale.Footnote ⁴⁷ A few other books with more scholarly and balanced approaches have been translated as well, including: New Religious Movements: Challenge and Response (1999) edited by Bryan Wilson and Jamie Cresswell,Footnote ⁴⁸ Cults and New Religious Movements: A Reader (2003) edited by Lorne Dawson,Footnote ⁴⁹ Controversial New Religions (2005) edited by James Lewis and Jesper Petersen,Footnote ⁵⁰ and Encyclopedia of New Religious Movements (2006) edited by Peter Clarke.Footnote ⁵¹ However, these have not received much attention in Iran.

One obvious conclusion to draw from all this is that Western influences have played a major role in the religious and spiritual life of many Iranians, as well as influencing governmental policies. Many religious and spiritual ideas and movements that have gained popularity in the West have permeated Iranian culture in spite of official efforts to limit such exposure. This was particularly the case during the reform era (duwrān-i/duwrih-yi iṣlāḥāt) discussed earlier in this Element. In addition, the availability of the internet in Iran has played a major role, as this has allowed ordinary citizens to access large amounts of information on emergent religious and spiritual groups and currents originated from inside and outside of Iranian society quite easily, and those interested in these newer phenomena can form internet-based groups to share their ideas with like-minded individuals. Moreover, hundreds of translated Western publications dealing with such phenomena have constituted a flood of material promoting new religious and spiritual perspectives. Such materials have been well received by many Iranian citizens, as evidenced by sales of those translated publications. This is a sign of some Iranians’ interest in such different approaches to life and spirituality.

But just as Western ideas about alternative religions and spiritualities have invaded Iranian cultural space, so there has been a concomitant diffusion of Western anticult perspectives on how to control and suppress these movements and currents, particularly after a change of government in 2005. Writings and concepts long debunked by scholars in Western societies (e.g., writings by Margaret Singer, Steven Hassan, and others cited in this section) have been selectively and strongly promoted inside Iran by government officials and those scholars and writers who are supportive of official state positions adopted in recent decades. Whether Western scholarly critiques of the works of major anticultists will eventually be acknowledged by Iranian scholars and officials is doubtful, however, given the high levels of concern about the attractiveness and spread of alternative religions and spiritualities in Iran.

4 Social Control of New Religious Movements in Iran: A Chronology and Analysis

Social control is a key concept in the lexicon of the modern social sciences, including sociology and legal studies.Footnote ⁵² This term famously refers to “the social processes by which the behaviour of individuals or groups is regulated” (Reference Scott and MarshallScott and Marshall 2009: 699) or “the mechanisms, in the form of patterns of pressure, through which society maintains social order and cohesion” (Reference CarmichaelCarmichael 2012). Simply speaking, social control refers to purposive mechanisms used to regulate the conduct of people who are seen as aberrant, criminal, worrying, or troublesome. However, as the social world and its contextually grounded norms and values change over time, what is regarded as deviant or criminal behavior, belief, or characteristic may also differ from society to society, from one sector of society to another, from group to group, from one period of time to another, and from one social context to another.

Social control often manifests itself in a societal response employed by ordinary social actors against anyone counted as deviant, problematic, threatening, or undesirable. But it also sometimes appears as a governmental response exerted by state institutions (e.g., law enforcement agencies) in counteraction to perceived violations of norms and rules governing society. Both types involve the establishment and enforcement of behavioral standards for members of society for the sake of maintaining the social order and dealing with nonconformists to ensure law and order.

In this section, we expound on new efforts to pass significant anticult legislation in Iran, demonstrating the continued efforts by the cleric-dominated government to exert control over NRMs and spiritual currents. These efforts, which culminated in the passage of a new law in 2021 after several earlier attempts failed, maintained public focus on the perceived problem of unconventional religious and spiritual movements. These efforts were inspired and influenced by prominent Western anticult writings and by legislative efforts, particularly in France, a Western country with stringent anticult-oriented legislation.Footnote ⁵³ This demonstrates that governmental restrictions on religion are often spatially clustered, not independent from other countries, and increases in a country’s level of restrictions often reflect similar changes in other countries (Reference MataicMataic 2018). Spatial clustering emerges through the diffusion of policies, where national governments mimic others’ policies and practices, even when accounting for internal structural characteristics. While a country’s internal structure is clearly a predictor of policies, today’s world is a “global village” where national governments are not isolated from each other and where levels of restriction are susceptible to external influence.

5 Conclusions, Relevant Sociological Theories, and Theoretical Applications

In Iran, ecclesiastical power is inseparably linked with state power and is foundational to its structure. This fact leads to the exercise of total control through legislation and legal processes based on the officially defined norms of the dominant religion, namely Shiʿism. Thus contemporary Iran demonstrates the concept of a thoroughly theocratic state with a supreme leader who exercises almost total control over governmental actions. The situation in Iran contradicts the idea of a “constitutional theocracy,” where a government exercises control over religious impulses and movements by incorporating them into the governmental structure and using the judicial system to manage them (Reference HirschlHirschl 2010, Reference Hirschl and Ginsburg2012).Footnote ⁷⁴ Hirschl briefly discusses Iran in his treatise, but his cursory treatment seems off the mark, especially in light of more recent events discussed herein. There seems little doubt that Iran is now an example of a pure theocracy totally dominated by one particular version of Islam.

Given this conclusion, it seems strange that earlier efforts to legislate against alternative religions and new spiritualities foundered repeatedly before finally succeeding. One view is that this area may not have been as high a priority as some thought. However, continual discussions of these matters in official high-level governmental bodies were keeping the issue very much alive in public discourse. Mass-media coverage of the topic in Iran’s controlled media market reminded members of the public that this is a sensitive area, and that government officials and clerics in charge of the Iranian government do not view participation in NRMs positively. Another view is that the passage of specific legislation in this area could lead to consequences that would be viewed negatively by some in the government of Iran. Such stringent laws could draw the attention and ire of human rights advocates and organizations that value human rights and religious freedom, thus calling critical attention to Iranian society. Additionally, given the religious diversity in Iran and the changing religious views of many Iranian citizens, perhaps government officials delayed passing legislation because it might cause social unrest.

Along the same lines, the draft laws were written and debated by different parliaments with different majority constellations that held divergent views on how much religion should be regulated and in which direction (some favored more wilāyatī/wilāyī and revolutionary tendencies, while others rejected these and yet others rejected further infringing regulation altogether). Moreover, this is the typical legislative process in Iran, where other far more important and far-reaching pieces of legislation have taken even longer.Footnote ⁷⁵

It is worth noting that, even as new legislation was being considered, mistreatment of members and leaders of NRMs and minority faiths was proceeding apace in Iran, as described earlier in this Element, despite the delays in approving a new statute to deal with the perceived problem of unauthorized religious groups and spiritualities. From the dominant religious community’s point of view, all the representative groups of a particular other tradition may be defined as outsiders (in Becker’s 2018 term). In particular, the Bahaʾis are seen as enemies of the Iranian government and are regularly persecuted for practicing their faith (Reference YazdaniYazdani 2018). They are systematically discriminated against in many areas of life (jobs, property ownership, access to higher education, and other areas), and even in death, as Iran offers no approved cemeteries for the Bahaʾis.Footnote ⁷⁶ And practitioners of other minority faiths, including even the three with some protections listed in Article 13 of the Constitution, are often dealt with quite harshly by authorities in contemporary Iran. The Iranian Constitution, as currently interpreted, and other existing laws have evidently institutionalized religious discrimination (Reference MilaniMilani 2016). The jurisprudential and legal framework within which religious and spiritual communities are sharply restrained and their rights violated is directly linked to the state’s principal objective of maintaining a national identity as an “Islamic” Republic.Footnote ⁷⁷ Thus there has been little, if any, counter to directives derived from the dominant clerical Islamic ideology the Iranian regime has put in place. Nevertheless, as British sociologist James Beckford has put it, “the cult controversy is a barometer of changes taking place in a number of different societies” (Reference Beckford1985: 11). New religious movements represent an “extreme situation” that, precisely because it is extreme, throws into sharp relief many of the assumptions hidden behind legal, cultural, and social structures. The development and operation of many NRMs in Iran has, in effect, forced societal leaders to reveal their fanaticism and partisanship, pronouncing that one set of values is favored over all others.

Those articles of the Islamic Penal Code applied against leaders and practitioners of minority faiths and NRMs are, in some cases, general and vague, which allow the Iranian criminal justice system to take advantage of this ambiguity and generality to sentence the accused using broad interpretations of the laws. This is what Herbert Reference HartHart (2012) called the “open texture of laws,” meaning that there are areas of conduct where much must be developed by courts or officials, striking a balance, in light of circumstances, between competing interests that vary in weight from case to case. Because of already existing legislation and the flexibility shown by the Iranian criminal justice system in the interpretation of laws (especially vague ones), some in Iran were not convinced that more codification was needed, but others thought otherwise.Footnote ⁷⁸ The debate led eventually to the passage of specific new legislation to allow even more direct and harsh control over supposedly deviant religious and spiritual movements.

Bearing in mind that today’s Iran is an increasingly pluralist society, allowing a wider scope of FoRB seems worthy of consideration. If relaxing control of the religious life of the people is ever to be envisaged, solutions can be found in the Iranian Constitution and international human rights law, albeit with somewhat different interpretations than are currently accepted in Iran. On the one hand, the Constitution absolutely guarantees citizens have the right to freedom of belief in Article 23. On the other, Iran is a signatory to the ICCPR, which provides for restraints on the freedom to manifest one’s religion or beliefs if they are necessary to protect public safety, order, health, or morals or the fundamental rights and freedoms of others. So, as long as the fulfillment of the manifestation of FoRB does not run afoul of the items mentioned, it should not be circumscribed and/or hampered by the government. Implementing this constitutional provision from a more open perspective could offer citizens more religious freedom and indicate that the state would not interfere with citizens’ personal affairs. Whether such an approach will ever be implemented by decision-makers in Iran remains to be seen, however.

Theoretical Coda

We conclude this Element with a concise analysis of the development of the Iranian treatment of religion, and especially NRMs, with reference to prominent theories from the sociology of religion and the sociology of law. Iran represents a classic case study that supports major findings of research on religious freedom in various types of nations around the world from the viewpoint of theoretical traditions of the religious economy and the judicialization of religious freedom, as well as of theories about the role of major considerations concerning the making and functions of law. We hope that our efforts can contribute to understanding other authoritarian regimes, especially those with a strong Islamic basis, in an era of intense globalization of not only economies but also religious and spiritual ideas.

The Rule of Law vs. The Rule by Law

Frequent legal assaults on religious minorities and NRMs in Iran represent the purely instrumental view of law; “law is an instrument to serve the social good” (Reference TamanahaTamanaha 2007: 469, italics in original) and “[l]aw is there to serve ends designated by the lawmaker, whatever those ends might be and whatever the means required to achieve those ends” (Reference TamanahaTamanaha 2005: 132). Such an attitude toward law in the context of intransigent disagreement over the social good leads to a battle of all against all through and over the legal order itself in a conflict to seize the implements of law and wield its coercive force against opposing groups (Reference TamanahaTamanaha 2006a, Reference Tamanaha2007). This battle, many signs of which can be seen today, takes place in different contexts, including in legislation and in administrative, executive, and judicial actions. Law is not seen as an order of binding rules but increasingly as a tool or weapon to be manipulated to achieve desired goals. Therein lies the deep tension between legal instrumentalism and the rule of law ideal (Reference TamanahaTamanaha 2006b).

Iran deems law as a means to maintain stability, regulate society, protect the interests of the ruling class, and strengthen and enforce the government’s authority. The content of law focuses on preserving social order by the imposition of duties upon citizens. Law is not a method to limit the state’s actions but a means to guarantee that the people will perform their designated duties. The ruling group may use the law to enforce its policies, but the ruling class itself is not easily restricted by law. This reflects a system known as the rule by law, pursuant to which “officials handle public affairs according to relevant laws, without questioning the nature of these laws” (Reference ShihShih 1999: 52). The rule by law enables power holders in Iran to use law enforcement to exert social control over the populace.

Furthermore, a momentous trait of totalitarian and sometimes authoritarian regimes (such as Iran) is an exclusive, autonomous, and more or less intellectually elaborate ideology with which the leadership and the ruling elites operate. This ideology is applied as a basis and filter for every policy in all individual and societal areas. It determines the frontiers of legitimate action beyond which lies heterodoxy that can and will be negatively sanctioned. From this perspective, the politics of social control of such governments can be traced to the enactment of draconian legislation that equips the monolithic structure of centralized power with a powerful offensive weapon for surveillance, control, and suppression, intending to safeguard the ruling ideology and guarantee the regime’s interests. In these governments, “law has both a repressive function, epitomised in criminal law sanctions, and an ideological function, again embodied in the criminal law’s role in instantiating categories of social, political, and cultural exclusion, in modern criminological terms in labelling” (Reference Fraser and SkinnerFraser 2015: 199).

(De)judicialization of Religious Freedom

The “judicialization of religious freedom” concept (Reference RichardsonRichardson 2015, Reference Richardson2021) is useful in understanding the role of the judiciary in regulating religion in Iran. Richardson described the structural and historical features of societies that can operate to increase support for religious freedom. Over the past several decades in the United States and in Europe, as a result of the confluences of certain historical and structural factors, religious freedom has experienced a major increase in support, as demonstrated by congressional action in the United States and by a growing number of affirmative court decisions in Europe and America. Minority religious groups have gained support within the US Congress in reaction to a watershed 1990 US Supreme Court decision limiting claims by such groups (Reference McGraw, Richardson, Djupe, Rozell and JelenMcGraw and Richardson 2020). However, the Supreme Court has, since that decision, changed its posture considerably on such cases by supporting many religious freedom claims in recent decisions (Reference Richardson and McGrawRichardson and McGraw 2019; Reference Breskaya, Giordan and RichardsonBreskaya, Giordan, and Richardson 2024).

In Europe, the ECtHR has developed a very strong record over the past three decades in support of religious freedom claims brought by minority faiths, especially among newer member nations of the COE (Reference RichardsonFokas and Richardson 2019; Reference EvansEvans 2001). There have been complaints that cases involving members of Islam were not handled similarly to those brought by other minority faiths in Europe (Reference Meerschaut, Gutwirth and BremsMeerschaut and Gutwirth 2008). But that concern may be dissipating somewhat, given more recent jurisprudential patterns that display an effort by the ECtHR to adopt a more religiously plural legal approach to cases involving Islam (Reference RichardsonRichardson 2019, Reference Richardson2021).

However, the concept of “dejudicialization of religious freedom” proposed as a corrective to theorizing about the judicialization of religious freedom by Mayrl and colleagues (Reference MayrlMayrl 2018; Reference Mayrl and VennyMayrl and Venny 2021) may be more advantageous to explain what has taken place in post-Revolution Iran. Mayrl proposes that the rise of support for religious freedom that had developed after World War II in Western nations is currently dissipating under pressures from antidemocratic tendencies, resulting in the loss of autonomy and power of judicial systems. He discusses changes in interpretative rules that limit what courts can do when dealing with religious freedom claims, as well as rules that limit access to courts or offer alternative venues for dispute resolutions of cases involving religion. He also notes that courts may limit themselves when under severe pressure from other power centers in society, such as an autocratic government, a dominant church, or the military.

It is quite clear that Iran does not have an independent judiciary (UN Doc. 2022: 16), which many scholars of law and religion view as crucial to the protection of religious freedom (Reference RichardsonRichardson 2006, Reference Richardson, Beyer and Beaman2007; Reference Finke and MartinFinke and Martin 2014; Reference Finke and MataicFinke and Mataic 2021). The courts in Iran exist to implement the policies of the Shiʿite-dominated government, which identifies with and promotes a quite specific perspective of Islam. There is little recognition of constitutional guarantees that might protect older minority religions and new religions, and those provisions granting primacy to the government’s view of Islam override all other considerations. Therefore, the judicialization of religious freedom does not exist in Iran, and instead there is a definite dejudicialization of religious freedom that has occurred in the past twenty years, with the courts being used as a major instrument to attack and control minority religious groups and new spiritualities. Indeed, it is safe to say that the “judicialization of politics” – the term from whence judicialization of religious freedom was derived – (Reference VallinderVallinder 1994; Reference Tate and VallinderTate and Vallinder 1995; Reference HirschlHirschl 2006, Reference Hirschl and Goodin2011) also does not exist in Iran. The state apparatus, in conjunction with the Shiʿite clergy, attempts to dominate all aspects of Iranian society. This is similar to what has happened in a number of countries, such as China, post-Communist Russia, Saudi Arabia, and now Afghanistan, where the government favors a dominant faith or ideology.

Iranian courts are used to enforce the official governmental view of all aspects of life, particularly religion. Thus the prerequisites for the development and maintenance of religious freedom and other civil and political rights do not now exist in Iran. Beyond doubt, courts in Iran, inter alia, suppress potential threats to the political establishment and the mainline interpretation of the official religion. Despite constitutional guarantees of judicial independence, the Iranian judiciary is designed as a judicial-political institution that is responsible not only for the administration of justice (as defined by the authorities in Iran) but also for the implementation of the ideological line advocated by the conservative establishment. Courts in Iran are often not impartial actors and their power emanates from their partiality in favor of the government’s Islamic ideocracy. We argue that the regime’s use of courts reveals the importance of legal frameworks to authoritarian and totalitarian regimes as a device for apparently justifying repression by constructing a narrative of threats to the state and presenting the masses with an exercise of state power through apparently legitimate means anchored in the politico-legal order. Furthermore, when willing to comply with authority and/or turn a blind eye to the effects of their judgments by applying repressive legislation without objection, judges cease acting as a balancer between the government and citizens and become active in the former’s exertion of power to violate the private space of individual life.

Religious Economy (Supply-Side Theory)

The “economics of religion” or the “religious economy” theory developed over many years with much research by scholars such as Roger Finke, Rodney Stark, and Laurence Iannaccone, among others. The groundwork for the religious economy thesis draws on the ideas of three prominent scholars of the eighteenth century: Voltaire (1694–1778), Adam Smith (1723–1790), and David Hume (1711–1776). Voltaire, in 1733, held up English toleration of dissident Protestant sects as a model for the French (even though the English did not extend the same tolerance to Catholics). He praised the rationalism, productivity, and, particularly, the religious diversity of England, which he saw as enabling a pragmatic disinterest in the ceremonies and beliefs of others: “If one religion only were allowed in England, the Government would very possibly become arbitrary; if there were but two, the people would cut one another’s throats; but as there are such a multitude, they all live happy and in peace” (Reference VoltaireVoltaire 1894: 44, italics in original). This mutually beneficial cosmopolitanism was, in his eyes, best exemplified by the London Stock Exchange, where Christians, Jews, and Muslims transacted business with each other as though they all professed the same religion.

A few decades later in 1776, Adam Smith echoed Voltaire’s concerns about religious monopolies and his assurances about plurality: “The interested and active zeal of religious teachers can be dangerous and troublesome only where there is, either but one sect tolerated in the society, or where the whole of a large society is divided into two or three great sects” (Reference Smith1937: 745). He went on to explain, however, that the “zeal must be altogether innocent where the society is divided into two or three hundred, or perhaps into as many [as a] thousand small sects, of which no one could be considerable enough to disturb the public tranquillity” (745). For Smith, the argument was based on theoretical common sense rather than personal experiences: if sects are numerous enough, no single sect is large enough to be harmful. The obvious question that follows, of course, is how are the numerous sects generated? For Smith, the answer is simple: “[I]f the government was perfectly decided both to let them all alone and to oblige them all to let alone one another, there is little danger that they would not of their own accord subdivide themselves fast enough, so as soon to become sufficiently numerous” (746). “Letting them all alone” allowed for an open propagating of faith by multiple religious groups; obliging the religions to “let alone one another” ensured that no single religion would hold power over another religious movement. Religious plurality, for Smith, was the natural state of affairs, and such plurality resulted in public tranquility.

David Hume offered a similar observation, published posthumously in 1779, concurring that the government must leave the various religious groups alone and must require all of them to leave one another alone as well:

If [a magistrate] admits only one religion among his subjects, he must sacrifice, to an uncertain prospect of tranquillity, every consideration of public liberty, science, reason, industry, and even his own independency. If he gives indulgence to several sects, which is the wiser maxim, he must preserve a very philosophical indifference to all of them, and carefully restrain the pretensions of the prevailing sect; otherwise he can expect nothing but endless disputes, quarrels, factions, persecutions, and civil commotions.

(Reference Hume2007: 181)

Hume brings an important nuance to the discussion by drawing attention to the fact that constraints must be placed on the “pretensions of the prevailing sect.” Without such constraints, Hume contends, the predominant religion will seek to control other religions. Thus Hume and Smith are suggesting that religions must be protected from both the state and one another.

Iran demonstrates a major finding of the religious economy tradition: Muslim nations are often much more restrictive than other nations toward minority faiths (Reference Grim and FinkeGrim and Finke 2011; Reference Finke and MartinFinke and Martin 2014; Reference FoxFox 2016). The confluence of political and religious power structures in Iran that has evolved over the decades since the Revolution clearly illustrates findings from the religious economy literature concerning what happens when a dominant religion is overtaken by or forms an alliance with the political structure of the society (Reference Stark and FinkeStark and Finke 2000; Reference FinkeFinke 2013; Reference Finke and MartinFinke and Martin 2014; Reference Mataic and FinkeMataic and Finke 2019). In part this occurs because the authoritarian leadership of Iran, in collaboration with the national intelligence–security apparatus, oversees judges and local officials, among others, to ensure that the preferred view of Islam is implemented to the detriment of NRMs and older minority faiths that have existed for longer periods of time in Iran.

Although the minority religious and spiritual groups that are threatened and discriminated against so forcefully are quite small, Iranian authorities view them as a threat to the national government and the Islamic culture of Iran because of their origins, cultural proximity to the mainstream, and attractiveness to certain segments of the population. Also, these newer groups can be used as “convenient scapegoats” to help build political support. When one religion is closely associated with the state, this makes the state more likely to discriminate against other religions. For the state, this alliance with the dominant religion can provide increased popular support and legitimation from religious people and institutions, as well as increased loyalty from both. For the dominant religion, the alliance gives it a competitive advantage over other religious and cultural groups by providing more resources from the state and formal support for its institutions, as well as imposing restrictions on religious competitors. As a result, the religious economy model suggests that “government favoritism” – subsidies, privileges, support, or favorable sanctions furnished by the state for one or a select group of religions – will result in fewer resources for others and is a strong predictor of restrictions on religious freedom. This explanation also helps us understand compliance gaps between states’ promises and practices. When the state and the dominant religion ally, the state will be under increased pressure to restrict the activities of the alternative religions deemed as unwanted religious competitors. Consequently, the Iranian religiopolitical establishment has decided that those alternatives to official Islam must be suppressed, and the entire institutional structure of the state (especially the mass media and the judiciary) seems devoted to this aim. Part of the motivation of the government to exert total control over minority religious groups and noninstitutionalized spiritualities may derive from growing disquiet among some segments of the populace and the developing interest in alternative forms of religion and spirituality discussed earlier in this Element. But it seems clear that the major thrust is simply to exert control over every aspect of life in Iran by a thoroughly authoritarian government. Thus our detailed case study of Iran offers additional support for the major findings of other researchers studying similar regimes in the region and elsewhere.

Structural Contradictions and “Making Law”

From the sociology of law perspective, William Chambliss’s theory of “structural contradictions” is quite applicable to the situation of Iran concerning religion and religiosity-related statutory developments. Chambliss’s groundbreaking theorizing (Reference Chambliss1979a, Reference Chambliss and Spitzer1979b, Reference Chambliss, Chambliss and Zatz1993; Reference Chambliss and SeidmanChambliss and Seidman 1982) is concentrated on the dialectic processes whereby law and social policy develop. For him, the vocabulary, theory, and methodology suitable for the study of law and society should begin not with vast impersonal forces sweeping across empty heads and determining human action, but with thinking, choosing, and creating human beings. Society is a collection of human beings, not an entity with its own needs, force, and consciousness. It consists of people acting together in repetitive patterns shaped but not determined by the constraints of a particular historical period. Chambliss’s theory emphasizes human agency and decries mechanistic and reifying theories that denigrate human volition and do not take human decision-making into account. He proposes a theory that focuses on how people in positions to influence and create law try to resolve the dilemmasFootnote ⁷⁹ and conflicts arising from the existence of contradictions (Reference ChamblissChambliss 1988: 130).Footnote ⁸⁰ Chambliss sees lawmaking as “a process aimed at the resolution of contradictions, conflicts, and dilemmas that are historically grounded in time and space and inherent in the structure of a particular political, economic, and social structure” (Reference Chambliss, Chambliss and ZatzChambliss 1993: 9).

To summarize Chambliss’s theoretical approach, contradictions result in visible and concrete conflicts between interest groups. Dealing with those conflicts produces dilemmas for the state to resolve. The state apparatus must decide which interests to defend or what kind of compromise to work out between competing interests. Not all conflicts can be addressed at the same time, and the very process of containing one conflict often causes others to emerge. Societal leadership’s attention must focus on the most acute conflicts, those causing or likely soon to cause tears in the social fabric. If such conflicts are ignored, the legitimacy of the leadership and potentially of the larger political structure could be questioned. On the other hand, since no resolution can be perfect given the multiple forces confronting any given society, the dilemma often comes down to choosing the lesser evil (i.e., the least problematic resolution) and finding a means to reach that tentative resolution. How conflicts and dilemmas are constructed, portrayed, and resolved depends in large part on the hegemonic and alternative ideological orientations available and the relative salience of the various contradictions in evidence at that point in time.

Often the immediate response for resolving conflicts and dilemmas is to make changes in the legal domain, including especially creation of new laws. Laws, however, tend to respond to specific conflicts rather than addressing the contradictions that underline them. This is because “[t]he contradictions are too fundamental: to resolve the contradictions necessarily requires changing fundamentally the organizational form of political, economic, and social relations” (Reference ChamblissChambliss 1988: 304). Hence, solving basic contradictions is difficult and demands more than a legislature can do by itself. That being so, laws are only temporary resolutions because in the resolution of particular conflicts and dilemmas, assuming that the basic contradictions are not resolved, inevitably the seeds for further conflicts arise. Often, resolutions of particular conflicts and dilemmas not only create further conflicts but spotlight as well other contradictions that were heretofore less salient (see Figure 1). As a result, other new and reformulated contradictions are revealed, other conflicts arise, and a multitude of dilemmas and struggles are ensured, which must then be resolved. Long-term resolutions can come about only if and when the fundamental contradictions generating the conflicts are eradicated. Therefore, a continuous dialectic process of development of law and policy occurs in any society, and laws serve as temporary resolutions to conflicts and dilemmas that are rooted in structural contradictions.

Figure 1 Schematic diagram depicting the processes in Chambliss’s model.

Image used with permission.

The concept of “triggering events,” introduced by sociologists Galliher and colleagues (Reference Galliher and BasilickGalliher and Basilick 1979; Reference Galliher and CrossGalliher and Cross 1983), is an important addition to the basic structural contradictions theory that has been accepted by Chambliss. This notion refers to events that “actually lead to passage of a specific piece of legislation” (Reference McGarrell and CastellanoMcGarrell and Castellano 1993: 349).

Chambliss’s theory has been expanded and applied in many different settings since it was propounded. For example, it has recently been used to aid understanding of the development of anti-Shariʿa legislative efforts in the United States, Canada, and Australia (Reference Richardson, Possamai, Richardson and TurnerRichardson 2023) as well as the development of anticult legislation in France (Reference Adeliyan Tous, Richardson and TaghipourAdeliyan Tous, Richardson, and Taghipour 2023). The situation in Iran offers an opportunity to apply these ideas to a Muslim-majority nation that has undertaken major efforts to control potential competitors and promote its particular interpretation of Islam.