Iran: Where Have All The Moslems Gone
"September 15, 2020:
Iran is not as religious, or Islamic, as its Shia Moslem religious dictatorship likes to think. To determine the true religious feelings of Iranians GAMAAN (Group for Analyzing and Measuring Attitudes in Iran) used its experience with online anonymous surveys to determine just how religious Iranians are and how many still consider themselves Moslems. That has been something of a mystery because for over two years there have been larger and larger anti-government protests. One surprising feature of these protests is the growing number of Iranians hostile to Islam and willing to be public about. Iranians are reluctant to tell strangers how they feel about religion but the word on the street was that most Iranians have quietly abandoned Islam. The recent GAMAAN survey, supervised by expatriate Iranians, contacted a number of online groups inside Iran and convinced them to participate in an anonymous survey of religious beliefs. GAMAAN assembled 400,000 online participants, representing an accurate cross-section of Iranians in Iran, and conducted the survey. The results were a shock, at least to the government. While the government insists that 99 percent of Iranians are Moslem, the survey found that only 40 percent were. Breaking that down further 32 percent of Iranians are Shia, five percent Sunni and three percent Sufi (a more mellow Islam hated by Islamic extremists). Other religious preferences included 8.8 percent atheists, 5.8 percent agnostic 2.7 percent humanist and seven percent non-denominational “spiritualists.” Not surprisingly eight percent were Zoroastrian, a native Iranian religion older that Judaism and eliminated in the 7 th century by invading Islamic armies. Since then a small number of Iranians continued to practice Zoroastrianism in secret inside Iran and openly outside of Iran. Many Zoroastrianism customs are still practiced inside Iran, much to the dismay of some Islamic clerics. Efforts to suppress these ancient customs have failed for over a thousand years. Now Iranians are openly (in crowds) calling for the revival of this ancient monotheistic (one god) religion as more Iranians seek a more humane alternative to Islam.
Another 1.5 percent said they were Christian, 0.1 percent Jewish, 0.5 percent Bahai, 3.3 percent “other” and 22.2 percent declared they had no religious beliefs at all. Overall 78 percent of Iranians believed in God while 90 percent of Iranians admitted to growing up in or still practicing some religion. A third of Iranians admitted they regularly consume alcoholic beverages, something forbidden to Moslems. Less than 40 percent observed the daily schedule of Moslem prayers and about the same percentage observed the fast during the holy month of Ramadan. The rest would claim an illness and this was widely tolerated. Trying to enforce the fast on that many Iranians was seen as an impossible task. Even so 68 percent believed that religious practices should not have the rule of law and 72 percent opposed the law or custom mandating that women wear hijab (hair covering) outdoors.
There is still a large minority of Moslems, most of them Shia. It is from this population that the IRGC (Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps) recruit its personnel and this force of about 220,000, plus twice as many “Basj” volunteer civilian “fighters” continues to control Iran by force. That control is weakening and the government is again executing prominent protestors on false charges. The most recent example was a popular athlete and prominent critic of the government. The government threatens more such executions unless the protests stop. The threats began with violent attacks on protestors by IRGC and Basj personnel. This was followed by using lethal force and arrests. Now its executions of prominent protestors. As the crackdowns escalate and the economy declines the protests persists."
https://strategypage.com/qnd/iran/articles/20200915.aspx
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