Hatred: Islam's War on Christianity by Michael Coren

Author:Michael Coren
Language: eng
Format: mobi
ISBN: 9780771023859
Publisher: McClelland & Stewart
Published: 2014-10-21T00:00:00+00:00

IRAN

IRAN IS THE ONLY MAJOR Shi’ite Muslim power in the world, and while the current regime boasts of a universal Islamic brotherhood, the Iranian people generally feel superior to Arabs and central Asian Muslims and are deeply suspicious of Turks. Still, this doesn’t prevent them from sharing with those peoples a dislike for and tendency to oppress and persecute Christians. The majority of the country’s population is Persian and possesses an ancient pre-Islamic culture; it embraced a secularism after the Second World War that inspired many in the greater Islamic world. The Shah ruled the country as a despot from 1941 until 1979, however, and had many internal and external enemies and critics. But in spite of this, Mohammad Rezâ Šâh Pahlavi did promote gender equality, religious tolerance, and an outreach to the West that was a surprising and welcome departure in the region. This overall policy included a tolerance for Iran’s Christian minority. He was replaced by the fundamentalism of Ayatollah Khomeini, and the government of the clerics established a brutal and oppressive theocracy, the intensity of which surprised even Sunni hardliners in the Arab world. It was inevitable that the Christian minority of around 250,000 with their 600 churches would be directly affected.

Around half of Iran’s Christians live in the capital, Teheran, and most of the rest in the country’s other larger cities. There are Assyrian and Armenian Christians in Iran with their own culture and language but also Chaldeans, Presbyterians, Pentecostals, and other smaller denominations. The experience of Iran’s Christians is complex and nuanced. While there is widespread discrimination and persecution, the government – powerful, extensive, and with numerous security agents and police officers – guarantees certain protections. Some Iraqi Christians fleeing Islamist massacres and sectarian brutality following the fall of Saddam Hussein actually found refuge in Iran. But this is no safe haven, and Christians tend to feel increased persecution when international Islam feels slighted or offended. Mobs take to the street, the religious police become more aggressive, and Christians suffer.

One of the most high-profile cases concerned Youcef Nadarkhani, an Iranian Christian pastor who was sentenced to death for the crime of “practising Christianity in Iran” in 2006. It is difficult to know if he was arrested for being a Christian minister or for apostasy – leaving Islam for another religion and for Christianity in particular – which is treated with absolute disdain in Iran. The government media spread the story that his religion was irrelevant and that he was in fact a violent criminal who had raped and stolen but there is no evidence that there is any truth in this whatsoever – such libel is common from the Iranian government. He was arrested again in 2009 after he refused to allow his children to be educated as Muslims in a state school, which was part of a new government educational policy. His wife was arrested shortly afterwards. The case meandered and was layered in distortion, with the Iranians somehow accusing “Zionist media” of making them appear intolerant.

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