Religions of Iran

Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, was formerly known internationally as Persia until 1935. The Iranian Revolution, also known as the Islamic Revolution, started in January 1978 with the first major demonstrations against Shah Pahlavi. The Shah fled the country in January 1979 and Ayatollah Khomeini returned from exile to Tehran.

Iran officially became an Islamic Republic April 1st, 1979 when Iranians overwhelmingly approved a national referendum to do so. In December 1979, the country approved a theocratic constitution, whereby Khomeini became Supreme Leader of the country.

Although he remains aloof from the competition of politics, the most powerful political office in the Islamic Republic is that of the Supreme Leader, of which there have been two: the founder of the Republic, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, and his sucessor, Ali Khamenei.

Iran is predominently Shia, or Shi'ite, as opposed to Sunni.
Sunni Muslims (about 8% of the population - mainly among the Kurds of the north-west, the Balochis of the south-east, and the Turkmens in the north-east), a minority of Arabs (mainly in Hormozgan Province) - are the largest religious minority in Iran. No official statistics are available for Sufi groups, but there are reports estimating their population between two and five million.

Sufism is the mystical aspect of Islam. Adherents to these beliefs are known as sufis or dervishes.
While all Muslims believe they are on the pathway to God and will become close to God in Paradise - after death and the "Final Judgment" - Sufis also believe it is possible to draw closer to God and more fully embrace the Divine Presence in this life.

The chief aim of all Sufis is to seek the pleasing of God by working to restore within themselves the primordial state of fitra, described in the Qur'an and similar to the concept of Buddha nature. In this state nothing one does defies God, and all is undertaken by the single motivation of love of God. A secondary consequence of this is that the seeker may be led to abandon all notions of dualism or multiplicity, including a conception of an individual self, and to realize the Divine Unity.

According to a 2006 BBC article, quote "No official statistics are available, but Heshmatollah Riazi, a former professor of philosophy and theology in Iran, believes two to five million Iranians practice Sufism today - compared to only about 100,000 before Iran's Islamic Revolution of 1979."

The largest non-Muslim minority in Iran is the Bahá'ís. There were an estimated 350,000 Bahá'ís in Iran in 1986. The Bahá'ís are scattered in small communities throughout Iran with a heavy concentration in Tehran.

Most Bahá'ís are urban, but there are some Bahá'í villages, especially in Fars and Mazandaran. The majority of Bahá'ís are Persians, but there is a significant minority of Azarbaijani Bahá'ís, and there are even a few among the Kurds.

The Bahá'í Faith originated in Iran during the 1840s as a messianic movement out of Shia Islam.

Judaism is one of the oldest religions practiced in Iran, dating back to the late biblical times. The biblical books of Isaiah, Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah, Chronicles, and Esther contain references to the life and experiences of Jews in Persia.

Iran supports by far the largest Jewish population of any Muslim country, with an estimated 20,000 to 30,000 living there. (down from an estimated 75,000-80,000 prior to the Islamic Revolution of 1979.)
.According to The world Jewish Library, most Jews in Iran live in Tehran, Isfahan (3,000), and Shiraz. BBC reported Yazd is home to ten Jewish families, six of them related by marriage, however some estimate the number is much higher. Historically, Jews maintained a presence in many more Iranian cities.

Today, the largest groups of Persian Jews are found in Israel, which in 1993 was home to 75,000, including second-generation Israelis, and the United States, which is home to a community of some 45,000, first-generation only - especially in the Los Angeles area and Great Neck, New York.

Zoroastrians have a long history in Iran, being the oldest religious community of that nation to survive to the present-day. Prior to the Muslim Arab invasion of Persia (Iran), Zoroastrianism was the primary religion of the Persian people. Zoroastrians mainly are ethnic Persians and are concentrated in the cities of Tehran, Kerman, and Yazd.

The Islamic Republic government estimates the number of Zoroastrian is 35,000, Zoroastrian groups in Iran say their number is approximately 60,000. According to wikipedia, the Zoroastrian community in Iran is estimated to number some 22,000 -35,000, half the size of that in existence before the 1979 Islamic revolution

Since the fall of the Sassanid Zoroastrian empire by the Arab conquest of Persia, Zoroastrians in Iran have faced much religious discrimination including forced conversions, harassments, as well as being identified as najis and impure to Muslims, making them unfit to live alongside Muslims therefore forcing them to evacuate from cities and face major sanctions in all senses

Christianity in Iran has a long history, dating back to the early years of the faith. It has always been a minority religion, overshadowed by the majority state religions-Zoroastrianism in the past, and Shia Islam today.

Christians of Iran have played a significant part in the history of Christian mission. As of 2004, there were approximately 300,000 Christians, the majority of whom are ethnic Armenians and Assyro-Chaldeans.

The small protestant Christian minority in Iran have been subject to Islamic "government suspicion and hostility" according to Human Rights Watch at least in part because of their "readiness to accept and even seek out Muslim converts" as well as their Western origins. In the 1990s, two Muslim converts to Christianity who had become ministers were sentenced to death for apostasy and other charges.

A number of Christian denominations are represented in Iran. Many members of the larger, older churches belong to ethnic groups with their own distinctive culture and language. The members of the newer, smaller churches are drawn both from the traditionally Christian ethnic minorities and to an increasingly larger degree converts from non-Christian background.

The main Christian churches are:

* Armenian Apostolic Church of Iran (about 110,000-300,000 adherents)
* Assyrian Church of the East of Iran (about 11,000 adherents),
* Chaldean Catholic Church of Iran (about 7,000 adherents),
* various Protestant denominations, most important of which are:
~ Presbyterian, including the Assyrian Evangelical Church
~Jama'at-e Rabbani (the Iranian Assemblies of God churches)
~ the Anglican Church of Iran.

All statistical information is from church-based sources and reflects the situation in the year 2000 (Christians formed 0.2% of the total Iranian population in 2000).

According to the same sources there are between 7,000 and 15,000 members and adherents of the various Protestant and Evangelical churches in Iran, though these numbers are difficult to verify under the current political circumstances.

The International Religious Freedom Report 2004 by the U.S. State Department quotes a somewhat higher total number of 300,000 Christians in Iran, without giving separate numbers for different denominations.

Iranian government sources are sometimes quoted as giving a total of as many as 300,000 Christians in Iran. At present there are 73 registered churches in Iran.

The famous author/poet Kahlil Gibran, pictured here, while not an Iranian, was a Maronite Christian,

Out of Iran's population of 68,017,860, there are 68,017 recorded Hindus, making them 0.1% of the total population (The percentage of Hindu population of Iran was taken from the United States Department of State's International Religious Freedom Report 2004).
Hinduism is the fastest growing religion in Iran, spurred mainly by interest in New Age gurus like Sri Sri Ravi Shankar and Mahesh Yogi.