Pastor Yousef Nadarkhani was first arrested in 2009, after going to his children’s school to question the Muslim monopoly on children’s religious education. Charged with apostasy and sentenced to death the following year, he was acquitted in 2012. Subsequent arrests and prison sentences followed: later in 2012, in 2016, and after a violent raid on his home in 2018. These arrests show that for Pastor Nadarkhani, as for many others in Iran and the Middle East as whole, religion is a key factor not only in politics but also in the everyday lives of individuals, impacting their rights, opportunities and social status. Indeed, many of the current conflicts in the region have deep historical roots– most notably the ongoing Arab-Israeli conflict and the division between the Sunni and Shi’a branches of Islam.
Iran’s political elites frequently exploit religion to keep the religious factions to which they adhere in power, and to maximise their control of wealth and political influence. Religious texts and narratives of historical victimhood and grievances, and even conspiracy theories, are used to further this end. For example, Iranian nationalists resent the Arab conquest of Iran in the 7th century, and hold the Arabs responsible for the collapse of the Sassanid Empire and the destruction of the Persian civilisation. Under Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who ruled from 1941 to 1979, a Farsi national identity was emphasised. Since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, ethnic and religious minorities have been targeted by successive governments. They are viewed with suspicion and treated as a threat to a theocratic regime that promotes a strict interpretation of Shi’a Islam. The Twelver Jaafari School of Islam is the official religion, and the constitutional theocracy systematically discriminates against its citizens on the basis of religion and ethnicity. National security charges are often levelled at Christians.
Nationalism incompatible with Islam?
Most Islamic scholars view the idea of nationalism as contradictory to the concept of Umma, a term referring to a united Islamic nation in which all Muslims are equal regardless of their ethnic origins. The leader of the Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, described nationalism as ‘the source of miseries of the Muslims’, saying that it is ‘propagated by the agents of imperialism, and it places the Iranian nation up against other Muslim nations. The plan of the great powers and their affiliates in the Muslim countries is to separate and divide the various strata of Muslims, whom God has declared brothers, under the guise of Kurd, Arab, Turk, and Persian nations, and even make them regard themselves as enemies of one another. This is against the path of Islam and the Qur’an.’
After the Arab Spring, a need for reforms
Following the Arab Spring, the debate on whether or not Islam is compatible with human rights forced many governments in the region to introduce important reforms, particularly in Egypt and Saudi Arabia. However, there remains an urgent need for radical reforms, especially in the fields of freedom of religion or belief and women’s rights. Iran in particular has shown a pattern of ongoing marginalisation and criminalisation of religious minorities. In a region where dictatorship, sectarianism and sectarian politics are often the main contributors to conflict and violence, plans to democratise and empower human rights frameworks in the Middle East will take time, but are the only lasting way forward for this troubled region.