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Iran’s census claims that 99.5% of the population are Muslim, a figure that hides the state’s active hostility toward irreligiosity, conversion and unrecognised religious minorities.
According to the 2020 Wave 7 World Values Survey, 96% of Iranians identify as Muslims.
GENEVA (22 August 2022) – UN experts* today called on Iranian authorities to stop persecution and harassment of religious minorities and end the use of religion to curtail the exercise of fundamental rights.
The vast majority of Iranians are Muslims of the Ithnā ʿAsharī, or Twelver, Shiʿi branch, which is the official state religion. The Kurds and Turkmen are predominantly Sunni Muslims, but Iran’s Arabs are both Sunni and Shiʿi.
GAMAAN's polls, which surveyed tens of thousands of Iranians inside the country in mid-2020 and early 2022, linked this to a decline in religiosity, with the "overwhelming majority" of Iranians no longer praying five times a day or saying they believe in wearing the hijab.
How Islam Rules in Iran questions prevailing assumptions about the Iranian theocracy by demonstrating that the Islamic Republic has deep and continuously evolving ideological and jurisprudential roots. In today’s Iran, the book argues, state-religion relations exhibit three key features.
The constitution defines the country as an Islamic republic and specifies Twelver Ja’afari Shia Islam as the official state religion. It states all laws and regulations must be based on “Islamic criteria” and an official interpretation of sharia.
