Vala Saraei

Freedom of religion mentioned in Article 18 of Universal Declaration of Human Rights, is one of the most fundamental cornerstones of modern human civilization, which Western civilizations, through a transition from a sinister and dark history, have finally reached and are working to consolidate. Verse 256 of Surat Al-Baqarah is the most important verse that Muslims cite to prove their support for freedom of religion:

“Lā ’ikrāha fi al-dīn”: “There shall be no compulsion in the religion”

For a person who is not very familiar with the whole book of the Qur'an and the religious structure of Islam, the appearance of this verse is very deceptive; Especially for someone who is not familiar with Arabic grammar; A Play with words that is manipulatively done by modern Islamic commentators to cover up the anti-human nature of the Qur'an. 

In this context, several points should be considered:

A) The first point is the function of “al-” in al-dīn. “al-”, is the definite article in the Arabic language; A particle whose function is to render the noun on which it is prefixed definite. For example, the word kitāb (book) can be made definite by prefixing it with al-, resulting in al-kitāb (the book). Consequently, al- is typically translated as "the" in English. This shows that when this verse speaks of religion, it does not mean religion in the general sense, but refers to a specific religion. Now the next question is which is this particular religion or al-dīn?

Surat Ali ‘Imran, Verse 19: “Indeed, the religion in the sight of Allah is Islām”. This verse clearly shows that “al-dīn” is Islam. There are many religions, but “the religion” is Islam and just Islam. So the real meaning of first verse is: “There shall be no compulsion in Islam (= the religion).”

B) The second important point is to use the word “in” (fi). Understanding this is very important to know that this verse is addressed to Muslims, not all human beings. In this verse, it is said that there is no compulsion “in Islam”. That is, when you enter the religion (Islam), there is no compulsion for you within the realm of this religion. More precisely, this noncompulsion is intra-Islamic, not extra-Islamic; when you enter Islam, there is no compulsion for you from then on.

C) This perception is very important, because the Qur'an elsewhere clarifies the duty of Islam and Muslims to the followers of other religions, with a dual division into infidels with books and infidels without books. Surat At-Tawbah, Verse 29:

“Kill those who do not believe in Allah or in the Last Day and who do not consider unlawful what Allah and His Messenger have made unlawful and who do not adopt the religion of truth (Islām). From those who were given the Books, until they give the jizyah (Islamic Tax) willingly while they are humbled.

Based on the verse, if we are talking about the infidels of the Book (Jews, Christians and perhaps Zoroastrians), they face the three possibilities of death, converting to Islam, and paying Jizyah. Paying Jizyah means that the rank of infidels becomes the people of Dhimma. Dhimmis are infidels who won’t be killed if they pay their Jizyah (Islamic Tax). But if we are talking about the infidels who are not the People of the Book (for example the Hindus, the Buddhists, the Sikhists, the agnostics and the atheists), they will lose one of those three choices, and that is to pay Jizyah. This means that these people must either accept Islam or die. 

The important outcome of this analysis is that in Qur'anic Islam, there is no possibility of reconciliation and acceptance between Muslims and non-Muslims, and in the event of tension, the modern Muslim is at a crossroads between accepting modern Tolerance and fidelity to the Qur'anic essence of Islam. 

When examining any case, the exceptions are always the most attractive, and Iran is an attractive exception in terms of hijab. Iran is the only country in the world that has experienced both the law of compulsory hijab and the law banning hijab in the last hundred years. An Iranian woman who was forced to remove her hijab, 43 years later saw that her daughter and grandchildren were forced to wear it.

In January 1936, Reza Shah Pahlavi issued a decree banning Iranian women from wearing any kind of veil anywhere outside their homes. When I was a child and my grandmother was still alive, she told me a memory from her mother. My great-grandmother had told her that at the time of Reza Shah's ban on hijab, there was a beautiful young girl living in their neighborhood who was about to get married. At that time, only public baths were available, and this girl who did not want to leave the house without hijab, had to go up the ladder to the roof of the house, to move from one roof to another to reach the public bath that was several houses away. One of these days she fell from one of the rooftops; she became paralyzed from the waist and no one married her for the rest of her life. In ancient Persian customary language, it was said that this girl became “Siah Bakht (= black fortune)” which means misfortunate; but there was no misfortune at all. This girl and thousands of other women and girls became victims to the oppression of a dictator named Reza Shah Pahlavi. 

In the book Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Paulo Freire said that after liberation from oppression, the oppressed people who are not educated, will replace the previous oppressors and reproduce violence; But this time in their own way.

After the 1979 revolution, a generation that had inherited the historical experience of the law banning the hijab from its mothers and grandmothers, this time forcibly imposed the hijab on all Iranian women. In the early days of the revolution, when religious extremists saw a woman with a couple of visible hair strands on a street, they plunged thumbtack into her forehead and beat her. A violent cycle fuelled by two dictators, Reza Shah Pahlavi and Ayatollah Khomeini, who burned several generations in the fire of religious strife. Dictators who, by exploiting the religious or nationalist sentiments of the commonality, incited them to violence and based the legitimacy of their oppressive laws on collective irrational anger.

The scariest part of this cycle of violence and repression is its longevity. During the recent protests in Iran, people praised Reza Shah with the slogan "Reza Shah, Rest in Peace"; a celebration by a generation that seems to have forgotten its entire history and is imprisoned in a cycle of recurrence of violence.

Recent events in Iran show that the majority of Iranians still do not have a clear understanding of the rule of law and the relationship between law and religion, and can only seek refuge from one dictator to another. But the main question will be: tomorrow, which beautiful young girl is going to be “Siah Bakht”? 

The term Islamophobia is fundamentally complex and ambiguous, as it is inherently contradictory. First of all, it is better to mention American Psychiatric Association's definition of phobia: “A phobia is a type of anxiety disorder defined by a persistent and excessive fear of an object or situation.” Fear is an institutional element in the nature of phobia. Undoubtedly, words such as Islamophobia, homophobia, etc. do not have a precise definition among the commonalty, and this lack of a precise definition is not inherently reprehensible because in May 2019 even the British Government failed to adopt a concrete definition for Islamophobia.

But why does such a trend have negative consequences, in relation to the word Islamophobia? This word, in its essence and function, suffers from a “reduction fallacy”. This fallacy is important in two dimensions; the first is the word phobia itself and the second is the relationship between phobia and Islam: - Fear is not inherently evil or good like any other emotion. I am very ‘happy’ with Atletico Madrid winning the championship, while my mother still does not know the exact definition of offside. Our emotions have a deep personal function, and as long as they are not externally harmful, they cannot be precisely defined or allowed to be controlled by the legislature. It is an inner feeling that I personally experience anxiety and fear in the first encounter with a Muslim. A feeling that has been formed based on accumulated personal experience and cannot be avoided. Undoubtedly, the legislature is allowed and even morally obliged not to allow me to harm a Muslim based on this personal feeling and endanger his or her wellbeing, but only the government in George Orwell's 1984 book is allowed to command me not to be afraid of a person or a group of people! Trying to channel and control people's emotions is one of the first steps in destroying the Anglo-American tradition on which the modern world is built.

When it comes to Islamophobia, the stereotype of a Muslim often comes to mind: men in long white or black robes, with not trimmed long beards, and women in all-black burqas covering their whole bodies. When it comes to Islamophobia, some people think that a Westerner, because he is unfamiliar with such a style of dress, and because of this presupposition that he is essentially racist and oppressor, resists an unfamiliar culture and religion. He is slow and unable to accept and respect it, because he is suffering from a moral disease called Islamophobia; while who intellectually resists against Islam is not Islamophobic, but anti-Islam.

By using the word Islamophobia, a concept is implicitly conveyed that due to the existence of this Islamic stereotype, people are subjectively and mentally afraid of Islam, and this fear is rooted in not knowing it and being alien to Muslims. While the word anti-Islam, due to its objectivity, indicates that a person with knowledge of Islam and its epistemological and ontological dimensions, has come to the conclusion that instead of supporting or being neutral to Islam, choose the opposite position.

Another benefit of using words correctly is that the dividing line between the critique of Islam and Islamists is more accurately drawn with discrimination against Muslims, and as a result, although the two sides are not friendsome, they are at least able to interact with each other.

It is about 12:30 PM in Iran. You rush into a bank, struggling to find a place to park your car. You dry the sweat on your forehead and go to the bank clerk's counter. A bank transaction that, if not completed within the next 15 minutes, could result in you losing half of your retirement savings. When you say the first few words to the bank clerk, he interrupts and says: “Sir, don't you see it is the time for the prayer?! Go and come back in another hour!!!” This is a repetitive story and a common experience for Iranians; Students in universities administration departments, customers in banks and patients in hospitals. But by what mechanism has the law that disrupts the lives of a large part of the citizens emerged?

The new poll by the Group for Analyzing and Measuring Attitudes in Iran (GAMAAN), a non-profit institute in the Netherlands shows that while 99.4% of the Iranian population are born Muslim, but 60% of them do not say their daily prayers. The percentage of those who pray in the big cities, where public services and working hours are more important, is even lower than the national average of 40%. 

Nassim Nicholas Taleb, in his book called Skin in the Game, talks about the concept of Minority rules. He believes that a "stubborn minority" can impose its will on the relatively disinterested majority. An example can be given to better understand this issue. In Tehran, the capital and one of the most secular cities in Iran, it can be assumed that one out of every five people does daily prayer. This person is in the minority, but since he is a stubborn minority, the majority who does not pray could be forced to stop working twice a day, during the noon praying time and the sunset praying time for about an hour.

It is clear to everyone that one hour is too long to pray. Also, many people who have experience working in the public sector know that this period of time is not spent by people praying, and instead, employees eat lunch or take a nap at this period. On top of all this, a one-hour shutdown of activities in the middle of the day, such as a sudden brake, has a detrimental effect on employees' work efficiency on a couple of hours before and after prayer hour.

In his book, as an example, Taleb discusses the impact of this concept on the hosts’ desires to serve vegan food at parties whose guests' eating diets are unknown. This mechanism occurs because, for example, a vegan person eats only vegan food, but a non-vegan person eats any food, whether vegan or non-vegan. So you, as the host, satisfy both groups by serving vegan food due to the lack of awareness of your guests' diet. This increases the tendency to implicitly include minorities in social calculations on a large scale. But the very important point is that the use of public services is logically neither similar to a private party nor to veganism. Here, a stubborn minority imposes its will on the majority of society, whether they pray or not, by exerting pressure through the law.  

It has been almost six years since Adam Dinham, a professor of faith and public policy at Goldsmith’s University in London suggested that employees who share a kitchen should not put sausage rolls in the microwave or refrigerates pork because it is shared with people whose beliefs prohibit them from eating pork. A statement that sounded more like insanity on ‘The Independent’ more than half a decade ago now seems reasonable to some, in line with respect for personal beliefs. In this post, the concept of Reverse discrimination which had been introduced in 70s will be discussed.

For easier acceptance and integration of minorities in society, it is very important to pay attention to a point, which I will examine using an example:

It is very important for Muslims who travel by air that their In-flight Meal be Halal. Today, in the vast majority of the world's airlines, Halal food option is provided for passengers. But the important point is that in all airlines that offer this option, even the largest airlines such as Delta Air, American Airlines and Lufthansa, passengers to use Halal food must inform the airline at least 24 hours in advance. But why not all airlines serve only Halal foods and drinks to avoid additional hassle? Because in the absence of such a distinction, it causes the formation of what is called a reverse discrimination. Reverse discrimination is a term for discrimination against members of a dominant or majority group, in favour of members of a minority or historically disadvantaged group.

The mechanism in the example above works is to force all those who are not interested in Halal food to eat it, regardless of what they want. In this regard, the argument “why food on the flight is non-Halal by default, but the need for Halal food must be announced to the airline by the passenger” is fallacy.

Airlines, according to the rules and regulations in the field of aviation industry, try to expand their umbrella and provide appropriate services to minority groups, first of all, to attract a wider range of people as customers to their businesses, Secondly, improve their reputation with ethical slogans, and, as a last resort, fulfil their moral responsibility toward minorities, or at least pretend to do so.

But the important point is that just as it is important to provide Muslims with a proper service such as Halal food, it is important not to deprive other groups of the pleasure of eating pork or drinking whiskey during an air flight. 

When we talk about the suppression of religious freedom in Iran, the image presented to contemporary modern people in Western societies is often fundamentally different from the reality lived in Western secular country. When it comes to religious repression, a confusing perception is the starting point for many misunderstandings. The common misconception is that in theocratic premodern nation-states like Pakistan, Afghanistan and Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI), in the absence of the rule of law, a person or group of people has formed a totalitarian mechanism based on an ideology to suppress religious minorities. This image which is more like George Orwell's 1984 novel or “V for Vendetta” movie directed by James McTeigue makes it harder for us to understand the depth of catastrophe. The farther we go from the objective reality in such societies, the more we lose the possibility of correct interpretation, and as a result of not understanding the problem accurately, we move away from moving towards an efficient solution. In the Iranian legal system, the method of suppressing religious minorities is embedded in a completely legal way, while in some other sources of this legal system, emphasis is placed on respect for individual freedoms and the freedom of individuals to perform religious acts. This hypocritical dichotomy in the legal texts allows a corrupt and inhumane regime like IRI to suppress and kill religious minorities in a completely legal way, and at the same time, it can rely on a number of hand-picked rules among the legal sources, to justify itself in the international community. The Constitution of IRI states that "the investigation of individuals' beliefs is forbidden" and that "no one may be molested or taken to task simply for holding a certain belief." Also IRI always insists that Iran’s Penal Code has no provisions criminalizing apostasy. But this silence of the law against the criminalisation of apostasy seems pleasant only to someone who has never practised in the Iranian legal system and has no understanding of other statutes. Article 214 of Iran’s Criminal Procedure Code states: “...The court is obliged to find the verdict of each case in the written laws and if there is no law in the case, it will issue the verdict based on valid Fiqh sources or valid Fatwas, and the courts cannot refuse to handle complaints and lawsuits and issue a verdict by the excuse of silence or defect or conciseness or conflict or ambiguity of written laws”. The decisive fatwa of all Islamic scholars, especially Shia’s, is clear to anyone with a minimal knowledge of Shari'a system; execution of Muslim-born apostate. Legalizing the suppression of religious minorities and autonomous criminalisation of religious conversion in the Iranian legal system is a clear example of the unholy union of religion and law that has emerged objectively in IRI.