VZCZCXRO6102
PP RUEHBC RUEHDE RUEHKUK
DE RUEHDIR #0020/01 0951410
ZNY CCCCC ZZH
P R 051410Z APR 07
FM IRAN RPO DUBAI
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 0087
INFO RUCNIRA/IRAN COLLECTIVE
RUEHDIR/IRAN RPO DUBAI 0080
RUEAIIA/CIA WASHDC
RHEFDHP/DIA DHP-1 WASHINGTON DC
RHEHAAA/NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL WASHINGTON DC
RUEHDE/AMCONSUL DUBAI 0082

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 IRAN RPO DUBAI 000020 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
BERLIN FOR PAETZOLD, LONDON FOR GAYLE, BAKU FOR HAUGEN, 
PARIS FOR WALLER, BAGHDAD FOR GALBRAITH 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL:  4/5/2017 
TAGS: PGOV IR PHUM SOCI SCUL KISL KIRF
SUBJECT: RELIGIOSITY CONTINUES AMONG IRANIANS -- MODERN IRANIANS 
PROGRESSIVE, BUT NOT SECULAR 
 
RPO DUBAI 00000020  001.2 OF 003 
 
 
CLASSIFIED BY: Jillian Burns, Director, IRPO, DOS. 
REASON: 1.4 (b), (d) 
 
 
 
Religiosity Continues Among Iranians -- Modern Iranians 
Progressive, but not Secular 
 
1.(C) Summary:  In an unscientific survey of 10 Iranians 
regarding their attitudes toward religion seemed to indicate 
that, regardless of individual differences, they are connected 
to their religion.  However, the degree to which they practice 
their religion differs.  Several Iranian emigrants to the West 
seemed to be more secular than those still living in Iran and 
less tied to religious traditions.  According to an Iranian 
academic, youth in Iran today follow religion more on account of 
tradition, but he claimed they are generally not deeply 
spiritual.  He emphasized that Iranians have a high regard for 
education, which gives them a moderate religious identity, and 
that more educated people seem to have less trust in mosques. 
One Iranian businessman opined that Shiite Islam is more open to 
reform, inferring that in his view, Iran has potential for 
change and becoming a modern democracy.  Contacts frequently 
assert that Iran will never become a secular society.  Religion 
runs deep, despite the disillusion of many with clerical rule, 
and the disillusion of some clerics with velayat-e faqih.  End 
summary. 
 
Modern Tehranis connected to religion 
------------------------------------- 
 
2.(C) According to informal, separate discussions with some 10 
different Iranian residents of Tehran passing through Dubai, 
Iranians consider religion important in life and are deep down 
religious.  This group of relatively affluent professionals from 
Tehran included businessmen, a family of wealthy international 
jewelers, a UK-educated retired military nurse, a lawyer, a 
retired teacher, a publisher, a young lady photojournalist, and 
an academic/motivational speaker.  While in no way a 
scientifically representative sample of the Iranian population, 
their views of religiosity in Iran are noteworthy. 
 
3.(C) While some considered themselves  Muslim first and others 
Iranian first, all of these interlocutors said they are 
religious and not  secular.  The nurse for example, surprised 
her accompanying Iranian-American friend when she said that even 
today in Iran, many people follow the mullahs, and that back in 
the day, the public loved Ayatollah Khomeini.  Several noted 
that religious practice in Iran is not forced, and that people 
follow religious traditions of their own volition.  While they 
did not want religion to be part of all aspects of their 
everyday lives, they said that the majority of Iranians believe 
in a protector to save them.  They all seemed respectful of 
other religions and of their non-Muslim countrymen, considering 
them harmless. 
 
Religious participation sporadic 
-------------------------------- 
 
4.(C) According to the nurse, all Muslims observe important 
holidays like Ashura, Iran's most significant Islamic holiday. 
Many attend mourning rituals, she said, and cry from the bottoms 
of their hearts in commemoration of Imam Hussein's martyrdom 12 
centuries ago.  They claimed virtually every family observes the 
holy month of Moharam.  (Note:  The ninth and tenth days of 
Moharam are national holidays in remembrance of the martyrdom of 
Imam Hussein at the battle of Karbala, the grandson of Prophet 
Mohammad, son of Ali and his daughter Fatima.  Endnote) 
Prominent families donate significant amounts of money and food 
to their mosques during this month.  For example the Iranian 
jeweler family, an educated and modern business family with 
regular travels to the West, said they normally sponsors a group 
of about 2000 Imam Hussein mourners in Tehran.  They slaughter 
about 100 cows and lambs, hire cooks and run kitchens to feed 
lunch and dinner to their devout group of men or "dasteh" for 
the first 13 days of Moharam.  One Iranian, resident in Dubai, 
said her family in Dubai usually slaughters a cow for Moharam 
and gives the meat away to the poor.   She explained that people 
believe disregarding Moharam is a bad omen that could bring 
misfortune.  On the tenth day, dressed in black, the group 
proceeds to the streets of Tehran, and the police block roads 
for their processions.  According to the Iranian religious 
scholar and several others, occasionally even non-Muslim 
Iranians like Armenians join the public grieving processions. 
 
 
RPO DUBAI 00000020  002.2 OF 003 
 
 
5.(C) On the other hand, the group indicated that not many 
Tehranis attend Friday prayer services and that many 
obligations, such as fasting or daily prayers, are largely 
ignored.  They said that people in Tehran are busy. 
Furthermore, they said that regular prayers are not really a 
part of their culture.  Of the two major Islamic holidays, Eid 
al-Fitr, the feast ending Ramadan fasting, is basically 
celebrated by those who observe fasting, and Eid al-Adha, the 
feast of sacrifice after pilgrimage to Mecca, is observed only 
by families of pilgrims. 
 
Western emigrants less religious 
-------------------------------- 
 
6.(C) In contrast to the Tehranis, several Iranians who have 
been living in the West considered themselves Iranian before 
Muslim.  While they may or may not be representative of Iranian 
expats in the West as a whole, this group focused more on 
overall spirituality than the practice of Islam.  They asserted 
that Iranians abroad are probably among the least religious 
people who have emigrated from an Islamic county.  They referred 
to the Shia rituals as ancient relics, superstitions, and said 
they are proud that Islamic customs are not practiced in their 
homes.  In their view, their nation of Iran is held hostage by 
mullahs.  One person from this group was going out drinking with 
his friends on the eve of Ashura. 
 
7.(C) IRPO has  not specifically examined religiosity among the 
Iranians in Dubai, but we think they fall in a broad range.  The 
Iranian mosque in Dubai, on the eve of Ashura, was overflowing 
with young and old Iranians.  The Iranian jeweler family, while 
held up for their visas in Dubai, catered food for the Iranian 
mosque in Dubai on this evening. 
 
Religiosity versus spirituality 
------------------------------- 
 
8.(C) An academic/motivational speaker who lives in Tehran 
asserted that although Iranians may appear religious in public, 
many have a superficial sense of religion.  He complained that 
Iranians in general do not read much or think analytically.  On 
the other hand, he said Iranians generally have a high regard 
for advanced education and advised the US to converse and 
consult with Iranian intellectuals.  He claimed that the 
importance that Iranians put on education may account for the 
public's overall moderate religious identity and openness toward 
women's education; today about 60 percent of those entering 
college in Iran are women.  He said that educated Iranians have 
less trust in mosques. 
 
9.(C) The academic claimed that Iran is experiencing a cultural 
transition accompanied by greater social openness and a momentum 
towards change.  People can do and say things they could not ten 
or fifteen years ago.  Some mistrust the government, some look 
at Islam as tyranny, and overall there has been a drift away 
from strict Islam.  He said there were only a small group of 
people left in Iran that maintained the fundamentalist religious 
fervor of the early days of the revolution, not counting 
government workers who are required to display a degree of 
religious devotion.  He said that a new kind of religiosity has 
emerged in Iran, where people remain deeply religious but are 
anti-clerical and deeply suspicious of any privileges associated 
with the religious class.  Young people are against that kind of 
Islam, he said, and some are not interested in the ritualistic 
form of Islam supported by the Iranian government.  As an 
example of his assertion that clerics' involvement in politics 
had polluted their standing in society, he said that today 
turbaned and non-turbaned candidates have to plead in the same 
way for people's votes.  According to the academic, mystical 
works by eastern and western authors are becoming popular in 
Iran. 
 
Shia Islam: capacity to evolve 
------------------------------ 
 
10.(C) According to the scholar, Iran's new generation of 
clerics is somewhat moderate and open. They often study religion 
from anthropological, legal, historical, and other standpoints, 
and the scholar opined that this interdisciplinary perspective 
may inspire interesting changes in the future.  According to 
Iranian religious scholars, Shiites believe that divine law is 
not absolute, and that scholars with consent of a "faqih" or 
expert on Islamic jurisprudence, can always try to reach those 
principles which would be the decree of God, through the use of 
logic and reason.  One of the Tehrani businessmen said he agreed 
 
RPO DUBAI 00000020  003.2 OF 003 
 
 
Shiite Islam is more open to the concept of "ijtehad" (which 
allows Islamic laws to be modified based on the needs of the 
times).  Because of this, he believes Iran has a better chance 
than Sunni countries of becoming a modern democracy and perhaps 
a suitable future partner for the US.  The steel businessman, a 
modern man with children studying in the West, considered 
himself a devout Muslim.  He viewed Sunni Islam as more rigid, 
saying that generally the word of the Koran is accepted as law 
with no room for discussion, diversion, or votes on changing 
laws.  In his view, the "miracle" of Khomeini was that he 
brought the seeds of democracy to Iran, allowing Iranian men and 
women to vote.  He predicted that one day Iran could advance to 
a truly modern Islamic democracy.  The concept of Islamic 
democracy, he said, is a frequent subject of discussion in 
Iran's religious seminaries or Hawzehs. 
 
Comment:  We frequently hear from contacts that whatever happens 
in Iran in the future, the society will remain a deeply 
religious one.  We also hear that a significant number of 
Iranian clerics, including Grand Ayatollah Sanei do not like 
clerical involvement in the government and oppose the system of 
velayat-e faqih.  (Note: Sanei, considered a reformist cleric, 
has called both nuclear weapons and suicide bombings un-Islamic. 
 Endnote)  These clerics prefer a model of their role in society 
more along the lines of the role that Grand Ayatollah Sistani 
plays in Iraq.  End comment 
BURNS