50,000 mosques have closed in Iran – Are Iranians seeking truth outside of Islam?

 Unrest and distrust of the Islamic government are leading many away from Islam; Evangelical broadcasts and ministries are leading many to Christ

Mohammad Abolghassem Doulabi, a senior cleric for Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, delivered a speech to a group of religious students in which he stated that 50,000 of Iran’s 75,000 mosques have closed their doors.

In his speech, which took place last June during the celebration of Imam Reza – a descendant of the Muslim prophet Muhammad – Doulabi primarily laid the blame for the mosque closures on a lack of government funding. However, he also indicated that Muslims were deserting mosques for other reasons.

Contrary to the situation in some European countries, where church buildings and programs are funded by state taxes, mosques in Iran are run more similarly to churches in the United States; they are tax-exempt, non-profit institutions primarily supported through donations or trusts.

While many mosques receive government funding, in addition to private funding, the government is not the primary supporter nor does it have the authority to close mosques.

Doulabi blamed the devaluation of the Iranian currency and a lack of direct government support for the closures.

Some scholars, however, were not quite as quick to agree. Mohammad Taghi Fazel Meybodi, a cleric and a member of the Assembly of Scholars and Teachers of the Seminary of Qom, believes the type of government support is one source of the problem.

“If the government did not support mosques and interfere in the affairs of mosques, our mosques would probably not be emptied today,” Meybodi said.

He also cited the politicization of mosques and preaching as part of the problem.

“One of the reasons for closing mosques is that mosques today have become the base of certain factions and politics.”

“If a cleric after the congregation’s prayer, in the mosque, speaks against this and that, or compliments so and so, and then degrades another, it is obvious that the mosque is emptied,” Meybodi claimed. “If these mosques had returned to their original place of spirituality, morality and worship, people would have been willing [to come].”

The seminary cleric continued by explaining that people are upset over the government’s attempts to enforce the hijab laws.

“Another example is the issue of hijab, where the government entered with law, regulation, fines, and threats and people rejected the issue.”

According to Meybodi, the influence of government funding – not its lack – is the real problem.

“In the past, the mosque was run with people’s money. If government money goes into a mosque, that mosque is no longer a place of worship.”

An article in Iran’s FARS News Agency, managed by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), stated that, while there are enough religious leaders in the country, students are leaving seminary to pursue government jobs.

The report stated that there are six imams for every national mosque but that students don’t want to take positions as mosque leaders because the pay is not guaranteed, unlike a government salary.

Doulabi, himself, appears to agree with some of these concerns.

In a sermon during Ramadan, he identified three possible reasons for the decline of Islamic practice in Iran: the humiliation of people in the name of religion; distorting religious teachings and using religious concepts to punish citizens who criticize the government; and misuse of funds, leading to increased poverty.

According to Doulabi, these three things have caused Muslims to have a pessimistic view of the Shia religion. He added that distrust towards the government equals distrust of the religion because the two are inseparable in Iran.

“If the Islamic Revolution is damaged in the present era, then Islam has been damaged in the contemporary era because true Islam is crystallized in the Islamic Revolution of Iran and despite all the problems of the life of Islam it is tied to the life of the Islamic Revolution.”

While the anti-hijab protests that caught the world’s attention have died down in recent months, Doulabi’s remarks indicate that the corruption and injustice of the ayatollah regime towards its people have produced a loss of faith in Islam as the religion of truth.

The question is, are Iranians seeking the truth and, if so, where?

Unofficial reports indicate that a growing number of Iranians are seeking the truth in Jesus.

Marziyeh (Marzi) Amirizadeh and her friend Maryam Rostampour drew world attention in 2009 after their arrests for “promoting Christianity in Iran.”

Marzi spoke with CBN columnist Arlene Bridges Samuels last year, and said that the revolts in Iran are “not just about a piece of cloth.”

“The protesters are not in the streets facing guns and bullets just for that,” Marzi said, and claimed that corruption and persecution in Iran have created a thirst for the Gospel.

“Persecution is helping people to see the truth. When we were evangelizing in Iran, we didn’t have even one bad experience. Everyone was so thirsty to find the truth and I could see that God had prepared their hearts even before we talked to them,” Marzi said.

Iranian ex-pats Peyman Mojtahedi and Saeid Miryaghoobi spoke with ALL ISRAEL NEWS while attending the International Christian Embassy’s Feast of Tabernacles celebration last year.

Mojtahedi came to faith after accidentally watching a scene from “The Passion of the Christ” in Russian. While he didn’t understand what was being said because of the language barrier, he was struck by what he saw and began to cry.

His mother, who had secretly begun watching Christian programming on satellite TV, explained to him that the movie was about Jesus.

Programs such as MohabatTV and Sat 7 Pars share the Gospel in Farsi via Christian messages and programming streamed over satellite and available to anyone who has a satellite dish. While satellite dishes are officially illegal in Iran – with the government often conducting raids and destroying them – many Iranians will pay to have cheap satellite dishes made just to view media that the government does not authorize, including Christian media.

Mojtahedi, himself, worked for a Christian radio station in Turkey, broadcasting Farsi programming and translating messages from well-known Christian teachers.

Iran Alive Ministries, broadcast from Dallas, Texas, is another organization that shares the Gospel with the Iranian people.

The ministry estimates that Christian broadcasting reaches some 6 million Iranians daily.

With Iran having one of the fastest-growing Evangelical populations in the world, hope remains that more and more Iranians will find and embrace the truth.

Join us in praying for the people of Iran.

https://allarab.news/50000-mosques-have-closed-in-iran-are-iranians-seek-truth-outside-of-islam/