Atlantic Council SOUTH ASIA CENTER ISSUE BRIEF Iran’s Sunnis Resist Extremism, but for How Long? APRIL 2018 SCHEHEREZADE FARAMARZI ome fifteen million of Iran’s eighty million people are Sunni Muslims, the country’s largest religious minority. Politically and economically disadvantaged, these Sunnis receive relatively lit- tle attention compared with other minorities and are concen- Strated in border areas from Baluchistan in the southeast, to Kurdistan in the northwest, to the Persian Gulf in the south. The flare up of tensions between regional rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran over Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Yemen would seem to encourage interest in the state of Iranian Sunnis, if only because the Saudis present them- selves as defenders of the world’s Sunnis, and Iran the self-appointed champion of the Shia cause. So how do Iran’s Sunnis fare in a state where Shia theology governs al- most every aspect of life? How have they been affected by this regional rivalry? Are they stuck between jihadist and other extreme regional Sunni movements on the one hand, and the Shia regime’s aggres- sive policies on the other? Is there a danger that these policies could push some disgruntled Iranian Sunnis toward militancy and terrorism? A tour of Turkmen Sahra in the northeast of Iran near the Caspian Sea, and in Hormozgan on the Persian Gulf in 2015 and 2016 revealed some of the answers. More recent interviews were conducted by phone and in person in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and with European-based experts. “Being a Sunni in Iran means pain, fear, anxiety, restrictions,”1 said a young The Atlantic Council’s South woman in a southern Hormozgan village. “We’re afraid to say we’re Sunnis,” Asia Center is a solution- added the woman, who was wrapped in a brightly colored floral chador oriented program focused on and, like others who were interviewed, asked that she not be named. the practical promotion of peace and cooperation in the South Asia region and its periphery. A group of high school girls in the same hamlet burst into giggles when The Center is committed to asked what they thought of the Islamic State or Daesh. All said they were producing innovative ideas and actions that “wage peace” in South Asia. 1 Author interview, March 2015. ISSUE Sunni BRIEF RegionsIran’s in Iran Sunnis Resist Extremism, but for How Long? ISSUE BRIEF Iran’s Sunnis Resist Extremism, but for How Long? ARDABIL EAST Some breakdown of areas where AZERBAIJAN NORTH GOLESTAN KHORASAN Sunnis are found: GILAN WEST AZERBAIJAN • Almost all of Hormozgan Province QAZVIN ZANJAN MAZANDARAN which is majority Shia and borders a part of Iraq that is as making it illegal to insult the Prophet Mohammed’s (though Minab is mostly Shia and Bandar KURDISTAN ALBORZ Abbas has a significant Shia settler RAZAVI almost entirely Shia. wife Aisha. Parliament, he recently noted, did not leg- KHORASAN population) and parts of Fars Province. TEHRAN SEMNAN islate this directive into law. “We’re afraid the same will HAMEDAN QOM • Almost all parts of the Baluchistan area of Victims of Systematic Discrimination happen regarding the Leader’s historical and clear di- Sistan-Baluchistan Province (though not in KERMANSHAH rective,” he said. “Iran and the Muslim world will benefit MARKAZI the Sistan part of the province); LORESTAN ESFAHAN Because most Sunnis also belong to ethnic minority from it if the government, judiciary, armed forces, par- • Kurdistan Province; Kermanshah Province ILAM groups, it is often unclear whether discrimination is liament, and all state organs take it seriously and act on (though the capital of Kermashah Province, YAZD SOUTH based on ethnicity or religion—or both. Most Sunnis it. It will also have a positive effect on Iran’s relationship Kermanshah city, is majority Shia Kurds while KHUZESTAN KHORASAN CHAHARMAHAL live in remote, impoverished areas, making it difficult with Muslim states and Muslim people.”8 the rest of Kermanshah province is mostly AND BAKHTIARI Sunni); parts of Western Azerbaijan is majority to tell whether poor government services are due more Sunni Kurds such as Mahahbad, Piranshahr, KOHGILUYEH AND BOYER-AHMAD to geography than to sectarianism. One main point of contention is that Sunnis are not al- Sardasht, Oshnaviyeh, and Bukan counties. FARS lowed to build mosques in major cities, including the • Turkmen live mainly in Northern and Northeastern KERMAN However, discrimination against Sunnis is deeply insti- capital Tehran, where an estimated one million Sunnis Iran—their region is called Turkmen Sahra that includes substantial parts of Golestan Province. BUSHEHR tutionalized in the Islamic Republic’s laws, rules, and reside. The government claimed in 2015 that Tehran had regulations. Article 107 of the Constitution allows only nine Sunni mosques, but prominent Sunnis say these • There are Sunnis in Birjand and Torbat-e Jam in Khorassan 6 Province, as well as Aimaq Sunnis. Twelver Shias to become Supreme Leader or members are merely prayer rooms. “The country suffers from SISTAN AND of the powerful Assembly of Experts that chooses the intolerance and prejudices,” said Molavi Abdulhamid, • There are Sunnis in Talesh country in Gilan Province. BALUCHISTAN HORMOZGAN leader. Article 115, paragraph 5, stipulates that the pres- adding that the Sunnis’ other top demand is to be as- • Tehran has one million Sunnis. ident of the Republic shall be a Shia. The Constitution signed senior government and provincial positions. also denies ethnic minorities the use of their languages in schools, universities, and the media. It does, how- President Hassan Rouhani’s special assistant for religious ever, recognize Sunni schools of Islamic jurisprudence and ethnic affairs, Ali Younesi, admitted in9 published as sources of family law and religious education. interviews four years ago that discrimination against surprised to learn that Daesh is a Sunni group. “Is it really ty-seven-minute video message5 by Daesh in March 2017 Sunnis—especially for cabinet ministries and provincial Sunni?”2 one asked with astonishment. “If they’re Sunni, denounced Iran’s Sunni leaders, specifically prominent Sunni demands to eliminate Article 115 and implement governorships—was a result of the prejudice of hard-line they must be good, no?” wondered a young woman at Baluch cleric Molavi Abdulhamid Ismaeelzahi, and ac- Article 12—which grants them certain rights, such as full Shia clerics and promised improvements. In Rouhani’s another gathering. “Daesh uses the Sunni name to com- cused them of being stooges of the Iranian government. freedom of worship—have been consistently ignored. first administration, a Sunni served as deputy oil minis- mit murder, rape girls,” interjected her sister. “It doesn’t In an unprecedented move, however, Supreme Leader ter. Another is now Iran’s ambassador to Vietnam, albeit 3 7 distinguish between children and adults.” Iran’s Religious Makeup Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in September 2017 called for the only Sunni in the diplomatic corps. There are currently an end to discrimination against Sunnis and other mi- twenty-one Sunni representatives in Iran’s parliament, Persian Gulf-based, Saudi-funded Persian-language TV According to official figures, ninety-nine percent of nority groups. “All elements of the Islamic Republic up from nineteen in the previous session. In Sistan- broadcasts and a proliferation of Persian-language Sunni Iranians are Muslim, with the remainder being Christians, are duty bound, in accordance with religious teach- Baluchistan, two ethnic women were appointed local religious websites are confusing many Iranian Sunnis Jews, and Zoroastrians. Some 300,000 Bahais, the ings and the Constitution, to refrain from allowing any governors, and one was appointed deputy provincial about their faith and are seeking to turn them against largest non-Muslim minority, are not recognized as a discrimination and inequality among Iranians from any governor. Yet, no Sunni has held a ministerial portfolio. Iran’s Shia majority. Sheikh Abdulkarim Mohammadi, a religious group in the Iranian Constitution and are not ethnicity, race or faith,” Khamenei said in reply to a let- prominent Sunni scholar, said Sunnis are being pulled included in the official census. The figures also do not ter from Molavi Abdulhamid, the Friday prayer leader Discrimination against Sunnis was laid bare in 2000 from opposing sides—the Iranian state with its discrimi- give a breakdown of Sunnis and Shias. Iranian officials in the Baluchistan capital of Zahedan. when hard-liners lobbied to block the candidacy of natory policies and the hardline anti-Shia propagandists claim Sunnis make up seven to nine percent of the Kurdish Sunni MP Jalal Jalalizadeh to parliament’s in Arab states. “Iran’s Sunnis have lost their footing,” he population, but Sunni leaders and observers put the Abdulhamid has characterized Khamenei’s response as presiding board. Influential Ayatollah Vahid Khorasani said in an interview in the Hormozgan village of Herang.4 total between 12 and 25 percent. “historic and decisive,” but cautions that previous di- threatened to issue a fatwa delegitimizing the assem- rectives regarding Sunnis have not been enforced, such bly “if a Sunni was installed above Shias.”10 He vowed Last year’s Daesh attacks in Tehran compounded fears Nearly one million ethnic Persian Sunnis live in the south- to “walk barefoot in the streets wrapped in a shroud,” among Iranian Sunnis that the regime would use the threat ern provinces of Hormozgan and Fars and in north- Jalalizadeh said in a recent interview. of Salafism to intensify their suppression. Traditional ern Khorasan. The majority of Sunnis are ethnic Kurds, 6 Twelvers are the followers of the twelve imams, whom they con- Sunni leaders have sought to alleviate these concerns by Baluch, and Turkmen, whose ethnic brethren extend be- sider to be the only rightful successors of the Prophet Muham- mad, beginning with Ali ibn Abu Talib (600-661 AD) and ending urging their followers not to join extremist groups.