[Explainer] The Minorities in Iran

Abroad, Iran is known as Persia, a unified land with centuries of history. Yet within this land lies a mosaic of many non-Persian ethnic groups. From the Kurdish mountains to the Baluch deserts and the Arab and Lur oil-rich areas of Khuzestan, ethnic minorities have often had to endure unequal citizenship and political repression, while power and resources have remained with the Persian majority in the center.

Who Are Iran’s Minorities

Iran, with a population of 93 million, is the 17th largest country in the world. Within this huge population, there is major ethnic, cultural, and linguistic diversity, which the state has largely ignored.

Iran’s ethnic minorities live mostly in the country’s peripheral regions: Azeris (16%) in the northwest, Kurds (10%) along the western borders with Iraq and Turkey, Lurs (6%) and Arabs (2%) in the oil-rich southwest provinces of Elam and Khuzestan, Baluch (2%) in the southeastern region bordering Pakistan, Turkmen along the northeastern frontier with Turkmenistan, and Gilakis and Mazandaranis in the Gilan and Mazandaran provinces along Iran’s northern coast, bordering the Caspian Sea and the Alborz mountains. Their regional identities, shaped by distinct languages and cultures, often place them against the state built on Persian nationalism and Shia religious dominance.

Political Power and Constitutional Promises

Most political and economic power within the Iranian state is held by Persians, despite making up about half of the total population. Azeris, the second largest minority and mostly adhering to Shia Islam, are better integrated; yet, they are also targeted by policies of cultural assimilation and restrictions on their language.

According to the Human Development Index of Iran, economically, provinces with large non-Persian populations are largely neglected, with the provinces of West Azerbaijan, Kurdistan, and Sistan and Baluchistan – where the majority of the populations are Azeris, Kurds, and Baluch, respectively – being among the least developed regions in Iran. These poorer regions are marked by high unemployment, inadequate infrastructure, and low-quality medical services. Many Baluch citizens still lack basic IDs and registration papers. These differences deepen the divide, as they support already existing barriers between population groups.

Officially, Iran is a country that constitutionally guarantees some linguistic rights – Article 15* provides provisions for minority language rights, while Article 16 gives special treatment to Arabic due to it being the language of the Qur’an and Islamic texts. However, in practice, Persian dominates most aspects of life, and minority languages are largely excluded from schools and governmental institutions. This policy has led to cultural erasure and social marginalization.

Religions in Iran

The vast majority of Iran’s population is Muslim: around 99%, and within this Muslim population, nine out of ten adhere to the Twelver Ja’fari Sect of Shia Islam. The rest of Iran’s Muslim population are Sunni or belong to other Islamic sects.

Iran’s constitution recognizes the religious minorities in its constitutions (Article 12) and guarantees their rights to freedom of religion, however, similar to the approach to minority languages, in practice even recognized minorities live under surveillance and constraints.

While Sunni Muslims, Christians, Jews, and Zoroastrians have representatives in Iran’s parliament (Article 64), their ability to worship and continue their religious traditions in their communities is severely curbed. For example, it is claimed that there are nine Sunni mosques in Tehran. However, this claim is disputed by Sunni cleric, Molavi Abdol Hamid. According to Abdol Hamid, those which are referred to as mosques are actually just prayer rooms, rented apartments, or temporary locations without resident clerics. “A real mosque is a place that is permanent and always open to worshipers,” Molavi Abdol Hamid said.

Yet, despite the constraints, many religions, like the Yarsanis (Ahl-i Haq), have founds way to survive through years of discrimination, though their number of followers have been dwindling. There are around 300,000 Christians of different denominations, around 30,000 to 35,000 Zoroastrians, around 20,000 Jews, and between 5,000 and 10,000 Sabean Mandaeans.

Not all religions are recognized though. For example, the Baha’i religion does not enjoy any level of constitutional recognition, and the members of the religion remains persecuted. Nonetheless, the number of the Baha’i population is still over 300,000. Baha’is in Iran often have their property confiscated, are imprisoned, and are denied opportunities for education.

Insurgencies

Minority activists who demand cultural, linguistic, and economic rights are often prosecuted and accused of undermining national security and charged and sentenced to prison time or, in many cases, given the death penalty. Yet many ethnic minorities continue to resist, enduring despite decades of repression.

In the west and northwest, the Kurdish movement’s demand for autonomy or greater cultural and political rights has seen activists and political armed parties come head to head with the Iranian state. In the southeast, the Baluch armed coalition (People’s Fighters’ Front) operating in one of Iran’s poorest regions, has often cited economic deprivation and Sunni discrimination as core to their demands. Meanwhile, Arab political armed parties in Khuzestan have often staged attacks against decades of environmental neglect and government-backed demographic engineering that has aimed to push the Arab population out of this oil-rich area.

By contrast, Iran’s Azeris, predominantly Shia Muslims, are well-integrated into the political and economic elite – while some also support pan-Turkist or Azerbaijanist movements. Nonetheless, Azeris also face state restrictions on their language and culture, but Azeris often express their demands through legal pathways.

One State Identity

The Iranian state’s identity is built on religious unity and Persian identity. Yet its peripheral regions tell another story, one of contested belonging, persistent inequality, and deep mistrust. Despite promises of equality made during the 1979 revolution, Iranian society remains divided, and minorities are kept in the margins Iran’s political and cultural spheres.

*All relevant article presented here:

Article 12: The official religion of Iran is Islam and the Twelver Ja’fari school [in usual al-Din and fiqh], and this principle will remain eternally immutable. Other Islamic schools, including the Hanafi, Shafi’i, Maliki, Hanbali, and Zaydi, are to be accorded full respect, and their followers are free to act in accordance with their own jurisprudence in performing their religious rites. These schools enjoy official status in matters pertaining to religious education, affairs of personal status (marriage, divorce, inheritance, and wills) and related litigation in courts of law. In regions of the country where Muslims following any one of these schools of fiqh constitute the majority, local regulations, within the bounds of the jurisdiction of local councils, are to be in accordance with the respective school of fiqh, without infringing upon the rights of the followers of other schools.

Article 15: The official language and script of Iran, the lingua franca of its people, is Persian. Official documents, correspondence, and texts, as well as text-books, must be in this language and script. However, the use of regional and tribal languages in the press and mass media, as well as for teaching of their literature in schools, is allowed in addition to Persian.

Article 16: Since the language of the Qur’an and Islamic texts and teachings is Arabic, and since Persian literature is thoroughly permeated by this language, it must be taught after elementary level, in all classes of secondary school and in all areas of study.

Article 64: There are to be two hundred seventy members of the Islamic Consultative Assembly which, keeping in view the human, political, geographic and other similar factors, may increase by not more than twenty for each ten-year period from the date of the national referendum of the year 1368 of the solar Islamic calendar. The Zoroastrians and Jews will each elect one representative; Assyrian and Chaldean Christians will jointly elect one representative; and Armenian Christians in the north and those in the south of the country will each elect one representative. The limits of the election constituencies and the number of representatives will be determined by law.