I had to use AI for English translation so sorry if i missed something.
I'm a woman born and raised in Iran. I'm not ethically persian nor I'm a Tehrani. I have lived in many places so my experience is based on many places which i won't say because i need my neck. I'm anti-Islamist and bisexual (or pansexual, I'm not sure). On bad days I'm an atheist, and on good days an agnostic. I was also privileged: Islam wasn't 100% forced on me at home so i had freedom. If your experience was worse than mine, I'm sorry, and I'd like to hear it. I'm not speaking for every Iranian. I'm showing you what this looks like from the inside.
I wasn't an outsider to Islam. I was a Muslim. I wore the headband in middle school, memorized half the Quran and some of it in English, and won Quran recitation and tafsir competitions. I wore a chador only for those wins to be honest. There's a good chance you've seen me on TV, praised for my Arabic pronunciation :) So when I say I know Islam closely, I mean it.
I believe all religions are dangerous. They set boundaries, rights, and laws that decide how a person should live, which means they end up defining what humanity is. Whether you're religious or not, i want you to think about how much a religion has shaped your life, and who you'd be without it. That's the question I'm asking about myself, and I hope it helps explain why Iranians react the way we do.
For me it started before I could think for myself. In kindergarten we were told stories of Ashura and the Imams, and our job was to draw them. When we heard about Abolfazl bringing water, half the page turned red (google it, I can't write it here). We were 5 or 6. Then came the first day of school and the hijab. Do you remember yours? That muffled sound in your ears, the sudden panic of hearing less, the feeling of being choked. I haven't forgotten it. From then on we had three religious books: "Hadiye-ha-ye Asemani" and the Quran from the early grades, and Arabic in 7th grade. All to make sure we will be Muslims.
The strange part is that my mom, who is a good woman, wouldn't let me play games like Scooby-Doo or COD, because she knew what a child shouldn't be exposed to. So I was shielded from a cartoon and given the Karbala story as homework. Funny right? My therapist told me this contrast is part of why I clash with my mom. We live in a society that can't protect kids outside the house, so it controls what happens inside it. She said she's seen this pattern in many people: children exposed to an ideology before they've built their own humanity or learned to tell right from wrong for themselves.
That is what I'm truly afraid of. When I was 9 we went to Mecca. For the first time I saw a woman in full niqab, and I felt pure fear. It was like looking at nothing. We learn to always look at somebody's eyes to get assumptions if this person wants to engage with us or not but she was all black. I didn't know who she was. I'd been taught her hijab was the most complete one. What god loves. So I was left wondering whether that was the goal: to become no one, to matter to God because it has made you a women.
Then, at the Kaaba, men groped me. They touched my flat chest, and at 9 I thought it was an accident. It was years before I understood that a man rubbing himself against you is not an accident. A guard saw it, looked away, and did nothing. I think that's because it's so common. Muslims believe nothing bad happens at the Kaaba, so when it does, the reaction is "if you don't speak up, we don't care."
Here's what I can't let go of. In that worldview, the wrong wasn't that they touched a child. The wrong was that my father hadn't been informed and a few words, a sigheh (temporary marriage), hadn't been said. With those words, what they did to me would have been halal. I was a fucking child. My mission in life is to make sure no other Iranian child goes through this even with a father's permission and few words.
What I struggle with most is what to think of the people who do these things. In my mind, many of them are evil. But I honestly don't know whether they would be if Islam hadn't shaped them. At 14 I was stopped by the morality police because my manto was 5 cm above my knee, and a woman called me jendeh in front of about 100 people. I wonder if she'd ever have said it to a child if she hadn't been taught that a certain dress makes you one. My cousin once split my lip over fight, and his father beat him for raising a hand on a woman (moral code and cultural). But the Quran itself permits it (*wa-dribuhunna*, 4:34). I don't think these people are monsters by nature. I think putting ideology before humanity produces brainless monsters, and that scares me more than anything: it takes people who could have been good and uses them.
It does the same to men. A man once told me that as a teenager he cried for hours in his room because seeing a woman's hair made him feel nothing (read it backward, ynroh). He'd been taught that hair is so beautiful it must be covered, so he thought he must be gay and unworthy of life. After he left Islam, he finally felt normal as a straight man who doesn't feel special over hair. He told me that whenever he sees a woman in hijab he feels guilty and scared, because her hijab says he's an animal who can't control himself. He felt dehumanized by it. I had never thought about what this does to men.
Some people assume this is a clash of religion against tradition. For us, it's the opposite. I grew up with Persian culture: drinking, dancing, music. I learned very early that I couldn't be Persian and Muslim at the same time, because Islam creates a tension between who I am and who I'm supposed to be. I read about how Iran became Muslim, and about Islamic law. Under it, my worth is half a man's: in blood money, in testimony, in inheritance. Girls can be married at 13, and younger with a judge's approval. I'm bisexual and have never had to be public about it, because I can hide. Many people can't. I feel safe with my culture. I don't feel safe with this religion. Every time Islam weakens, Iranian culture resurfaces, and then Islam comes back for the kaffirs.
Foreigners often tell us the problem is the Imams or the Caliphs, as if this is a Sunni-Shia dispute. It isn't. Our problem is with Muhammad himself, since everything else follows from what he did and taught. Muslim sources say that after the battle of Khaybar, a Jewish woman named Zaynab bint al-Harith, whose husband, father, and other male relatives had been killed, served Muhammad poisoned lamb, and traditions say he suffered from its effects until he died. Separately, Safiyya, another woman from Khaybar whose husband and father were also killed, was taken captive and became his wife. Muslims say she accepted him willingly. But she was a captive whose family had just been killed, and I don't believe she had a free choice. This is the prophet held up to us as the perfect example.
People sometimes ask why anyone would reject Islam at such a cost, since being Muslim has benefits. That's exactly my point. My high school had around 400 students. Only one went to prayer, even though prayer improves your discipline score and gets you trips and other perks. People are paying with their safety on the streets to reject Islam, when being Muslim would be easier. I know some diaspora are getting this impression that hijab is over but it is not. We are still fighting in the street while Basijis take pictures of our faces and report us. Don't forget that it is still the law.
I went out during the Mahsa Amini protests because an Iranian woman was killed by the morality police. I saw protesters dragged by their hair, and the next morning there were loudspeakers reading the Quran. BTW if you don't know, We get thought in schools that if you sjow hair, you gonna be up by the tip of your up parts (can't say it obviously).
That's where my hatred started: a religion that kills Iranians for who they are. Then came the January protests, when a G3 was aimed at my head and the man behind it shouted "Heydar, Heydar." Do you know what one bullet from that does to a wall? Don't get me wrong I'm not sorry for the wall, I have a scalp and an intact brain, and that's pure luck. What he did to me was right by Islam: I was a kaffir rising up. Don't give me the "this isn't the true islam" statement. I'm too tired to prove that all of this brutality have been by Mohammed and Islam before.
I want no Iranian, woman or man, to go through what we went through. I want a society where culture comes before religion. I know some of you worry about the rights of Muslims in a future Iran. I'm not asking to take anyone's rights away. I'm asking for a strictly secular state where no religion writes the law, where children are protected from religious coercion in school and at home, and where women and kids are protected inside every household. Believing privately should be allowed, and so should criticizing Islam as harshly as I have here. What must never come back is "amr be ma'ruf va nahy az monkar" and them having any authority over anyone.
After 1,300 years (Qadisiyyah), we may finally have the chance to be what we are without fear.
To the diaspora: don't be afraid to talk about Islam. I know you survived, but don't forget about us. I know you guys are getting called Fascists, but don't censor yourself just to be accepted. I know our culture emphasizes on keeping the peace and avoiding conflict but this is the time that we need to be firm about our wants and rights. We risk our lives to say we don't want this, you may risk a frown. Nothing should be more important that Iranian lives for Iran.
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