The power of the ‘unintended’: Islamisation, freedom, and religiosity among the graduates of modern religious schools in post-revolutionary Iran

ABSTRACT

Modern religious schools have been one of the most significant tools used for carrying out an ‘Islamisation project’ in the aftermath of the 1979 Revolution. Immediately after the Revolution, such schools were mandated with the goal of training a religious elite capable of taking on the leadership positions of the post-revolutionary state. Drawing on 32 face-to-face interviews with the graduates of those schools, this study explores the evolution of the religious lives of the participants during and after the school years. The findings indicate that, despite the very strictly religious environments of the modern religious schools, many of their graduates experience either a shift away from religion altogether or from the version of Islam that is sanctioned by school and the state. The way these dynamics work is a classic example of what Robert Merton has called the distinction between the ‘manifest’ and ‘latent’ functions of a social act. The key factor that has contributed to the failure of this state project seems to have been the efforts to restrict the freedom of students. This finding shows the centrality of freedom for a meaningful spiritual life.

KEYWORDS:

• Secularisation
• secularism
• Iran
• religious schools
• education
• Islamisation

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interests was reported by authors.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/09637494.2022.2104092

Notes

1. There are different terms used in reference to the 1979 revolution in Iran. Some call it the ‘Islamic Revolution’, to emphasise its ‘Islamic’ nature, others to denounce it; yet, others simply refer to it as the ‘Iranian Revolution’ or the ‘1979 [1357] Revolution’, to trivialise that ‘Islamic’ attribution. Without entering into these political debates, we use all these terms interchangeably and without any political judgement.

2. The data for this study was gathered in 2017–2018 as a part of the research requirements for the degree of MA in sociology at University of Tehran, and has been guided by the ethical principles commonly exercised in social scientific research, including: the participants’ informed consent, the anonymity of the participants, the confidentiality of their personal identifying data, the purging of the data after the publication of results, and the sharing of published findings with the interested participants. The ethical approach followed complies with the guidelines at the University of Tehran.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Fateme Ejaredar

Fateme Ejaredar holds a MA in sociology from University of Tehran and is currently a PhD candidate in Department of Sociology, University of Calgary, Canada.

Abdolmohammad Kazemipur

Abdolmohammad Kazemipur is Professor of Sociology and Chair of Ethnic Studies at University of Calgary, Canada.

Seyed Mahdi Etemadifard

Seyed Mahdi Etemadifard is Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran.