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30 July, 2019
By SJA Jafri
HYDERABAD DECCAN/ TEHRAN/ MELBOURNE: A delegate of Indian journalists on visit of Iran invited by Al-Asr Foundation, the Indian Union Virtual Media (IUVM) to attend a culture tour based upon socio-culture tour to understand the Socio economic and culture norms and customs of the country.
According to Zubair Khan Sayeedi, a member of assignment, the delegation visited a Sunni mosque (Masjid) in Tehran on Monday and revealed the truth of demolition Sunni Masajid in Tehran. There were rumors spreading in India that only one Masjid was in Iran and which was demolished by Iranian Government.
The delegation of nine members namely consisted on Ashraf Zaidi, Amer Saleem Khan (Hamara Samaj), Abdul Majed Nizami (Hind News), Khursheed Rabbani (Zee Salam), Mustaqeem (Siasi Taqdeer), Maqbool Ahmed (Rahnuma-e-Deccan) Syed Najaf Ali Shoukat (Press Media of India/ PMI & Noorain), Zafar Abbas (Millennium Post) and Zubair Khan Sayeedi (Asian Times) have expressed their desire wishes to visit Sunni Masajid in Tehran and they visited with Mufti Aziz Muhammad Baba-e-Pesh Imam Masij-e–Sadiqia in Tehran who explained only in Tehran city there are 85 Sunni Masajid and in 20 Masajid, Nmaz-e-Juma and Namaz-e-Eidain have been performing by Sunni Muslims since a long. In only Masjid-e-Sadiqia, more than three thousand (3000) people performed Nanaz-e- Juma and approximately more than 1500 vehicles are parked there. After knowing the truth of the rumors of demolishing the Sunni Masjids in Iran, the delegate appreciated the attitude of Iranian government to maintain the Sunni Shia Itehad (unity) between them by way of facilitation provided to Sunni Muslims as such the facilities provide to Shia Muslims equally.
Mufti Muhammad Aziz (Babae Pesh Imam of Masjid-e-Sadiqia, Tehran) said there are seventeen thousand (17,000) Sunni Masajids in Iran out of them eighty-five (85) Sunni Masajids only in Tehran and all over Iran there are thirty thousand (30,000) teachers and students are being enjoyed primary, secondary and higher education, vocational training, guidance and counseling according to their curriculum and modern needs at over 500 Sunni schools and Iranian government provides all facilities to Sunni school as given to Shia schools.
There is no discriminatory policy adopted by Iranian government in between Shia and Sunni, we are living here with unity and brotherhoodness, the al-Queda, Taliban and other groups have tried to damage the unity of Shia and Sunni in Iran but they always failed and their agenda remained unsuccessful, Mufti Aziz concluded.
In continuation of the current IUVM visit and the information have already been published in national and international media as well as acknowledged by the impartial and independent organizations, one of the IUVM members, Syed Najaf Ali Shoukat reports that after thoroughly dual verification, the total population of Iran is consisted on 82 million people at present and Islam is the religion of 99 percent Iranians, nearly 90 percent of Iranians are Shia and about 10 percent are Sunni. The number of Sunni population is being increasingly as per their percentage, an estimated one million Sunni Muslims live in Tehran province alone. There are 47,291 Shia mosques and 10,344 Sunni mosques in Iran.
Najaf Ali Shoukat further states that according to the CIA World Fact-book, around 90–95%[ of Iranians associate themselves with the Shia branch of Islam, the official state religion, and about 5–10% with the Sunni and Sufi branches of Islam.
The remaining 0.6% associates themselves with non-Islamic religious minorities, including Bahais, Mandeans, Yarsani, Zoroastrians, Jews and Christians.
The latter three minority religions are officially recognized and protected, and have reserved seats in the Iran parliament. Zoroastrianism was once the majority religion, though today Zoroastrians number only in the tens of thousands. Iran is home to the second largest Jewish community in the Muslim world and Middle East. The two largest non-Muslim religious minorities in Iran are the Bahai faith and Christianity, the Bahaí faith, historically the largest religious minority in Iran.
Shoukat reveals that the Islamaization was to yield deep transformations within the cultural, scientific, and political structure of Iran’s society: The blossoming of Persian literature, philosophy, medicine and art became major elements of the newly forming Muslim civilization. Inheriting a heritage of thousands of years of civilization, and being at the “crossroads of the major cultural highways”, contributed to Persia emerging as what culminated into the ” Islamic Golden Age”. During this period, hundreds of scholars and scientists vastly contributed to technology, science and medicine, later influencing the rise of European science during the Renaissance.
The most important scholars of almost all of the Islamic sects and schools of thought were Persian or live in Iran including most notable and reliable Hadith collectors of Shia and Sunni like Shaikh Saduq, Shaikh Kulainy, Imam Bukhari, Imam Muslim and Hakim al-Nishaburiand and the greatest theologians of Shia and Sunni like shaykh Tusi, Imam Ghazali, Imam Fakhr al-Razi and Al-Zamakhshari, the greatest physicians, astronomers, logicians, metaphysicians, philosophers and scientists like Nasir al-Din al-Tusi, the greatest Shaykh of Sufism like Rumi, Abdul-Qadir Gilani, Ibn-e-Khaldun narrates in his Muqaddimah.
