Talk:Religion in Iran

Semi-protected edit request on 17 September 2020

I wanted to insert the following submission. My entry is a scholarly sourced critique of an existing entry, as well as entering a reputable study which supplements the existing entries and provides for a fuller image of the topic at hand.

The role of religion in Iranian politics. Question 239: "I'm going to describe various types of political systems and ask what you think about each as a way of governing this country. For each one, would you say it is a very good, fairly good, fairly bad or very bad way of governing this country? Having a system governed by religious law in which there are no political parties or elections."

  Very Good (42.0%)

  Fairly Good (36.4%)

  Bad (8.5%)

  Bad (8.5%)

  Very Bad (11.7%)

  Don't Know (0.9%)

  No Answer (0.5%)

The most accurate representation of religious attitudes inside Iran exists within a recent World Values Survey (Wave 7: Iran, 2020). The study's most insightful findings are:

- Question 6: "For each of the following aspects, indicate how important it is in your life. Would you say it is very important, rather important, not very important or not important at all? Religion." In response to this, 70.5% said 'very important', and 22.0% said 'rather important'.

- Question 170: "Please tell us if you strongly agree, agree, disagree, or strongly disagree with the following statements: The only acceptable religion is my religion." In response to this, 30.4% said they 'strongly agree' and 38.4% said they 'agree'.

Islam in Iran is widely perceived to be influential and intrinsic to the identity of most Iranians, especially today under the Islamic Republic. Yet typically secular opponents of the current system, attempt to portray Iranian society as 'less Islamic' in order to advance their regime change narrative. A recent proponent of this thesis is GAMAAN, an institute ran by secular irreligious members of the Iranian diaspora, who have claimed the following in a new study: "32% of the population identifies as Shi’ite Muslim, around 9% identify as atheist, 8% as Zoroastrian, 7% as spiritual, 6% as agnostic, and 5% as Sunni Muslim. Others stated that they identify with or follow Sufi mysticism, humanism, Christianity, the Baha’i faith, or Judaism, among other worldviews. Around 22% identified with none of the above." GAMAAN's researchers claim that the study’s findings "reflect the views of literate Iranian residents aged above 19, who comprise 85% of Iran’s adult population" and can "be generalised to the target population with a 95% credibility level and credibility intervals of 5%." However, GAMAAN's study has faced multilayered criticism from all angles. One of the many credible dissections of the study comes from Daniel L. Tavana, a Postdoctoral Fellow in Modern Middle East Studies at Yale University, who examine the flaws, dishonesty and lack of transparency from GAMAAN's study. In a thorough scholarly examination, Tavana mentions how the study 'recruits a sample of over 50,000 individuals invited to take the survey via social media' when online surveys are widely prone to several important sources of error, misinformation, misuse, bot infiltration and lack of verifiability of participants. This unscientific methodology has been described by Fricker (2016) via Groves (2004) in the Sage Handbook of Online Research Methods, page 165. 2A00:23C8:5988:FF01:D449:81F7:FE61:F8F4 (talk) 04:10, 17 September 2020 (UTC)

References

 Not done: It's not clear where this information should be inserted in the article, twitter is not a reliable source in this case, the text itself needs significant editing, not least to avoid POV language. Goldsztajn (talk) 13:01, 20 September 2020 (UTC)

|ans= no. Can you please look at the World Values Survey (Wave 7: Iran, 2020).[1]? It is a widely renowned and respected research survey and is deemed accurate by most academic scholars. Also, your refusal to include the criticisms of the Gamaan study is discrediting Wikipedia as a platform for impartial knowledge and information.

Have attempted to write a compromise version of the lede with mention of GAMAAN here, but giving it a lower profile. (I am the editor who originally introduced the GAMAAN study into the article). --Louis P. Boog (talk) 00:52, 21 September 2020 (UTC)

I fully agree that Twitter does not qualify as a reliable source. The WVS, however, is a reliable scholarly source and does include an item on religious affiliation showing a far higher proportion of Muslims than the GAMAAN survey, so I think it deserves to be included. That said, we shouldn't WP:SYNTH and phrase it as a rebuttal of the GAMAAN survey. The other items on attitudes toward religion (from both WVS and GAMAAN) could be included in a separate section, since they're not on religious affiliation per se. I also think it should be mentioned that 10% of the GAMAAN survey's sample were Iranians outside Iran. Gazelle55 (talk) 16:28, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

And does this page still need to be locked? I'd like to do some copy-editing at a minimum. Gazelle55 (talk) 16:29, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

GAMAAN (talk) 08:17, 20 October 2020 (UTC) --- October 10, 2020, GAMAAN: Hello, I am one of the authors of the GAMAAN survey. I just came across this. Please note that this user is probably Daniel Tavana, writing about himself in the third person, and falsely accusing us of being "irreligious" and "dishonest". The reference to the WVS is made while knowing that people in Iran do not dare to answer sensitive questions honestly following a standard methodology. Also, the claims about our survey being vulnerable to bot infiltration or that there is a lack of verifiability are based on assumptions, not actual empirical knowledge of GAMAAN's digital techniques and the cited literature is outdated. I will return here later with a more elaborate explanation of why the WVS is unreliable and why online opt-in surveying is necessary in closed societies with high Internet penetration rates. Anyone with the slightest familiarity with years of qualitative research on Iran knows that the population is secularizing and much more diverse qua religion than the state says the people are. In the meantime, we at GAMAAN gave a long interview explaining our background and why we did our survey the way we did, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9khzZP19iY&t=1146s&ab_channel=MehdiSajid. You can also reach me at p.tamimiarab@uu.nl and I am happy to answer more specific questions. Thank you.

See this for survey design impact on results: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/jssr.12870 P.tamimiarab (talk) 00:09, 5 November 2023 (UTC)

how many Sunnis in Iran? Citation needed

Original source given for there being 7,244,244 Sunni or 9.7% of Iran's population:
Iran Census Results 2011 United Nations ,
says nothing about Sunni and Shia. Only talks about Islam/Muslims. I also googled "7,244,244 Sunni Iran" and found nothing.--Louis P. Boog (talk) 19:52, 26 September 2020 (UTC)

Group for Analyzing and Measuring Attitudes in Iran (GAMAAN)

I came upon this survey by the Group for Analyzing, &c., hereafter Gamaan. Not only are the parts of the pie chart misaligned, it also purports that not more than one third of Iranians are Shia Muslims. I have no genuine hard evidence to back it up, but based on the wealth of other similarly recent sources also provided in this article, I find this survey's results to be totally preposterous.

Another inaccuracy in Gamaan's survey results exists in this document, a segment of which reads:

68% [of respondents] stated that they do not intend to vote in the parliamentary elections (Islamic Consultative Assembly) of March 2020, while 18% said that they will participate in the elections. Approximately 14% said they haven’t decided yet.

The turnout for these elections (which were actually held in February) was 42%. Making the (unreasonable) assumption that the entirety of respondents who said they would participate in the elections in addition to those who said that they had not decided all participated in the election still results in a 10% discrepancy between the statements of respondents to the poll and the actual behavior of Iranians.

Indeed the fact that these surveys are conducted online is a major cause of their unreliability, especially in Iran which is a conservative society resulting in even more left-wing and secular bias among internet users than is found in Western countries. For example, of respondents to the question "Who did you vote for in the 2017 presidential election?", 64% had voted for Hassan Rouhani and 4% had voted for Ebrahim Raisi, despite the actual results of the election being 41% for Rouhani and 28% for Raisi.

Generally I consider that this organisation is an unreliable source and ought not be given as much precedence as it currently is. Beaneater (talk) 09:24, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

Stats shows that Ahmadinejad was believed to have been voted by the majority too, which many didn't believe, thus resulting in the 2009 Iranian presidential election protests. In a country where there are no basic human rights, why should the elections of all things be genuine? One third of Iranians being Shia Muslim doesn't sound too unrealistic either. If we can use a census by a government where irreligion and other religions are not recognized and may be subject to punishment, then I see no reason why we can't use this. --HistoryofIran (talk) 10:49, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

Yes, GAMAAN should be included because it is a scholarly source. If another source criticizes GAMAAN we can document the controversy (see WP:RS). That said, shouldn't the World Values Survey data be included too? I discussed this above and didn't get a response. I also couldn't add it because this page is still locked. Gazelle55 (talk) 16:58, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

My bad, it's been unlocked. Will add WVS soon. Gazelle55 (talk) 17:01, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

Oh, it's been added. Just ignore me lol. Gazelle55 (talk) 17:10, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

Of course it's a scholarly source. The people who conduct the surveys appear to have credentials. However their methods result in demonstrably skewed results inclusion of which in an encyclopedia would make the situation appear to be much more uncertain than it actually is. Beaneater (talk) 12:45, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

If it's any remorse, as an Iranian, this result is not skewed to me. I have seen similar thing (and a huge and fast decline of religion) in people I know. The media really focuses on extreme cases of Islamism in Iran building a distorted view IMO Ladsgroup^overleg 17:40, 1 November 2020 (UTC)

I am of Iranian ancestry to I don’t believe it even the other 2020 survey doesn’t give such high numbers I wouldn’t be shocked if this was based on Iranians that live outside of Iran but those in Iran to say 60% of Iranians are not Muslim is just silly. This is a online survey which are not accurate to claim as a fact. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.104.125.94 (talk) 21:43, 1 November 2020 (UTC)

Well, it's not based on Iranians outside Iran, so... Also, I agree with Ladsgroup, not that any of our opinions matter. --HistoryofIran (talk) 23:32, 1 November 2020 (UTC)

I said that it would of made more sense If it was about those outside of Iran as Iran being 60% not Muslim is very unlikely. Even the world values survey doesn’t give such high numbers. As I said before online surveys are not a representative of a entire country. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.137.40.67 (talk) 10:53, 2 November 2020 (UTC)

Well World Values Survey sounds pretty skewed, that may be why. Online surveys are the best thing we have in a country where people get persecuted for not believing in Shia Islam. --HistoryofIran (talk) 11:27, 2 November 2020 (UTC)

Why do you think the World value survey is skewed its more reliable then GAMAAN and has been around longer plus it’s also based in Europe all other data about Iran gives the figure that Iran is 90+ Muslim while GAMAAN said its only 40%. This was just a online survey which it’s sample size was not picked at random and neither was it nationwide. Just because it’s hard to do surveys or collect religious data in Iran it doesn’t mean Online surveys are going to be always right and accurate. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.137.42.166 (talk) 14:04, 2 November 2020 (UTC)

Where is the WVS addition to the introduction? If you believe the GAMAAN survey to have several flaws then be clearer as this page currently spreads misinformation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A00:23C8:5988:FF01:8D91:C42C:F2AC:8018 (talk) 00:54, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

GAMAAN is an unreliable online poll. These are reliable sources: "Muslim (official) 99.4% (Shia 90-95%, Sunni 5-10%), other (includes Zoroastrian, Jewish, and Christian) 0.3%, unspecified 0.4% (2011 est.)"CIA Fact book--Seyyed(t-c) 09:43, 31 October 2020 (UTC)

You're yet to argue why you find it unreliable. Simply calling it unreliable doesn't make it so. --HistoryofIran (talk) 09:51, 31 October 2020 (UTC)

I agree with arguments made by Beaneater, and I think GAMAAN is not reliable and should not be included in the article. What they do (creating online questionnaires on Survey Monkey and relying on the result) is social media snowball sampling and self-report study, which is nor scientific nor valid. People behind the work are neither experts on polling (Ammar Maleki is assistant professor of Comparative Politics at Tilburg University + Pooyan Tamimi Arab is assistant professor of religious studies at Utrecht University) and their work is not vetted by a publisher that conducts scholarly peer-review, they have self-published their work under the banner of GAMAAN. Almost anyone can do that. Some media may find it interesting to write about it, but that does not mean their work is scientific or a WP:RS. There has been several sources questioning the credibility of this poll in Persian language ([1], [2], [3]). Pahlevun (talk) 19:43, 3 November 2020 (UTC)

Not sure what the significance of those random Persian websites are. I could probably go on and find sites that would in fact support the poll, so what? --HistoryofIran (talk) 20:12, 3 November 2020 (UTC)

@HistoryofIran: Do websites that you say support these figures, make this self-published work a scholarly peer-reviewed work? Does it make the authors experts on polling? Pahlevun (talk) 20:14, 8 November 2020 (UTC)

GAMAAN is making the WP:EXCEPTIONAL claim that 7.7% of Iranians (over 6 million people) are Zoroastrian. This contradicts numerous WP:RS that put the world population of Zoroastrians at no higher than a few hundred thousand and is declining.

Today there are fewer than 200,000 Zoroastrians worldwide...
— John Morreall and Tamara Sonn, The Religion Toolkit: A Complete Guide to Religious Studies, page 281

...the world Zoroastrian population dropped from 124,953 in 2004 to 111,691 in 2012—a 10.6 percent decline.
— The Atlantic

I could go on and on. In light of WP:RS, GAMAAN's survey results appear WP:FRINGE and don't belong, certainly not in the lead.VR _talk 22:16, 3 November 2020 (UTC)

• "People behind the work are neither experts on polling (Ammar Maleki is assistant professor of Comparative Politics at Tilburg University + Pooyan Tamimi Arab is assistant professor of religious studies at Utrecht University)"

Two associate professors at Western universities, i.e. at free, non-state controlled universities. One educated in politics and the other one in religious studies. Sounds like the proper credentials one would need to make authoritive statements about religion within a state.

• "GAMAAN is making the WP:EXCEPTIONAL claim that 7.7% of Iranians (over 6 million people) are Zoroastrian. This contradicts numerous WP:RS that put the world population of Zoroastrians at no higher than a few hundred thousand and is declining."

You clearly did not read this link, which is cited in the very lede of this article, right behind the survey results. I quote: "In June 2020, our research institute, the Group for Analyzing and Measuring Attitudes in IRAN (GAMAAN), conducted an online survey with the collaboration of Ladan Boroumand, co-founder of the Abdorrahman Boroumand Center for Human Rights in Iran." (...) "'Among the other selected religions, 8% said they were Zoroastrians – which we interpret as a reflection of Persian nationalism and a desire for an alternative to Islam, rather than strict adherence to the Zoroastrian faith."

- LouisAragon (talk) 01:55, 4 November 2020 (UTC)

So they admit their results are misleading? That alone is reason to not take them seriously. If they admit their figures for Zoroastrianism are not accurate, why should we trust their figures for Islam?VR _talk 19:35, 10 November 2020 (UTC)

I agree with Pahlevun. This survey is unscientific and unreliable by virtue of being anonymous and online. None of the people who did this study are experts in any sort of polling or statistics. And the results by themselves show how unreliable and fringe this online survey is. Barely 40% of Iranians in Iran are Muslim? Does anyone seriously believe such fringe statistic? It contradicts every other scientific survey not by a little, but by a lot. Not only should this online survey be removed from the top of the article, it should be removed from the whole article, as it does not meet any minimum standard of scientific and scholarly rigor. It’s fringe. Veritaes Unam (talk) 22:31, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

Besides those issues, isn’t this a case of WP:SPS? The entry there states, “Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established subject-matter expert, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable, independent publications.” But clearly, this isn’t the case, and none of the people who conducted this study are experts in polling, surveys, statistics or even sociology. Veritaes Unam (talk) 23:06, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

• Where did the reliableof this poll come from? I also agree with Vice_regent. Shiasun (talk) 14:51, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

  New results and methodological discussion have now been published in a journal article published by the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/jssr.12870 (open access). More is on its way ... P.tamimiarab (talk) 23:11, 4 November 2023 (UTC)

GAMAAN Survey Being First on the Page

I believe that the GAMAAN survey, which has been discussed a lot above, should not be the very first source on this page if we want to keep it at all. I had an edit reverted for moving it down. The reason for the revert is because the census is by a government which persecutes religious minorities. However, the online survey was done on Survey Monkey by 50,000 respondents that could have come from anywhere in the world. I refer anyone questioning GAMAAN's methods to Beaneater's comments...

"The turnout for these elections (which were actually held in February) was 42%. Making the (unreasonable) assumption that the entirety of respondents who said they would participate in the elections in addition to those who said that they had not decided all participated in the election still results in a 10% discrepancy between the statements of respondents to the poll and the actual behavior of Iranians.

Indeed the fact that these surveys are conducted online is a major cause of their unreliability, especially in Iran which is a conservative society resulting in even more left-wing and secular bias among internet users than is found in Western countries. For example, of respondents to the question "Who did you vote for in the 2017 presidential election?", 64% had voted for Hassan Rouhani and 4% had voted for Ebrahim Raisi, despite the actual results of the election being 41% for Rouhani and 28% for Raisi."

The Iranian government might "persecute minorities", but this is Wikipedia, and official data should always go above online surveys. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Maketrad (talk • contribs) 13:25, 6 November 2020 (UTC)

Since it seems we are recycling comments, I'd like to recycle my own reply to that exact comment: Stats shows that Ahmadinejad was believed to have been voted by the majority too, which many didn't believe, thus resulting in the 2009 Iranian presidential election protests. In a country where there are no basic human rights, why should the elections of all things be genuine? One third of Iranians being Shia Muslim doesn't sound too unrealistic either. If we can use a census by a regime where irreligion and other religions are not recognized and may be subject to punishment, then I see no reason why we can't use this. --HistoryofIran (talk) 13:29, 6 November 2020 (UTC)

My issue with any of this is that your arguments are completely and entirely opinionated. This is approaching agenda pushing, like you want to make it seem Iran is not that Muslim for nationalistic reasons. I speak Persian and I have seen this happen so many times. "One third of Iranians being Shia Muslim doesn't sound too unrealistic either." Yes, to me it does, it sounds unrealistic for the Iranians in the country I live in now (Canada) even though around half are not Muslim, and it is even more unrealistic in actual Iran (where I have family) and over 9/10 people at least identify as Muslim. If the GAMAAN survey is kept, it should absolutely not be above more accurate resources. From Pew Research, to Gallup, to World Values, GAMAAN is the one and only survey where under 90% of people are Muslim, and it's at 33%. How is this believable? If you only are a diaspora Iranian then maybe it is, but if you were to actually visit the country you would know this is unrealistic. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Maketrad (talk • contribs) 17:01, 6 November 2020 (UTC)

If you deny the simple fact that the people of Iran enjoy no human rights nor religious freedom then I'm sorry but it may actually be you who is approaching agenda pushing. Even this article has information about it, and many others such as the Iran article as well, every (non-IRI) source states that as well, because that's how it is. Ironically it is you who is making this a opinion based discussion, whether you or me are Iranians or not, have been to Iran or not, is of little relevancy. --HistoryofIran (talk) 17:12, 6 November 2020 (UTC)

• Since there's no legal way to leave Islam in Iran, the census figures are also not a RS in terms of what people actually believe and practice (only how the government identifies people).[4] The challenge about researching a totalitarian state is that it's very difficult to get reliable information about what is going on inside. (t · c) buidhe 11:23, 13 November 2020 (UTC)

buidhe most WP:RS accept the idea that Iran is a Muslim-majority state. Most RS also agree that the world population of Zoroastrians is around 200,000 or less. Yet GAMAAN says that Iran is no longer a Muslim-majority country and that number of Zoroastrians in Iran alone number several millions. GAMAAN is making WP:EXCEPTIONAL claims that contradict what most WP:RS say about Islam and Iran.VR _talk 17:41, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

Here is a whole journal article discussing Iranian 'Survey Zoroastrians' and what this means in the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/jssr.12870 (open access) P.tamimiarab (talk) 23:12, 4 November 2023 (UTC)

"Decade old census"

Recently a chart was removed. It was criticized for being in 2011. Many countries don't count religion very often. It seems Iran holds a census every 5 years but I'm not sure how often they count religion. Does anyone know? Anyway, we typically report Iranian government statistics elsewhere on wikipedia. For example, at Tehran we report the population of the city as told to us by the Iranian government. We can mention concerns with Iranian government counting. But we don't seem to have major contradictions in WP:RS here. (The GAMAAN survey is a WP:FRINGE theory that contradicts dozens, if not hundreds, of reliable sources).VR _talk 16:35, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

As I recall the discussion regarding GAMAAN (which you were part of) had not been concluded, yet you simply removed it, how is that constructive in any way? Could at least ask for a third opinion or something like that. Also; 'However, because irreligion and some other religions are not recognized by the Iranian government and apostasy from Islam may be subject to capital punishment, government figures may be distorted.' If the GAMAAN survey is fringe, what does that make it of the Islamic Republic of Iran? You can't possible compare this to comparing the number of inhabitants in an area.. --HistoryofIran (talk) 16:41, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

There seems to have been no consensus to include GAMAAN in the first place. There is criticism of the Iranian government, and I agree with them being a very WP:BIASED source. They should only be used on this page with attribution. But GAMAAN's biggest flaw is that they claim Iran is no longer a Muslim-majority country. Newspapers, books, journal articles all refer to Iran as "Muslim-majority". Every single map on world religions I have ever seen in my life (including those at List of religious populations, Muslim world etc) colors Iran as Muslim-majority. If I tried hard enough, I could find you 100+ sources that say Iran has a Muslim majority, even dated to 2020.VR _talk 16:51, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

Is the Iran census figure really not reliable? I understand the issues about religious freedom and recognized religion, but in case nobody has noticed, the percentage of Muslims in the Iranian census is about the same as that of other reliable sources. In fact, it is lower in the Iranian census than in the Pew Research Center study. Veritaes Unam (talk) 07:16, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

How were they conducted though? How anonymous were they? The laws of the regime still apply nonetheless. Also, the question which was also asked regarding GAMAAN: Are they peer-reviewed? --HistoryofIran (talk) 12:03, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

Based on this source https://tacomacc.libguides.com/c.php?g=370670&p=5246285, it seems that Pew Research Center studies don’t go through traditional peer review, but are “scholarly articles.” However, it is still considered a reliable source, as far as I know. The Wikipedia guide on self-published sources states the following, for example:

“Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established subject-matter expert, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable, independent publications.”

I’m assuming Pew Research Center self-publishes it’s studies. They are reliable because they are widely acknowledged as experts on the relevant fields (statistics, surveys, polling, sociology, etc.). Veritaes Unam (talk) 14:08, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

Are they? How so? --HistoryofIran (talk) 14:10, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

Pew Research Center is probably the most prestigious organization when it comes to surveys and statistics, along with Gallup. Must I show their credentials and sources stating this? Veritaes Unam (talk) 04:41, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

Yes, why not? Surely if they are what you say then that should be quite easy? --HistoryofIran (talk) 16:03, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

• @Veritaes Unam: The GAMAAN survey (which is attributed to the source, and is not regarded as a fact) has many reliable sources (The Conversation, Iran International, Manoto, Kayhan Life, TRT World, etc). When a story is covered by many reliable sources, then it indeed belongs to Wikipedia. And also, stop edit warring and wait for a consensus. Shawarsh (talk) 05:57, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

Agree with this one, it deserves to at least be mentioned if it is covered by so many sources. Also, Veritaes, are you gonna answer my question? Because so far those sources aren't any more reliable than that of GAMAAN. --HistoryofIran (talk) 11:07, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

The claims of this study are exceptional, and thus it requires exceptional reliable sources.

These small news organizations aren’t reliable sources and they have conflicts of interest. One is written by the same author that made the “study”, the others are funded by the Turkish and Saudi governments, both adversaries of Iran. This leaves us with Manoto and Kayhan Life, which we know little about and aren’t notable.

This is what Wikipedia says about exceptional claims:

“Surprising or apparently important claims not covered by multiple mainstream sources.”

“Challenged claims that are supported purely by primary or self-published sources or those with an apparent conflict of interest.”

“Claims that are contradicted by the prevailing view within the relevant community or that would significantly alter mainstream assumptions.”

The claim that Iran is more irreligious than America is indeed exceptional, even fringe. It should supported by proper reliable scholarly sources, not unknown or state-affiliated news sources with conflicts of interest.

A good example would be finding scholarly articles citing the research of Pew Research Center, of which there are many. Veritaes Unam (talk) 06:07, 16 December 2020 (UTC)

So, are you going to show proof regarding Pew Research Center or not? I've been waiting a few weeks now. You claiming that Pew Research Center is reliable due to this and that, well then please show some examples already. --HistoryofIran (talk) 06:13, 16 December 2020 (UTC)

Wikipedia also says about using news sources for scientific claims:

“ Articles in newspapers and popular magazines generally lack the context to judge experimental results. They may emphasize the most extreme possible outcomes mentioned in a research project and gloss over caveats and uncertainties, for instance presenting a new experimental medicine as the "discovery of the cure" of a disease. Also, newspapers and magazines sometimes publish articles about scientific results before those results have been peer-reviewed or reproduced by other experimenters. They also tend not to report details of the methodology that was used, or the degree of experimental error. Thus, popular newspaper and magazine sources are generally not the best sources for scientific and medical results, especially in comparison to the academic literature.”

Therefore, the exceptional claim still doesn’t have a good reliable source, and is contradicted by other reliable sources, and ought to be removed, unless a reliable source from academic literature can be found that cites or supports this online survey. Veritaes Unam (talk) 06:16, 16 December 2020 (UTC)

“A news article should therefore not be used as a sole source for a scientific fact or figure, nor should they be considered when describing what aspects of a field the relevant experts consider interesting, surprising, or controversial. Editors are encouraged to seek out the scholarly research behind the news story; good quality science news articles will indicate their sources. One possibility is to cite a higher-quality source along with a more-accessible popular source, for example with the |laysummary= parameter of {{cite journal}}: Empty citation (help).”

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Identifying_reliable_sources_(science)

Veritaes Unam (talk) 06:27, 16 December 2020 (UTC)

https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=pew+research+center&oq=pew+

HistoryOfIran, here is a link to all the scholarly articles written by Pew Research Center, as well as the peer-reviewed journals and other academic literature that cites the studies of Pew Research Center! Hope you find it helpful. Veritaes Unam (talk) 06:35, 16 December 2020 (UTC)

After all that talk and time you simply linked me Pew research center in Google Scholar, really? It shows all kinds of random stuff (mywebtext.org, etc). No I don't find it helpful at all, please show some concrete examples, I'm getting rather bored now. --HistoryofIran (talk) 06:42, 16 December 2020 (UTC)

The Conversation is a scholarly source, other sources are reliable regarding Iran, and TRT is reliable for things not related to the Turkish government. Shawarsh (talk) 16:45, 17 December 2020 (UTC)

The Conversation is news media. TRT is state affiliated news media with possible interests in putting the Iranian population at odds with their government. Both are inadequate sources for scientific claims. Furthermore, The Conversation article is written by the same person who made the survey.

In order for this survey to stay in Wikipedia, it should either 1) be self-published by an expert in the specific field of study, or 2) have independent academic sources that cite this survey. This survey seems to fulfill neither of these, as it is 1) self-published by people who aren’t experts on this field (polling, statistics, demographics), and 2) has zero academic citations.

It is also an exceptional claim, since it contradicts all other scientific surveys on this topic. And as I have shown you from Wikipedia’s policies, news sources are not reliable sources for scientific claims. Veritaes Unam (talk) 21:11, 17 December 2020 (UTC)

HistoryOfIran, that is not all the link contains. If you see below the article headline, you can see something that says, “Cited by [number].” If you tap on that, it will show you the hundreds of articles that cite the specific Pew Research Center study, many of them from academic journals. Veritaes Unam (talk) 21:14, 17 December 2020 (UTC)

It still redirects me to loads of random stuff. Are you gonna link me some proof or not? I'm not supposed to do the searching for you. --HistoryofIran (talk) 21:25, 17 December 2020 (UTC)

For example, if you do that for the first article about social media, it will take you to the page showing all articles that cite it. The first one is this one: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?cites=18417122433961890863&as_sdt=2005&sciodt=0,5&hl=en#d=gs_qabs&u=%23p%3DedzPRmf9vQ8J

Which is a peer-reviewed scientific journal. You can go through hundreds of them, and this establishes Pew Research Center as a widely renown expert in this field, as you can see from the diversity of journal articles that cite its research. Veritaes Unam (talk) 21:26, 17 December 2020 (UTC)

The first one is titled “Millennials and the world of work: An organization and management perspective” by Andrea Hershatter and Molly Epstein in the Journal of business and psychology 25 (2), 211-223, 2010. If you go down to the citations, you will see Pew Research Center cited.

Veritaes Unam (talk) 21:29, 17 December 2020 (UTC)

Does anyone have anything else to say in favor of keeping this survey? Most importantly, one of the following:

1. Peer-reviewed scientific journals backing this exceptional claim. 2. Self-published academic sources by experts in demographics and polling/statistics that back this exceptional claim.

As I’ve shown, news sources aren’t reliable sources by themselves on scientific claims, specially not for *exceptional claims*, which require multiple independent academic sources. Veritaes Unam (talk) 10:12, 24 December 2020 (UTC)

Your arguments are invalid as there is no established fact regarding religion in Iran; so GAMAAN survey is far from being fringe. Also, as repeated several times, The Conversation is a scholarly source. The survey is also covered by another RS, the Atlantic Council. Shawarsh (talk) 13:05, 25 December 2020 (UTC)

GAMAAN's response to my email:

To cite the World Value Survey and PEW to discount GAMAAN’s different approach betrays an intention to distort, since anyone with basic familiarity with the academic literature on Iran knows that the population is secularizing. The numbers of higher than 90% Islam cannot be right. Different academics are writing about these and related issues, confirming deep secularization. See for example this new publication.

One of the two researchers of the GAMAAN religion survey was also keynote speaker this year at the European Sociological Association’s religion network. That is basically the most important academic venue for sociological research on religion among European scholars. You can find the lecture here. It was organized by Groningen University[5]. Also, GAMAAN’s research has been publicized by Utrecht University, where one of the authors is based.[6] We read here the reason for publication in report form before a journal article was published, and that it is forthcoming:

While the scholars plan to publish an academic paper about their research in 2021, they felt the need to already share their findings with the large amount of Iranian respondents. Ammar Maleki: “Our innovative trust-based approach of surveying in a closed society like Iran stands and falls with people's active participation, who not only fill out a survey but also actively promote it to a large and diverse audience. Our research institute GAMAAN is committed to publishing the results before starting a new survey on another subject. That is why we are compelled to publish research findings prior to submitting to an academic journal.

Finally, the researchers have also given extensive explanations for their alternative approach in a conversation

Shawarsh (talk) 14:47, 25 December 2020 (UTC)

Shawarma, it seems that you have failed to provide a reliable source for the survey, in accordance with the Wikipedia guidelines I posted above. It doesn’t matter that the Atlantic Council or The Conversation talked about this online survey. In order for this claim to be mentioned in Wikipedia, it needs to be from people who are experts in the relevant field of study, which in this case is demographics, statistics and polling. If this is not the case, it should at least be mentioned in academic literature, such as peer-reviewed journals. Neither the Atlantic Council nor The Conversation are scientific journals, one is a think tank that doesn’t even specialize in the area (unlike, for example, Pew Research Center), and the other is news media, NOT a scientific journal. That scholars can write articles in this news organization does not make it a scientific source. It further weakens its reliability that it is not even an independent article, but written by the same person who self-published their study. Exceptional scientific claims that contradict existing research should have multiple independent and reliable sources, following Wikipedia guidelines.

I’ll quote Wikipedia guidelines again:

“ Also, newspapers and magazines sometimes publish articles about scientific results before those results have been peer-reviewed or reproduced by other experimenters. They also tend not to report details of the methodology that was used, or the degree of experimental error.”

And this appears to be exactly what is happening here. Some talk in news sources about research that is self-published and not even peer-reviewed.

Furthermore, no, Utrecht University’s media talking about it doesn’t count as a scientific source.

It is okay to have these other sources once you have found a proper, reliable source in scientific literature (peer-reviewed journals or books). Unfortunately, we only have a self-published study and a couple of relatively unknown news media sources. Veritaes Unam (talk) 01:12, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

https://www.pewresearch.org/2010/12/29/how-accurate-are-online-polls/

And a quick article on why online polls tend to be unreliable.

Veritaes Unam (talk) 17:06, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

There is now a peer-reviewed publication, see the comment I also posted above: New results and methodological discussion have now been published in a journal article published by the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/jssr.12870 (open access). More peer-reviewed publications are on their way ... P.tamimiarab (talk) 23:13, 4 November 2023 (UTC)

Catholicism

Seems notable that the Catholic Church is not mentioned in the article, despite its 20,000+ members (see: Catholic Church in Iran). natemup (talk) 02:05, 26 February 2021 (UTC)

March 2021

@Gomzie07: Can you please explain this content removal? You may well have a point, but you need to explain it properly so that everyone can understand. I won't be reverting it, but don't be surprised if others do. Best, M.Bitton (talk) 20:46, 14 March 2021 (UTC)

Pinging Rob experienced IP, the editor who expressed concerns about the content removal. M.Bitton (talk) 20:51, 14 March 2021 (UTC)

Hinduism

I removed the section on Hinduism because it didn't contain any notable content: There was a sentence about two Hindu temples, but the source doesn't provide information about Hinduism in Iran, only about one of the temple buildings. We don't even know whether there still are Hindus worshipping there, or not. Then the article mentioned a visit by a Hare Krishna leader plus a restaurant - two facts that are not notable. ISKCON doesn't present Hinduism as a whole, and is seen as a cult even by many Hindus. --Rsk6400 (talk) 06:24, 20 June 2021 (UTC)

GAAM survey

I would like to start by pointing out that I am not Muslim or anti-Muslim (I am a Roman Catholic who has good relations with Muslims migrant here). That said, I find the GAAM survey to be rather unrealistic: while it is not implausible that people is moving away from Shia Islam due to its identification with the Iranian theocracy, it seems unlikely to me that only 30% of Iranians are Muslim. I believe furher research is needed before making such claims, otherwise it would violate the Sagan standard and fall into WP:Extraordinary.--Karma1998 (talk) 11:11, 4 October 2022 (UTC)

There is nothing "extraordinary" with people being tired with a regime who behaves with them like the iranian regime behaves with the Iranian people.---Wikaviani ^{(talk) (contribs)} 22:09, 30 March 2023 (UTC)

Which Graph to Use?

Several dozen surveys have been conducted on the religious affiliations of Iranians throughout the years with varying degrees of credibility and various amounts of bias. We have many available sources such as the World Values Survey, the CIA World Factbook, the Gulf/2000 Project, etc. With that in mind, which one of these sources will this page's pie chart represent? It is customary to include a pie chart of the affiliation percentages on pages having to do with religion. What do you all think about this? Personally, I strongly believe that we should use either the figures provided by the World Values Survey and/or the Gulf/2000 Project. This is for several reasons: both of these surveys use reasonably large sample sizes in the hundreds of thousands, as well as not relying on those being polled to have to find the survey themselves (which creates a bias against those whom cannot find the website, and creates a bias in favor of individuals within a country that have to find the survey for themselves). It is also worth nothing that the Gulf/2000 Project in particular is overseen by the Ivy-League University of Columbia, which is a reputable organization with minimal bias when it comes to polling. The World Values Survey is also quite credible as well, and neither one of these two surveys were conducted over the internet, which would have created a bias against those without reliable internet access and against those whom were not able to find the survey or even be informed of it's existence.

With all of that being said, I propose that we use the affiliation figures provided by the Gulf/2000 Project. Thoughts? Praxeria (talk) 02:36, 11 May 2023 (UTC)

I'm gonna use your own argument here again; No, the survey is only one of the many surveys concerning religion in Iran, can't see why a specific one should have the spotlight. Moreover, that alleged survey by Gulf/2000 [7] was conducted by Michael Izady (Mehrdad Izady), who notoriously delves in pseudo-history [8]. --HistoryofIran (talk) 23:17, 11 May 2023 (UTC)

The lede is meant to be simple and the summary of the results.

Its not a improvement your adding things into the lede which don't need to be added or your removing things from the lede if you have this is about religion in iran don't put only shia islam in the lede. @P.tamimiarab Barbardo (talk) 11:05, 6 January 2024 (UTC) Sock strike. — Kaalakaa ^(talk) 04:01, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

You should not remove that the surveys are done by telephone/face-to-face, which is important information - indeed, essential information - in the context of Iran, especially if you do mention that the GAMAAN surveys are conducted online (if you mention one survey mode, you have to mention all survey modes; another option is to not mention how any of these are conducted at all). You are contradicting yourself because you say it should be simple and a summary: I shortened the text for you to put in the most essential information only, but putting in other religions is fine. P.tamimiarab (talk) 11:14, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

This user Barbardo is clearly intent on keeping a misleading lead. I leave it to the other Wikipedia users to do something about this. P.tamimiarab (talk) 11:21, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

This is fine but don't do edit warring it can lead to a ban so be wary of that. Barbardo (talk) 12:43, 6 January 2024 (UTC) Sock strike. — Kaalakaa ^(talk) 04:01, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

You removed statistical information regarding the religious makeup of the country which gave a general summary of it and mentioning its done by face to face interviews or by telephone is not needed in the lede its already explained in the religion section of the article and about the way the surveys were used its not misleading in anyway. Barbardo (talk) 12:41, 6 January 2024 (UTC) Sock strike. — Kaalakaa ^(talk) 04:01, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

GAMAAN Suggestion

Not sure whether there is a consensus regarding this, but the use of pie charts in the last two GAMAAN surveys seems very awkward, and unruly compared to the rest of the table above. It feels like an obvious POV, as if saying, "Hey readers, ignore all those major surveys above and just focus on these last two, alright."

For consistency purposes, I would suggest making the statistics more in line with the above stats. The approach of "Muslim (99.5%), Christian (112,100), unaffiliated (110,500)" like of Pew, is more preferable than the use of colors and boxes. Just my suggestion. StarkReport (talk) 05:57, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

@StarkReport I don't see any pie charts currently in the article. Do you suggest putting any in? VR _{(Please ping on reply)} 02:17, 28 September 2024 (UTC)

Hello @Vice regent, Previously, the table did included pie charts and color boxes only for the GAMAAN surveys[9]. In my revision, I removed these elements to maintain consistency across the table and to avoid disproportionately emphasizing only the GAMAAN surveys, which seemed like a POV.

At this point, I would not recommend using pie charts. However, if they are to be included, I think it would be more appropriate to reserve them for more authoritative surveys, such as those from Pew or the World Values Survey. StarkReport (talk) 04:55, 28 September 2024 (UTC)

@StarkReport. That makes sense. I'm a big fan of using visuals, so I'd suggest some kind of charts.VR _{(Please ping on reply)} 05:14, 28 September 2024 (UTC)

Feel free to include charts for the more authoritative surveys. I’m not skilled in chart creation, I can only remove/modify it. StarkReport (talk) 05:25, 28 September 2024 (UTC)