Looks kind of grim out there, does it not? Yet there is a good reason for optimism : the ultimate weakness with Islam is that it cannot handle the truth.
Without Lies , Islam Dies
Thanks to the Internet Mozlems all over the World are exposed to views that are normally censored. I believe this rejection of Islam in Iran is because of the Internet exposing people to the truth.
"the ultimate weakness with Islam is that it cannot handle the truth."
The same thing applies to the Left.
The best available data (from repeated large-scale, anonymous, VPN-based polls by the Netherlands-based
GAMAAN institute, which are widely regarded as the most reliable window into real Iranian opinion) give a very clear picture:
Hard-core Shia Islamists (full supporters of the Islamic Republic’s theocratic system)
- Roughly 10–20% of the population.
- In GAMAAN’s June 2024 survey (77,216 respondents inside Iran, weighted to be nationally representative of literate adults): only 19.5% said “Yes” to keeping the Islamic Republic in a hypothetical referendum; 68% said “No”.
- Support for “the principles of the 1979 revolution and the Supreme Leader” has fallen to just 11%.
- Only 5% would back a political party that prioritises “traditional and religious values”.
- Opposition to governance based on religious law: 66% view it negatively.
These are the regime’s true base — the people who still genuinely want velayat-e faqih (rule by the Supreme Leader) and enforced Shia Islamism. Even official or leaked government polls (e.g. the Ministry of Culture one that leaked in recent years) show similar collapse in enthusiasm: 73% now want religion separated from the state.
Secular / nationalist / “Persian-first” Iranians (the group that tends to resent or downplay the Arab-Muslim takeover)
- Roughly 50–60%+ of the population, and growing.
- In the same 2024 GAMAAN survey, 26% say they would support a party emphasising “national pride and Iranian nationalism” — the third-most popular ideological bloc after human rights (37%) and social justice (33%). Among supporters of secular alternatives or the monarchy (Reza Pahlavi), nationalist sentiment is even higher (up to 40%).
- Earlier GAMAAN waves (2020–2023) showed only 32–40% of Iranians still identifying as Shia Muslim; nearly half say they have “lost their religion,” with 20%+ identifying as atheist, agnostic, Zoroastrian, “spiritual but not religious,” or “none.”
- Preference for a secular republic or constitutional monarchy (systems that explicitly prioritise Persian/Iranian identity over Shia theocracy) is now the majority position among those who want change.
This group is where the resentment of the Arab take-over of historic Iran lives. They are the ones who:
- celebrate pre-Islamic Persian history (Cyrus, Persepolis, Nowruz as a national rather than Islamic holiday),
- fly the old lion-and-sun flag or wear Zoroastrian symbols in protests,
- support Reza Pahlavi (who constantly talks up Iran’s pre-Islamic glory),
- and openly or privately view the 7th-century conquest and the later Safavid imposition of Shia Islam as the beginning of Iran’s “decline” under “Arab” cultural influence.
The remaining 20–30% are mostly cultural or moderate Shia Muslims — they may pray and fast but do not want the regime’s hard-line version and are drifting toward the nationalist/secular camp, especially among the young and urban.
Bottom line (2024–2025 data)
- Hard-core Shia Islamists who love the current system and its religious foundations: ≈ 15% (core) to 20% (broader loyalists).
- Traditional/Persian-nationalist Iranians who resent the historical Arab-Muslim “take-over” (or at least the enforced Islamism it produced): majority of the other 80%, concentrated in the 50–60% who are explicitly secular + nationalist.
The trend since the 2022 “Woman, Life, Freedom” protests is strongly toward the second group. Religiosity and regime support have collapsed fastest among the under-35s and the educated. The old official claim of “99% Shia Muslim” is now seen by most independent researchers as pure propaganda.
The data show that most Iranians today are either drifting away from strict Shia Islamism or actively embracing a Persian-first identity that looks back at the pre-Islamic era with pride and at the conquest era with at least ambivalence or resentment. The hard-core Islamist bloc is a shrinking minority. It will continue to shrink as they see the inevitable defeat of the hard-core Islamists.