Rouhani in Firing Line Again as Qom Clergy Lash out at “Sinful” Concert

A concert in Qom has become the latest in a series of upsets between Iran’s religious authorities and President Rouhani’s administration. 

The holy city of Qom, 150 kilometers from Tehran, is also the largest center of Shia scholarship and seminaries in the world. So in the theocratic world of the Islamic Republic, it is doubtful that a politician would be able to survive if a consensus of Qom religious authorities openly condemned him.

That seems to be exactly what is happening to President Rouhani’s Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance, Ali Jannati. And it is bound to reflect badly on the president himself.

The controversy began on September 27, when a concert by the group Mahbod took place in Qom. In Iran, concert organizers and performers must obtain a permit from the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance’s local and provincial bureaus. Mahbod had obtained the required permit for the performance and the concert went ahead. The media referred to the performance as the first “official” concert to take place in Qom.

Normally speaking — or at least recently — just because a permit has been issued, it does not necessarily mean a concert will go ahead. Over the last year, religious authorities have cancelled many concerts, mainly in the holy city of Mashhad but elsewhere too, even though legally they have no power to do so. But the Mahbod concert in Qom was different: The performance went ahead and the media reported on it, complete with photographs documenting the event. 

One of the first voices to rise up against the concert was that of the 97-year-old Grand Ayatollah Lotfollah Safi Golpayegani. He considers any music used for the purposes of entertainment to be against Islam. Two days after the concert, on September 29, he said that live concerts fill the heart of “the Imam of Time” — the Shia messiah devotees believe will one day return to Earth — with sorrow. He can only be made happy again, they say, if  action is taken against such sinful acts.

Then Ayatollah Mohammad Yazdi, the former head of Iran’s judiciary and the current president of the Society of Seminary Teachers of Qom, got involved. He sharply criticized President Rouhani and demanded that Abbas Daneshi, the head of Qom’s Bureau of Culture and Islamic Guidance and a clergyman himself, resign. He also issued a warning that any apologies Daneshi or Rouhani extended should be firmly rejected.  

President Rouhani is himself a cleric. So Ayatollah Yazdi used this statement, and his objection to the concert, to shame and insult him. He told him his clerical frock was an honor that meant he should “not tolerate” music that goes against Shia Islam. Yazdi did not spare the minister of culture. He told Jannati: “Most of your actions are sinful ones.”

On the same day, Daneshi tried to salvage what he could of the situation. “We respect the concerns of religious authorities,” he said, and went on to deny that any concert had taken place. The Mahbod concert was just “a few revolutionary songs based on the exalted poetry of Hafez and Rumi,” he explained. “The artists observed the dignity of Islam and we support such fine programs.”

But his justification made no difference. “I have seen very offensive pictures from this concert,” Ayatollah Yazdi said.

An “Imperialist” Plot?

“If you want to make the youth happy give them jobs and marriage instead of concerts,” said Grand Ayatollah Hossein Nuri-Hamedani. And Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami (who is no relation to the former president, Mohammad Khatami) declared that insulting Qom was part of the agenda of world “arrogance” — code word for imperialism or other non-Iranian influences outside the country that some conservative leaders regard to be hostile and threatening.

On October 1, the Society of Seminary Teachers of Qom issued a statement condemning the concert and declared that the Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance Ali Jannati must be held personally responsible. Then, on October 2, Qom’s representatives to parliament wrote their own letter of condemnation, and demanded that the minister take action against all guilty parties, especially Qom’s Culture Bureau chief. The letter was also signed by Ali Larijani, the speaker of parliament.

Hardliner clerics' new round of attacks against Rouhani’s government are the latest in a three-year battle. Ever since his election in 2013, President Rouhani has struggled to improve relations with some of the country’s most influential clerics, and music has often been a pressure point. 

Previous to the most recent scandal, the Society of Seminary Teachers had written three confidential letters to Rouhani, questioning his domestic and foreign policies. In response, on August 2, Mohammad Nahavandian, Rouhani’s chief-of-staff, travelled to Qom to convey the president’s reactions to their criticisms. After the meeting, a member of the society was quoted as saying that his colleagues had reacted positively to what they had been told. But the latest scandal suggests otherwise, and clearly demonstrates that any improvements in relations can easily be shaken or undermined.