A number of Sunni preachers in Kurdistan have openly backed a public call by jihadi extremists in the Iranian Kurdish city of Marivan for “blasphemers” to be killed.
During Friday sermons on May 7, worshippers gathered in several mosques in Kurdistan were told that those who spoke against God deserved to be killed. The appalling remarks from several Sunni clergy members came less than a week after jihadists had attacked a group of young men in Marivan’s Dar Siran neighborhood on May 1 to “punish” them for so-called blasphemy.
During the assault, the jihadists attempted to cut the throat of one of the locals before neighbors rushed to his aid, saving his life. While fleeing into the night, the assailants had screamed that they would return.
The incident sparked widespread, outraged condemnation from Iranians of all walks of life. But the support expressed by certain extremist Sunni preachers last Friday is expected to embolden the jihadists further, and has happened in the complete absence of a response from the police or the Islamic Republic’s security forces.
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On Thursday, May 6, a message on a Persian-language Telegram channel by the name of ‘Defending God’s Prophet’ called on all faithful mullahs and preachers in Kurdistan to use their Friday mosque sermons to talk about “the issue of being infidel, and the killing of individuals who have insulted the Exalted Prophet, so everybody will know that our red line is the God’s Prophet, may the blessings of God be upon him.”
The channel had been created just three days earlier and made explicit reference in its first posts to the incident on May 1 in Maravan. After the call went out, six Marivani NGOs – Marivan Literary and Cultural Society, Vejin Center of Arts and Culture, the Ronan Center of Science and Culture, the Chya Green Society, Marivan Drug Addiction Rehabilitation Society, and the Rujyar Cultural and Literary Society — issued a joint statement that same evening, urging all social groups in Marivan not to remain silent. Activists and religious authorities were asked to perform their “historical” and decisive role in ensuring unity, peace and security in Marivan.
Condemning the culture of intimidation, fear and death threats propagated by the extremists, the NGOs also slammed Marivan’s government officials for not doing more to protect people. “Local officials have never played a positive role in these cases,” they wrote, “have not held themselves accountable and have failed to win people’s trust.”
Despite the push-back, several preachers in Kurdistan complied with the jihadists’ request. One of the sermons was published on the Telegram channel later on Friday, in which the speaker proclaimed: “In verse six of Al-Ahzab [a chapter of the Quran], God Almighty states that ‘The Prophet is more worthy of the believers than themselves, and his wives are their mothers.’ In this sense, love of the Prophet is more essential than ourselves, our parents and our children...Those who have insulted the Prophet of Islam cannot be forgiven and killing them is a religious duty.”
The same preacher continued: “We will cut the tongue, severe the head and strangle with our own hands whoever insults the Prophet of Islam, his household and his holy name. We will confront and kill any dog who insults God’s Prophet, whether the dogs are American, French or... We will give our lives to defend God’s Prophet and his honor.”
Another unnamed preacher whose sermon was posted on the same Telegram channel thanked “brave” jihadists from outside of Marivan who travelled there to “punish” its young citizens. “If we had smashed the teeth of some blasphemers in public earlier,” he said, “they would no longer have dared to blaspheme.”
The ‘Defending God’s Prophet’ group describes itself on Telegram as not being affiliated with any particular group or party. But activists in Marivan believe they are neither independent nor part of the traditional religious culture, but affiliated with either Al Qaeda or Islamic State cells in Kurdistan.
A “Win-Win” Game for the Regime?
A Marivani activist told IranWire in his city, gradual improvements to the fabric of civil society over 40 years had brought about mostly peaceful coexistence between different religious, ethnic and political groups. These recent attacks, he said, were carried out by out-of-town jihadists whose sole aim was to announce its existence spread disharmony in Marivan’s diverse society.
These criminals, he said, were incentivized by police inaction in what he called a “win-win game” for the regime. The fact that the police have plenty of information on the attackers and where they gather, but have done nothing to stop them, he believes, suggest that the police themselves are involved.
“The decision to punish somebody and carry out the punishment is the job of a country’s legitimate courts, not a mullah or a preacher,” he added. “Otherwise, anybody could kill anybody else on the pretext of ‘blasphemy’ or ‘insulting the sacred’.”
Another Marivani activist, who also spoke to IranWire on the condition of anonymity, highlighted the fact that elsewhere on the Telegram group, the administrators had reposted part of a sermon by the so-called “Kurdish Bin Laden”, Mullah Krekar: the Iraqi-Kurdish leader of the jihadi extremist group Ansar al-Islam.
The sermon had similarly addressed how to deal with “enemies of Islam”, and the “punishment of blasphemers”. In this audio recording, Mullah Krekar announced emphatically: “If anybody shows enmity toward Islam, there is no need for a fatwa. Do not fear the consequences and axe his head off in a deserted alleyway [or] shatter his brain with a bullet. I myself would do the same thing even if I am killed afterwards.”
For their part, the second Marivan resident said he agreed police and security forces had been incredibly passive. But he said that with time, police will be forced to step in, because not to do so would have “deadly consequences” for them as well.
Jihadist extremists in Marivan, he said, are a small minority “tolerated” by locals – at least, until recently. In addition, he said the absolute majority of Marivan’s clergymen, preachers and religious figures want nothing to do with them and consider their actions “sedition”.
“On Friday afternoon,” he said, “I asked the opinion of two well-regarded clerics in Marivan about the sermons by the jihadi mullahs. Besides expressing their serious concerns about the consequences, they called the [attack in Marivan] a “great tragedy” and condemned inciting young Kurdish Sunnis to arbitrarily kill.”
IranWire contacted the admins of the Defending God’s Prophet channel but they declined to comment.
Related coverage:
Sunni Extremists Terrorizing Residents in Iranian Kurdistan
Death Sentence for a Kurdish Hero in the War against ISIS
Decoding Iran’s Politics: Jihadist Operations by Iranian Sunni Militants
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