Research Paper On Iranian Culture

Cultural Awareness: Iranian Culture When looking at the things that define every culture, most people can easily distinguish differences in traits by making comparisons to their own. These differences make up the fundamentals for a population’s lifestyle. The framework of their society, and the rules that nearly everyone lives by on a daily basis without being aware that they are doing so is what people consider their “culture”. Culture is the shared beliefs and social norms of a country or area that are different from other places. In the country of Iran, there is a lot of diversity in differing categories that make up their culture. This paper will define the culture of Iran by looking at the environmental, political, religious, and
Nearly every aspect of daily life involves their religion as a Theocratic state. The Islamic state of Iran is 98% Muslim, 89% of its population being Shi’a and 9% Sunni (Curriculum Development Division, Aug. 2008). The other two percent of the population is a mixture of some of the oldest and most influential religions in the world including Judaism, Christianity and Zoroastrianism (Curriculum Development Division, Aug. 2008). When the Ayatollah Khomeini took power and created the Islamic state, he established the Guardianship of the Jurisprudents, which is an Islamic teaching that says, “The only person fit to rule over an Islamic state is the person best fit to interpret the Qur’an and the teachings of the prophet Muhammad” (Kagan, 2012). The Supreme Leader is the official head of the Iranian government because of this principle. This Shi’a teaching is known as Twelver Shi’ism” and is practiced very rarely outside of Iran. Sunni Muslims do not normally recognize the Twelver form of Islam and although there is still contention in the area between the ruling body and some smaller groups the area has been operating without a serious uprising since 1979 (Kagan,