With a population of 90 million, Iran’s official name is the Islamic Republic of Iran. As an Islamic state, it enforces Sharia laws or legislation compatible with it.

The country is currently governed by its Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, an Ayatollah, which is the honorary title given to Shia’s highest-ranking Islamic clergy.

It is estimated between 90% to 95% of Iranians are Muslim, with the vast majority being Shia and about 10% identifying as Sunni Muslims, which makes up about 85% of the world’s Muslim population.

But they may identify as Muslim in name only, because approximately 50,000 of the country’s 75,000 mosques have closed, CBN reports.

In addition to having half the people living below the poverty line, Iran has “one of the highest addiction rates in the world,” said The Voice of the Martyrs Todd Nettleton in an interview with CBN. 

And this combined with the massive corruption has citizens becoming disillusioned with Islam.

“And the people of Iran are looking at this and they are saying, ‘Wait a minute. If this is what Islam has brought us in the last 45 years, we’re not interested. We want to know what the other options are,‘” Nettleton noted.

With tens of thousands of Iranians abandoning the Islamic faith, many are turning to Christ through dreams and visions, which is one of the outward signs that the Holy Spirit is moving (Joel 2:28).

It is estimated that upwards of one million Iranians have now embraced the Christian faith. Some believe Iran may have one of the world’s fastest-growing churches, despite the horrid cost people can pay if caught converting.

“We have heard multiple stories this year of Bible study, a home church being raided. Everyone there is photographed, and everyone there is questioned. But then the leader of the meeting is held on to. They are arrested. They are detained, they’re put in prison,” Nettleton said.

Iranians are also tiring of the regime’s brutality that has seen young women murdered or seriously injured by the country’s morality police for not wearing a hijab.

A report just released by the UN has raised concerns about Iran’s persecution of religious minorities in the country, particularly Christians, referring to them as ‘crimes against humanity.’

The report noted that religious minorities are being targeted as part of the government’s efforts to stamp out the women’s protests that have rocked the country since the death of Jina Mahsa Amini, 22. She died in police custody in 2022, after being arrested for not wearing a hijab.

“Abuses reported in the paper include unlawful deaths, extrajudicial executions, unnecessary use of lethal force, arbitrary arrests, torture, rape, enforced disappearances and gender persecution,” Christian Today noted.