The experience stayed with him. Looking back, Sabti, now an Iran expert at the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) in Israel, says this reflected a broader effort by Iran’s ruling clerical establishment to shape the way young Iranians viewed politics, religion and the world around them.
Schools, mosques, workplaces and media all became part of an ideological ecosystem designed to strengthen loyalty to the regime. But critics of Iran’s leadership say religion itself was often not the ultimate goal.
Primary school girls wearing traditional headscarves sit in a classroom, Tehran, Iran, October 1, 1997. (Kaveh Kazemi/Getty Images)
Religion and power
The Islamic Republic was founded on the doctrine of velayat-e faqih, or “guardianship of the Islamic jurist,” which places ultimate political and religious authority in the hands of the country’s supreme leader.
But Zand argues that in practice the system functions less as a purely religious project and more as a mechanism of political control. “It’s more like a mafia,” she said. “They use faith to stop people.”
According to Zand, the ideology is reinforced by a mix of financial incentives and intimidation. “They tried it through incentives, money and buying people,” she said.
Programs linked to the Basij, a militia affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), have often provided benefits such as jobs, housing and education to families who joined the regime.
“If you are poor and you join the Basij, they give you benefits,” Zand said. “But you have to go with whatever they offer you.”
Ideology embedded in everyday life
Sabti says the Islamic Republic has built an extensive network designed to reinforce the ideology in everyday life. “In banks, offices, public areas and even in the bazaars, regime representatives walk between shops telling people it is time to pray and checking who is not there,” Sabti said.
Mosques themselves are closely integrated into the political system. Friday prayer leaders often give sermons that align with the government’s message.
“There are sixteen propaganda organizations in Iran,” said Sabti, describing a network of state institutions responsible for spreading the regime’s interpretation of Islam and the ideals of the Islamic Revolution.
Some institutions also focus on exporting that ideology abroad. “There is a university dedicated to converting Sunnis to Shiism,” he said. “They bring people from Africa and South America to Iran, convert them to Shiism and send them back to export the Shia Islamic revolution.”
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A Persian-language edition of Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf.
Indoctrination in schools
Schools play a central role in the regime’s ideological system.
“Schools are heavily indoctrinated,” Sabti said. “Civil studies books promoted Islam as superior to all other ideologies.”
Religious messages appear throughout the curriculum. “You cannot separate any school subject from Islam,” Sabti said. “Not history, not geography. Everything is mixed with ideology. The only thing missing was its addition to mathematics.”
For Sabti, the Mein Kampf episode symbolized the ideological environment to which students were exposed. The message, he said, reinforced hostility toward perceived enemies and entrenched a political worldview from an early age.
Ideology and hypocrisy
Sabti says the system’s credibility is also undermined by the behavior of Iran’s elites themselves. “You can see it in the second generation,” he said. “Their children live abroad, while the elites live in palaces in Iran and other countries. It is hypocrisy.”
Zand says the ideology has always been reinforced by intimidation. “They make examples of people in the most vicious way,” she said. “It’s fear and manipulation.”
According to Zand, this atmosphere of fear determines the daily lives of many Iranians. “Everyone is afraid of the police,” she said. “Everyone is afraid of their neighbors.”
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Schoolchildren sit together in a classroom while masked and distanced from each other, with Iranian national flags on each desk, on the first day of school reopening, at Nojavanan School in the capital Tehran on September 5, 2020. (Photo by Atta Kenare/AFP/Getty)
An ideology that is losing its grip
Despite the regime’s extensive ideological machinery, Sabti believes that many Iranians never fully accepted the worldview the government tried to impose.
“Over the years, the indoctrination has become ineffective,” he said. “Most of the public doesn’t really believe it.”
Yet the Islamic Republic remains in power. “The regime maintains control through money, weapons and propaganda,” Sabti said.
Zand agrees that the system has never fully reformed Iranian society. Many people, she said, outwardly obeyed simply to avoid punishment.
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Iranian schoolgirls with angel wings hold flags and portraits of Iran’s top leaders, past and present, as officials and security forces mark the 37th anniversary of the day in 1979 that the father of Iran’s Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, returned from exile in France at the shrine built to house his remains on February 1, 2016, south of Tehran, Iran. (Scott Peterson/Getty Images)
She said that beneath the surface, Iran’s cultural identity remained intact even after decades of state pressure.
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