Iran, the Quran, and the West

What is unfolding in Iran today is faithful to the Quran. The present regime represents the mature expression of political Islam as articulated through Quranic command, prophetic precedent, and juridical enforcement.

The Iranian theocracy emerged in the 1979 revolution, although that event itself drew from far older currents shaped by the early caliphates, the Safavid consolidation of Shiite authority, and a regional memory in which governance by divine will remains the highest political aspiration, especially when articulated through clerical rule, which fused mosque, court, and sword into a single apparatus of control.

The regimes of the Middle East, whether Persian, Arab, or Ottoman, historically oscillated between tribal despotism and sacral absolutism. Islam provided the unifying grammar through which conquest, taxation, obedience, and submission received divine sanction. From the Umayyad and Abbasid caliphates through the Ottoman sultanate, rule functioned through enforced conformity, suppression of dissent, and expansion through warfare, all of which drew direct justification from the Quran and the hadith, rather than from philosophical reasoning or natural law reflection. Consequently, when modern observers attempt to isolate violence as a distortion of Islam, they commit a category error, since the religion’s canonical texts repeatedly bind faith, law, and force into an indivisible whole.

The Quran itself presents governance through domination as a religious mandate, as seen in Surah 2:191, which instructs believers to “kill them wherever you encounter them,” and Surah 9:29, which commands Muslims to fight those who disbelieve until they submit and pay the jizya in humiliation. Surah 4:34 establishes dominant male authority over women and sanctions physical discipline upon wives and women, thereby restricting female liberty through divine decree. These passages function alongside the hadith literature, which records Muhammad approving assassinations, conducting raids, and enforcing obedience through fear, all of which shape Islamic jurisprudence and render political violence an act of fidelity to the Quranic call.

In this context, the recent Iranian state video depicting Donald Trump at the Butler, Pennsylvania shooting, accompanied by the caption stating that “this time the bullet will not miss,” is a calculated theological signal and provocation, since Islamic regimes understand the performative power of threats issued under divine justification. There is a theological history here for Iranians. The language of threat draws upon the well-established Islamic designation of the United States as the Great Satan, a term popularized during the Iranian Revolution by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1979, rooted in the Quranic conception of satanic forces opposing Allah’s sovereignty over the world. The Great Satan represents more than geopolitical rivalry, since it embodies a civilizational enemy whose moral freedom, religious pluralism, and political liberty constitute rebellion against the governance system that the Quran calls for: divine submission.

Islamic commentators describe America as the Great Satan precisely because its existence contradicts Quranic anthropology, which frames Allah as the absolute master and humanity as slaves whose highest virtue consists in thoughtless submission rather than freedom, conscience, or dissent. Western commitments to free speech, rights, women’s dignity, religious liberty, and representative governance stand as existential affronts to Quranic order, warranting eradication rather than negotiation. Within this framework, calls for assassination, whether directed at presidents or civilians, align seamlessly with the doctrine of jihad, which sanctifies violence whenever it advances Islamic dominance or weakens the land of war.

Additionally, the wider regional picture matters because Iran operates inside a political ecosystem where every faction reads theology as strategy, and therefore its threats function as messaging to allies, rivals, and its own street. Intimidation is a currency that pays immediate dividends in regimes built on sacred coercion. Moreover, as the Quran teaches, the world is divided into the ‘land of peace’ (Dar El Islam) and the ‘land of war’ (Dar El Hare), and that conceptual map turns diplomacy into a temporary tactic rather than a moral commitment, since the ultimate goal remains expansion of rule rather than mutual recognition.

There is a well-known Middle Eastern parable that helps to demonstrate the deeply differing anthropologies faced right now. The fox and the scorpion came to a riverbank. Both wished to cross the river. The fox could swim, but the scorpion could not. The scorpion asked the fox to give him a ride, offering a reward if he would. The fox inquires, “How do I know you would not sting me on the way?” “Impossible,” the scorpion said, “I would also drown if I did that.” The fox agreed because the scorpion’s answer was logical. Halfway across, though, the scorpion stung the fox. As the fox slowly stopped swimming and began dying, gasping beneath the waves, he exclaimed, “Why did you sting me? You will die as well!” The scorpion replied as he himself was drowning, “What did you expect? This is my nature!”

Accordingly, the notion that an Islamic regime might inspire Muslims residing within the United States to act against its leadership remains entirely consistent with Quranic logic, particularly when reinforced by the doctrine of taqiyya, which permits deception in service of Islam. Historical precedent confirms this pattern across regions where Islamic authority expands, since loyalty to the ummah supersedes national allegiance, and obedience to Allah eclipses civic duty, rendering pluralistic coexistence perpetually fragile.

The current unrest within Iran also reveals a deeper truth about human nature, since populations subjected to comprehensive religious coercion eventually revolt against systems that deny dignity, conscience, and interior freedom. The Islamic Republic’s intention to publicly execute a young protester serves as ritualized pedagogy, demonstrating Quranic rule through fear while reaffirming the ruler’s authority over life and death. When Allah is defined as master and the believer as slave, the political ruler becomes executor of divine will and tolerates no dissent, since resistance implies apostasy rather than disagreement.

This dynamic explains why societies governed through strict Quranic enforcement repeatedly collapse into cycles of repression and revolt, despite claims of moral superiority or divine favor. Human beings possess an innate desire for freedom, moral agency, and truth. Any system that denies these elements through sacralized violence ultimately provokes resistance. Iranian protests testify less to Western interference than to the internal contradiction between human dignity and enforced submission.

Islamic nations that achieve relative stability and prosperity, such as Turkey, do so through partial adoption of Western democratic principles, market structures, and legal protections, even while attempting theological harmonization with Islamic teaching. These arrangements persist temporarily through tension management rather than resolution, since Quranic absolutism resists permanent compromise with pluralism, freedom of conscience, or equal citizenship. Over time, such experiments encounter increasing strain as religious authority reasserts supremacy over civic order.

The present Iranian crisis and its overt targeting of Trump represent continuity rather than deviation, since Quranic Islam consistently frames the West as an enemy whose defeat constitutes religious duty. Christians thus bear responsibility to observe these developments with clarity, prayer, and prudence, recognizing that theological commitments shape political behavior more decisively than diplomatic language. Peaceful coexistence remains possible only within systems that restrain religious absolutism through law and virtue, rather than sentiment or denial.

Preservation of Western civilization depends upon reclamation of Christian virtue, moral courage, and disciplined prudence. Societies lose coherence when they abandon the theological foundations that once safeguarded human dignity, freedom, and ordered liberty. The Iranian moment serves as a reminder that religious systems denying the humanity of their adherents eventually consume both ruler and ruled, thereby revealing the enduring truth that only faith aligned with human nature can sustain civilization across generations.

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