Zitat:Quite some people bring the point that the Islam is way younger than Christians.

There is more to that. though:

The Iran is often taken as an example of "oh, the muslims aren't as progressed as we are and don't know democracy".

Turns out, history proves wrong.

The Iran had a constitution in 1907 till 1979 when the Shah disappeared that actually promoted freedom of speech, women, other groups, etc.

It was for the influence of British and Russian forces that supported the Shah in 1907 attacking the parliament where a social and political revolt was happening, including assaults with heavy armory.

In ~1957, Mossadegh, a very popular and very liberal and progressive politician that was also a minister before was about to get more power and that was supported by the population. People were on streets demonstrating for him! And against the Shah. Do you know what his doomfall was? He mistrusted the British and Russian politicians and probably rightfully so. What he DID BELIEVE were the Americans. I tell you how the US, the pentagon & the CIA repaid that favor; they told him to get the masses down protesting for him and supported the Shah, the tyrant oppressing his folk, and helped to stop this social and political revolution.

And people wonder why and how Iran people shouted "Death to America!" in the revolution 1979 and storming the US embassy and taking the employees as hostages, while not knowing or acknowledging that the US, but also very many other western countries, welcome the oppressor torturing his people like a honest man internationally, which basically happens right with the murderer of Kashoggi again, supported him in suppressing his people and delivered arms and tanks to him (again, certain parallels can be drawn...). I don't want to call the redaction justified, but hell yeah these people had all the god damn right to be mad at America and the outside world.

For the big revolution in 1979, the religious extremist Ayatollah Chomeini was the face and voice of it, but he was by far not the only force in the revolt, right of my mind, there was the Tudeh-party, which you could describe as socialists or maybe even communists and rather close to Russia, labour unions (not sure right now whether they were connected to the Tudeh or not), some liberalists, think students who wanted more freedoms, feminists and probably a lot of other forces. However, Ayatollah Chomeini did fight against them after the Coup d' Etat was successful, and even against some during or before the uprisings in order to manifest his power and eliminate competitors.

Short trivia: Actually in the Islam and the Shia, religious leaders were hold to not interfere into worldly politics, and they hold to that. Basically, Chomeini radicalized in his exile and changed this elemental of the religion in that area.

Fast forward, in 1997 to 2005 a liberal president, Chatami, was elected and intended to press freedoms forward, but he was halted by the religious guardian council, his laws blocked, and EVEN HIS FREAKING politicians and ministers were attempted to get killed by the Iran intelligence which was under the control of the religious leaders. Imagine that, he was supposed to be one of the mightiest men in his country and he had to fight against his own national' intelligence forces!

And with all the strict religious laws, how to dress, not to party and when to pray preached by religious leaders and government...people are not holding on that, they are basically doing the opposite of what is demanded from them once they are in their private space. I believe I recently read that 80% of the population DOES NOT adhere to the dictated pray times.

So concluding here, the Iran wasn't always a strict religious-country, very far from it, and there were a lot of people trying to push it into a democratic, western direction, which failed so far both because of national-internal enemies AS WELL as external forces, including western countries and especially America, Russia and the UK.

So sorry, when I am getting a bit pissed off when people are like saying "Oh, they aren't there yet" and "Things are different down there with their religion" when in truth we, the west, did totally torpedize such democratic processes and act like we are innocent and it is their fault that they are ruled by such regimes.

I hope you found this little historic excursion interesting, educational and and enlightning.