Audacity in Official Forum: Panahian Called Christianity ‘Obscene’ to Escape from Inflation

Panahian’s remarks about “Islamized Christian religion” and the coin market constitute a divisive action that fails to address economic hardship.

In a controversial speech held on Saturday, 11 Bahman 1404 (January 31), “Alireza Panahian,” a speaker affiliated with the office of Ali Khamenei, the leader of the Islamic Republic, gave an unprecedented and critical response to a young person’s question about fluctuations in the gold and coin market, which has received extensive coverage in Persian-language media.

The incident began when one of the attendees at this session shouted during Panahian’s remarks that the price of gold and coins in the market had momentarily increased at that very hour. In response, Panahian attributed this matter not to economic factors or fiscal policies, but to “the weakness of mosque functions and the structure of religion.”

While market data shows that the price of gold and coins on 11 Bahman was accompanied by significant fluctuations (price declines in some reports and increases in others), which itself testifies to an unstable market, Panahian, instead of addressing economic factors, blamed the social and religious structure.

While directly criticizing the performance of mosques, Panahian said that these institutions had not become “income-generating entities” and their function had been limited to performing religious rituals. He then identified the root of economic problems in not seeing “true religion” in the current situation and, in unprecedented language, claimed: “We brought an obscene Christian religion here and Islamicized it; we said the mosque is only responsible for morality.”

This statement, which has been reported in independent media and emphasized by Persian-language news websites, has provoked reactions in the public sphere, especially for audiences whose news framework is based on critical analysis of religion and society.

In his remarks, Panahian emphasized that until mosques do not interfere in the economic functioning of the people, the economic situation will not improve and the country’s economy will go elsewhere. He called the clergy a factor in “deviation in the social and economic function of religion” and considered this situation a result of neglecting true religion.

This stance, on one hand, reflects public dissatisfaction with rising prices and inflation, and on the other hand, demonstrates the effort of some religious figures close to power to interpret economic crises within the framework of critical cultural and religious analysis, an analysis that is considered insufficient and deviant from the perspective of many economists.

The gold and coin market in Iran on that same day was accompanied by severe fluctuations; economic reports show that the price of gold and coins on 11 Bahman was subject to significant changes, and this was caused by multiple factors such as the global market, exchange rates, and domestic investment conditions, not solely as a result of internal religious structures.

Specifically, economic reports stated that the price of 18-karat gold and coins that day experienced a notable decline and the market faced a correction trend, which shows that the economic situation is more complex than can be reduced to a single cultural or religious cause.

Panahian’s response to an economic criticism was quickly covered in Persian-language media, and these religious analyses about the economy have faced doubt and even criticism both from government critics and from independent analysts. Some analysts believe that linking religion to economic function at this level may constitute an escape from explaining actual structural factors and lead to superficial root-cause analyses.