Insolence on the official platform: Refugees called Christianity "nonsense" to escape the cost

Panahian's remarks about "Christianized Islam" and the coin market are a divisive act that does not address economic pain.

In a controversial speech held last Saturday, January 31, 2021, Alireza Panahian, a speaker affiliated with the office of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, gave an unprecedented and critical response to a young man's question about fluctuations in the gold and coin market, which received widespread coverage in Persian-language media.

The incident began when a member of the audience shouted during Panahian's speech that the market price of gold and coins had increased momentarily at that very hour. In response, Panahian attributed this issue not to economic factors or financial policies, but to "the weakness of the functioning of mosques and the structure of religion."

While market data shows that gold and coin prices fluctuated significantly on February 11 (prices fell in some reports and rose in others), which is evidence of an unstable market, Panahian blamed social and religious structures instead of addressing economic factors.

While directly criticizing the performance of mosques, Panahian said that these institutions have not become "a source of income" and that their function is limited to performing rituals. He then attributed the root of the economic problems to the current situation's failure to see the "true religion" and claimed in unprecedented language: "We brought a nonsense Christian religion here and Islamicized it; we said that the mosque is only responsible for morality."

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

In his speech, Panahian emphasized that unless mosques interfere in the economic functioning of the people, the living conditions will not improve and the country's economy will go elsewhere. He called the clergy the cause of "deviation in the social and economic functioning of religion" and considered this situation the result of inattention to the true religion.

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

The gold and coin market in Iran experienced severe fluctuations on the same day; economic reports show that the price of gold and coins fluctuated greatly on Bahman 11, and this was due to several factors such as the global market, exchange rates, and domestic investment conditions, not just the result of domestic religious structures.

In particular, economic reports indicate that the price of 18-karat gold and coins fell significantly that day and the market was undergoing a correction, indicating that the economic situation is too complex to be reduced to a cultural or religious reason.

Panahian’s response to an economic criticism has been quickly covered in Persian-language media, and these religious analyses of the economy have been met with skepticism and even criticism from both government critics and independent analysts. Some analysts believe that connecting religion to economic functioning at this level may elude explanation of real structural factors and lead to superficial root causes.