NEWS AND OPINION – Isfahan, Iran: The remarkable headline comes from my interpretation of a story from the website Iran Wire. It hasn’t been well reported but this story highlights the enormous clash of culture between Iran and the West.
It concerns a couple Niloufar Ghazaleh and Mohammad Ali Moghimi, living in Isfahan. The reporting is somewhat sketchy but we are told that Niloufar Ghazaleh was apparently stopped by the Guidance Patrol i.e. the ‘morality police’ for a hijab violation which escalated after the police visited their workplace in their village where a dispute arose over identification cards and a permit. Comment: it seems that the police were looking for ways to punish this couple as they were not submissive.
On my reading of the story, this prompted a response by the couple which appears to have aggravated their relationship with the authorities. The couple presented a petition signed by residents criticising the police’s actions which was apparently delivered to the head of the city judiciary.
This aggravated it appears the authorities and the police which resulted in the commencement of a defamation case against the couple which led to the closure of their workplace and the imposition of a punishment.
We don’t know, as I have said, the precise details but it seems extraordinary to me living in the West that the woman, Niloufar Ghazaleh, in this couple was sentenced to 74 lashes for assaulting a police officer. She was fined the equivalent of $400 for insulting a conscript and sentenced to 74 lashes for threatening police officers and disturbing public order. She was also sentenced to one year in prison and another two years in prison for ‘spreading false information’.
As for her husband, he was sentenced to 2 years in prison for the “legal removal of the closure seal” (I don’t know what this means) and for “threatening public health by keeping a cat”.
Obviously the last alleged crime is the one that interests me. “Threatening public health by keeping a cat” is interesting. It does beg some questions which have not been addressed or answered in the news report that I have read.
I did some research on the keeping of domestic cats in Iran in 2024. It appears that domestic cats are officially banned in some regions particularly in more conservative areas. There isn’t a nationwide law in Iran explicitly prohibiting cat ownership but in certain municipalities there are bans and some religious authorities impose restrictions due to their cultural beliefs that cats are unclean.
This, too, is an interesting thought because Iran is a Muslim country. It is an Islamic republic and the predominant religion is Islam specifically Shia Islam. About 90-95% of the population identifies as Muslim in Iran.
And we know, the world knows, that the Prophet Muhammad loved cats and declared that they were not unclean. He declared them as clean and to be loved. So where does this idea that the cat in this part of Iran is unclean? So unclean that keeping on can help put you in jail. It seems remarkable to me.
We in the West should not be hypocritical because we have our own animal welfare problems and we have our own injustices. But in the 21st century, it seems remarkable, too, that part of this punishment is delivering 74 lashes to an individual.
The use of corporal punishment i.e. lashes meaning flogging began to decline in the West during the late 18th and 19th centuries. The enlightenment era brought about new ideas regarding human rights, justice and the treatment of individuals. In Britain, the last recorded judicial flogging took place in 1948 although the practice had already been largely abolished in earlier decades.
By the mid-20th century, corporal punishment was largely seen as inhumane and largely eliminated from legal systems in most Western nations.
So we are looking at a country, in Iran, which is in some regards and some aspects of their society and culture is hundreds of years behind what some might regard as more developed countries in the West. Once again, I stress, we must respect other cultures but this seems to be very backward in thinking.
And to declare the keeping of a cat as a threat to public health as appears to be the case goes against my understanding of the teachings of the Koran and the hadiths associated with the Koran. My guess is that this couple unwisely got into a dispute with the authorities.
They pushed back because of what they considered to be the injustices perpetrated upon them by the authorities and in doing so they have been hammered unjustly, lost their business and their cat I suspect and have ended up in jail. The destruction of their way of life.
Note: Hadiths are records of the sayings, actions, and approvals of the Prophet Muhammad, which serve as important texts in Islam. They complement the Quran and provide guidance on various aspects of life, law, and morality.
Hadiths are categorized based on their authenticity into:
- Sahih (authentic): Strongly verified.
- Hasan (good): Generally reliable but with some minor issues in the chain of narration.
- Da’if (weak): Lacks sufficient reliability.
The collections of hadiths, such as Sahih Bukhari and Sahih Muslim, are highly regarded and are used by scholars to interpret Islamic teachings and practices.