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The vast majority of Iranians are Muslims of the Ithn Ashar, or Twelver, Shite branch, which is the official state religion. The Kurds and Turkmen are predominantly Sunni Muslims, but Irans Arabs are both Sunni and Shite. Small communities of Christians, Jews, and Zoroastrians are also found throughout the country.

The two cornerstones of Iranian Shism are the promise of the return of the divinely inspired 12th imamMuammad al-Mahd al-ujjah, whom Shites believe to be the mahdiand the veneration of his martyred forebears. The absence of the imam contributed indirectly to the development in modern Iran of a strong Shite clergy whose penchant for status, particularly in the 20th century, led to a proliferation of titles and honorifics unique in the Islamic world. The Shite clergy have been the predominant political and social force in Iran since the 1979 revolution.

There is no concept of ordination in Islam. Hence, the role of clergy is played not by a priesthood but by a community of scholars, the ulama (Arabic ulam). To become a member of the Shite ulama, a male Muslim need only attend a traditional Islamic college, or madrasah. The main course of study in such an institution is Islamic jurisprudence (Arabic fiqh), but a student need not complete his madrasah studies to become a faqh, or jurist. In Iran such a low-level clergyman is generally referred to by the generic term mullah (Arabic al-mawl, lord; Persian mull) or khnd or, more recently, rn (Persian: spiritual). To become a mullah, one need merely advance to a level of scholarly competence recognized by other members of the clergy. Mullahs staff the vast majority of local religious posts in Iran.

An aspirant gains the higher status of mujtahida scholar competent to practice independent reasoning in legal judgment (Arabic ijtihd)by first graduating from a recognized madrasah and obtaining the general recognition of his peers and then, most important, by gaining a substantial following among the Shite community. A contender for this status is ordinarily referred to by the honorific hojatoleslm (Arabic ujjat al-Islm, proof of Islam). Few clergymen are eventually recognized as mujtahids, and some are honoured by the term ayatollah (Arabic yat Allh, sign of God). The honorific of grand ayatollah (yat Allh al-um) is conferred only upon those Shite mujtahids whose level of insight and expertise in Islamic canon law has risen to the level of one who is worthy of being a marja-e taqld (Arabic marja al-taqld, model of emulation), the highest level of excellence in Iranian Shism.

There is no real religious hierarchy or infrastructure within Shism, and scholars often hold independent and varied views on political, social, and religious issues. Hence, these honorifics are not awarded but attained by scholars through general consensus and popular appeal. Shites of every level defer to clergymen on the basis of their reputation for learning and judicial acumen, and the trend has become strong in modern Shism for every believer, in order to avoid sin, to follow the teachings of his or her chosen marja-e taqld. This has increased the power of the ulama in Iran, and it has also enhanced their role as mediators to the divine in a way not seen in Sunni Islam or in earlier Shism.

Christians, Jews, and Zoroastrians are the most significant religious minorities. Christians are the most numerous group of these, Orthodox Armenians constituting the bulk. The Assyrians are Nestorian, Protestant, and Roman Catholic, as are a few converts from other ethnic groups. The Zoroastrians are largely concentrated in Yazd in central Iran, Kermn in the southeast, and Tehrn.

Religious toleration, one of the characteristics of Iran during the Pahlavi monarchy, came to an end with the Islamic revolution in 1979. While Christians, Jews, and Zoroastrians are recognized in the constitution of 1979 as official minorities, the revolutionary atmosphere in Iran was not conducive to equal treatment of non-Muslims. Among these, members of the Bah faitha religion founded in Iranwere the victims of the greatest persecution. The Jewish population, which had been significant before 1979, emigrated in great numbers after the revolution.

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The Iranian navy plans to deploy warships into the Atlantic Ocean, a senior Iranian commander announced Friday.

Iranian warships will set sail for the Atlantic in March, Rear Adm. Touraj Hassani, Iran's naval deputy commander, told state media IRNA, adding that Iran's new stealth destroyer the Sahand could be a part of the naval flotilla deployed to the Atlantic for a five-month operation.

Iran launched the domestically produced destroyer at the start of December. At that time, Hassani suggested that Iran may send two to three warships to Venezuela.

Read More: Amid rising tensions with the US, Iran launched a new stealth destroyer that it says can evade radar at sea

The announcement comes as Iran bristles at the presence of a US Navy aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf.

The USS John C. Stennis aircraft carrier is currently operating in the Persian Gulf, its presence specifically intended as a deterrent for hostile Iranian activities.

And Iran's not pleased. "We will not allow Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS John C. Stennis to come near our territorial waters in the Persian Gulf," Iranian Rear Adm. Habibollah Sayyari warned in December.

Read More: The US Navy is sending an aircraft carrier to the Persian Gulf in a message to a belligerent Iran

Iran has long desired to counter American activities in its home region by showing the flag near American waters and elsewhere, Reuters reported.

"By their continuous presence in international waters, Iranian naval forces aim to implement the orders of commander-in-chief of the armed forces (Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei), wave the flag of the Islamic Republic of Iran, thwart the Iran-ophobia plots, and secure shipping routes," Hassani explained.

Tensions between Washington and Tehran have been on the rise since President Donald Trump decided to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal, as well as reimpose sanctions, last year. Whether or not Iran will, or even can, send warships into the Atlantic remains debatable.

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Iran says it will send warships into the Atlantic - Business ...

LONDON (Reuters) - A powerful Iranian council approved an anti-money laundering bill on Saturday, state media reported, a major step towards reforms that would bring Iran into line with global norms and could facilitate foreign trade in the face of U.S sanctions.

FILE PHOTO: An exchange currency dealer sits at his shop as he waits for customer in Tehran's business district October 24, 2011. REUTERS/Raheb Homavandi

Iran has been trying to implement standards set by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), an inter-governmental organization that underpins the fight against money laundering and terrorist financing.

Foreign businesses say Irans compliance with FATF standards and its removal from the organizations blacklist are essential if they are to increase investment, especially after reimposition of the U.S. sanctions on Tehran.

However, Iranian hardliners have opposed passing legislation toward compliance with the FATF, arguing it could hamper Iranian financial support for allies such as Lebanons Hezbollah, which the United States lists as a terrorist organization.

Parliament last year passed the anti-money laundering bill, one of four amendments Iran needs to implement to meet FATF requirements, but the Guardian Council, a vetting body, rejected it, saying it was against Islam and the constitution.

On Saturday, the Expediency Council, a body intended to resolve disputes between parliament and the Guardian Council, approved the bill with some changes, state news agency IRNA said, quoting a member of the council.

The move came after Ayatollah Sadeq Amoli Larijani - the chief of hardline judiciary - was appointed last week as the head of the Expediency Council. He is the brother of Ali Larijani, the speaker of the parliament.

Seven months after his harsh dismissal of parliamentary efforts to adapt FATF and other international conventions on money laundering, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei seems to have warmed to the reforms, a reversal that experts say is aimed at preventing Irans economic collapse.

In recent months, cities have been rocked by demonstrations as factory workers, teachers, truck drivers and farmers protested against economic hardship. The sanctions have depressed the value of Irans rial currency and aggravated annual inflation fourfold to nearly 40 percent in November.

U.S. President Donald Trump withdrew from a nuclear deal with Iran last year and reimposed the sanctions on its banking and energy sectors, hoping to curb its missile and nuclear programs and counter its growing influence in the Middle East.

European signatories of the nuclear deal are still committed to the accord and seek to launch a mechanism, a so-called special purpose vehicle (SPV), aiming to sidestep the U.S. financial system by using an EU intermediary to handle trade with Iran.

The director general of Irans Strategic Council on Foreign Relations, an advisory body set up by Khamenei, voiced his support for the FATF-related bills on Friday.

It is better to finalize the FATF and CFT (counter financing of terrorism regimes) in the earliest time, so the Europeans have no excuse not to implement the (SPV) mechanism, Abdolreza Faraji was quoted by semi-official ISNA new agency.

Reporting by Bozorgmehr Sharafedin; Editing by Alison Williams

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Iran approves anti-money laundering bill to ease foreign ...

Iranian warships will sail for the first time into Atlantic waters early in 2019, the deputy commander of Iran's navy has said. The long-distance voyage would bring Iran's military forces closer to U.S. soil, and territorial waters, than they have been since the 1979 Islamic revolution which brought the current regime to power.

Iranian state-run broadcaster IRNA quoted deputy naval commander Admiral Touraj Hasnai Moqaddam as saying the "Iranian mission would take five months to complete" and would likely begin early in 2019. He said one of the vessels in the flotilla would be a new Iranian destroyer, the Sahand, which IRNA described as "the most advanced destroyer of West Asia."

According to the Reuters news agency, Iran claims the Sahand has landing space for helicopters and is armed with anti-aircraft and anti-ship guns, surface-to-surface and surface-to-air missiles and electronic warfare capabilities.

IRNA claimed the new ship was "more advanced than its predecessor, Jamaran destroyer, with radar-evading capabilities."

Iran has threatened to send a flotilla into the western Atlantic, presumably to visit a friendly Latin American nation, such as Cuba, for years. The country's Navy chief said again in 2017 that it was a goal of the Islamic Republic.

"Our fleet of warships will be sent to the Atlantic Ocean in the near future and will visit one of the friendly states in South America and the Gulf of Mexico," Iran's state-run Fars news agency quoted Navy Commander Rear Admiral Hossein Khanzadi as saying in November 2017.

The tension between Iran and the U.S. has mounted after President Donald Trump's unilateral withdrawal from the international nuclear agreement reached under his predecessor and his move to reinstate harsh economic sanctions on Tehran.

While Iran's navy and Revolutionary guard vessels often harass American warships in the Persian Gulf, close to their home waters, it remains unclear how they might behave in the vast open waters of the Atlantic, especially under the watchful eye of the far superior U.S. military.

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Iran navy to sail warships into Atlantic to Gulf of Mexico ...

WASHINGTON/DUBAI (Reuters) - The United States on Monday restored sanctions targeting Irans oil, banking and transportation sectors and threatened more action to stop its outlaw policies, steps the Islamic Republic called economic warfare and vowed to defy.

The measures are part of a wider effort by U.S. President Donald Trump to curb Tehrans missile and nuclear programs and diminish the Islamic Republics influence in the Middle East, notably its support for proxies in Syria, Yemen and Lebanon.

Trumps moves target Irans main source of revenue - its oil exports - as well as its financial sector, essentially making 50 Iranian banks and their subsidiaries off limits to foreign banks on pain of losing access to the U.S. financial system.

The return of the sanctions was triggered by Trumps May 8 decision to abandon the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, negotiated with five other world powers during Democratic President Barack Obamas administration. That agreement had removed many U.S. and other economic sanctions from Iran in return for Tehrans commitment to curtail its nuclear program.

Trump denounced the deal because of time limits on some of Irans nuclear activities, as well as for its failure to address other Iranian activity that the United States does not like.

In abandoning the agreement and imposing sanctions that it had lifted as well as adding new ones, the United States is betting the economic pressure will force Iran to change its behavior and agree to a new, much more restrictive deal.

The Iranian regime has a choice: it can either do a 180-degree turn from its outlaw course of action and act like a normal country, or it can see its economy crumble, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told reporters.

We hope a new agreement with Iran is possible.

Speaking before Pompeo detailed the U.S. sanctions, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani accused the United States of targeting ordinary Iranians and said the Islamic Republic would find a way to continue to sell our oil ... to break sanctions.

The enemy is targeting our economy ... the main target of sanctions is our people, he said. This is an economic war against Iran.

Some analysts are skeptical Iran will knuckle under to U.S. pressure, at least in the short term.

The increasing pressures on Iran will not change the behavior of the regime any time soon, said Dennis Ross, a former U.S. official now at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said U.S. bullying was backfiring by making Washington more isolated, a reference to other world powers opposed to the initiative. The other parties to the 2015 nuclear deal, Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia, have said they will stay in it.

The sanctions are designed, in part, to force Irans main customers to stop buying its oil. However, the United States gave temporary exceptions to eight importers - China, India, Greece, Italy, Taiwan, Japan, Turkey and South Korea - allowing them to keep buying from Iran.

Iraq has also been given an exemption, Brian Hook, the U.S. special representative for Iran, told reporters in a conference call, saying Iraq was working on reducing Irans influence and opening Kirkuk, which would be another 200,000 barrels of oil.

In June Iran said that Baghdad and Tehran had begun exchanging crude oil.

Crude from the Kirkuk field in northern Iraq is being shipped by truck to Iran. Tehran will use the oil in its refineries and will deliver the same amount of oil to Iraqs southern ports, on the Gulf.

The sanctions also cover 50 Iranian banks and subsidiaries, more than 200 persons and vessels in its shipping sector, Tehrans national airline, Iran Air, and more than 65 of its aircraft, a U.S. Treasury statement said.

The administration said it had toughened the sanctions by roughly 300 new designations on individuals and entities, and targeted more subsidiaries of Iranian companies than before.

European powers that continue to back the nuclear deal said they opposed the reapplication of sanctions and major oil buyer China said it regretted the move.

Switzerland said it was holding talks with the United States and Iran about launching a humanitarian payment channel to help food and drugs keep flowing to Tehran.

U.S. sanctions permit trade in humanitarian goods such as food and pharmaceuticals but measures imposed on banks and trade restrictions could make such items more expensive as well as more difficult to pay for.

The United States will allow non-proliferation civil nuclear work at Arak, Bushehr and Fordow in Iran under the strictest scrutiny, the State Department said on Monday.

The Belgium-based SWIFT financial messaging service said it is suspending some unspecified Iranian banks access to its messaging system in the interests of the stability and integrity of the global financial system.

The head of Irans Central Bank, Abdolnassr Hemmati, said the country has taken necessary banking measures to continue trade after the U.S. move, Iranian state TV said.

The European Union, France, Germany and Britain said they regretted the U.S. decision and would seek to protect European companies doing legitimate business with Tehran.

Diplomats told Reuters last month that a new EU mechanism to facilitate payments for Iranian oil exports should be legally in place by Nov. 4 but not operational until early next year.

Trump told reporters he wanted to impose the oil sanctions slowly so as not to cause a shock to the market.

Oil prices were mixed on Monday after a steep five-day fall. Brent crude LCOc1 futures rose 34 cents to settle at $73.17 a barrel. U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude CLc1 futures fell 4 cents to settle at $63.10 a barrel.

Prices rallied to near four-year highs in early October on expectations the imposition of sanctions would create a global supply shortage. However, news of the waivers last week sent prices lower as top buyers would continue to import Iranian oil.

Graphics

Iran's nuclear program tmsnrt.rs/2D0wdT3

Iran's crude exports 1975-2018 tmsnrt.rs/2CUMBnT

Iran's crude exports, production tmsnrt.rs/2CRTM0h

Writing by William Maclean and Arshad Mohammed; Editing by Jon Boyle, Richard Balmforth and Bill Trott

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U.S. reimposes Iran sanctions, Tehran decries 'bullying ...