Iran's Mosques Affairs Regulating Authority website has said the rumors claiming Sunnis in capital Tehran have no mosque of their own are mere propaganda fueled by extremists.

Ahlul Bayt News Agency - Iran's Mosques Affairs Regulating Authority website has said the rumors claiming Sunnis in capital Tehran have no mosque of their own are mere propaganda fueled by extremists.



The same source reported on Wednesday that Sunnis had 15,000 mosques of their own across the country which well exceeded those of the Shias; “razing of a praying house belonging to Sunnis have been on building use permit change; “additionally, it had been reported that in the praying house, extremist ideology had been promoted,” said the report.



According to Islamic sources, mosques are defined as a place which would accept the multitudes of all walks of life; it is the home to God and a worshipping place for Muslims and it is totally misguided to designate some mosques with Sunni or Shia affiliations, as Shia would worship and observe their religious rituals in a Sunni-majority district or neighborhood, and Sunnis would attend their rituals in a Shia-majority mosque. “All should avoid lending due publicity to rumors which seek to divide Muslims under such propaganda and false reports,” the report said.



“Sunnis have a total of 9 mosques in the capital, spread across the city, with more than 15,000 mosques in the country; the alleged razing of the center of extremism had been finalized after necessary and frequent warnings by the Municipality officials; last year, the praying house located in northwestern neighborhood of Pounak, was closed by the authorities on the grounds that foreign nationalities sat to spread extremist ideology there,” added the website report. “Despite warnings, the praying house personalities had gone unfazed, resuming its activities; a court directive closed it ultimately,” it said.



“A few residential units were leased by some who changed the building use permit to change them to a mosque; the locals and court authorities believed that the venue was a center of extremist reading of the Islamic texts,” said the report. “In recent years, similar centers have gained the mosque status, where undercover activities were waged in the name of the mosque and immunity bestowed upon by the very concept of the mosque, which had been also closed by court directives or razed, notably among them a husseiniyeh (a place of congregation among Shias similar to mosque) in Qom,” it detailed.



"Reportedly, no political or discriminatory motives had been the contributing factor to razing of the building, as other Sunni mosques are run without any similar interventions by Municipality officials. The extremist activities in the praying house precipitated legal action against the individuals running it, which provided food for enemy to launch on a propaganda to fashion an image of the situation where Iran is systematically shown to antagonize Sunnis; however, Sunni compatriots should be alert to the conspiracies waged by overseas circles, in order to avoid traps of such circles."



The Islamic Republic of Iran views Sunnis and Shias equally; the best testimony to this policy is Palestine where both Islamic Jihad and Palestinian Authority are Sunni by religion, and also Lebanon, where Shia Hezbollah and its affiliated community are supported by the Islamic Republic of Iran.









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