The Iranian president, Hassan Rouhani, is in dispute with the country’s hardliners over the path to paradise.



“We can’t take people to heaven by force and with a whip,” he told participants at a healthcare conference in Tehran last month. "We shouldn't interfere in people's lives to such an extent, even out of compassion. Let them choose their own path to heaven."

For over three decades, the Islamic republic and its many affiliates have been committed to tell people right from wrong, even offering answers to the strangest sexual dilemmas that may come to one's mind; for instance, what to do with an unwanted child conceived in a bizarre way during an earthquake?



Chess was banned for years, so was (and in a way, it still is) the female voice singing. Videocassettes were exchanged in fear, men's short-sleeved shirts were unwelcome, shorts are still banned in public for adults. Unconventional hairstyles are deemed un-Islamic, water-pistol fights "too intimate". To date, needless to say, women have only one sartorial option: forced hijab.

In such an atmosphere, Rouhani's words could be seen as quite blasphemous. Last Friday, as prayer leaders in Tehran and Mashhad, a religious eastern city, took to their podiums to deliver their weekly sermons, they responded to the president's utterances. Both imams are directly appointed by the country's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Neither attacked Rouhani by name, but Ahmad Alamolhoda in Mashhad, known for his hawkish statements, declared: "Forget the whip, we will stand with all our force in the way of those who prevent people from going to heaven." In Tehran, Ahmad Khatami, echoed him: "It's a religious state's responsibility to prepare the path to heaven."

Khatami also said: "We should protect our religious state. We don't want to take people to heaven by force but neither should we pave the way to hell by making [such] statements."

Ayatollah Naser Makaren Shirazi, close to the conservatives, had this to say: "We shouldn't open hell's doors with our own hands."



Rouhani, who has tried to keep to the middle of the road, avoiding confrontation with his opponents in public, chose to speak out this time. In a matter of days, he hit back by describing his opponents – without naming them – as disillusioned.



Some people, Rouhani said, spend time "doing nothing except worrying for people's beliefs and afterlife. These people, they have no idea what is religion or what is afterlife."



Rouhani referred to examples within his lifetime of past resistance to modernisation in Iran. When he was a young Talib (student) in the central city of Qom, he remembered, many clerics showed a great deal of opposition to two major events. When the shower arrived in people's houses, replacing old bathhouses, Rouhani said, many warned it was taking people's religion away from them. The other controversy was over time changes in the year. Some complained it was jeapoardising prayer times.



Rouhani's challenge today seems to be the internal battle over internet freedom, which his government favours. Despite his attempts, the president has so far failed to deliver on his promises to lift the ban on Facebook and Twitter, which remain blocked in the country. He has also repeatedly called on the authorities not to interfere in people's private lives.



Last month, the arrests in Tehran of six young Iranians in connection with an Iranian version of Pharrell Williams' hit song Happy brought huge embarrassment for the authorities. The arrests were carried out by the police and not by his government.



Hardliners are also worried about a range of social and cultural related issues, including Iranians' rising desire to access foreign-based satellite dishes.



The hijab is another issue, especially since a Facebook campaign highlighted the plight of a large number of Iranian women who want the freedom to not wear hijab.



This week, hardliners infuriated by the Facebook page created by journalist Masih Alinejad resorted to fabricating allegations against her in order to smear her in public. Iran's state TV ran a programme which falsely claimed she was raped in London, which Alinejad has flatly denied as a tactic to discredit her.



In the runup to his first anniversary as president, it appears that Rouhani's battle with hardliners has just kicked off.

