Chapter Six: The Subversion of Religion and the Destruction of Piety

In this book, the term “deceit” (tazwir) refers to a false and subversive religion that operates against true religion, cloaked in the guise of piety, yet systematically engaging in hypocrisy, sanctimoniousness, and deceptive practices. Deceit, as defined here, is a counterfeit and un-divine religion that infiltrates authentic religion, devoid of the sacred, revelatory, and divine essence, as well as the illumination, flexibility, comprehensiveness, and contemporaneity that characterize true faith. It becomes a mercenary enterprise, trading in religion, waylaying both the spiritual and worldly lives of people, and purchasing a fleeting and limited worldly prosperity at the cost of eternal damnation.

Any religion lacking a divinely appointed and sagacious intermediary endowed with divine revelation and the system of Imamate—whether through an infallible, divinely designated Imam or a charismatic, chosen, yet fallible leader—is deemed deceitful. Its systemic infiltration aims to undermine the system of Imamate and divine revelation. Deceitful religion, aligned with a rigid and spiritually barren core, lacks flexibility and comprehensive truth, rendering it superficial, ritualistic, devoid of meaning, monotonous, uniform, unsuitable, tedious, oppressive, and destructive to genuine thought and the inner essence of faith.

“And We made them leaders inviting to the Fire, and on the Day of Resurrection they will not be helped. And We caused a curse to follow them in this world, and on the Day of Resurrection they will be among the despised.” (Qur’an, 28:41–42)

This noble verse speaks of hypocritical and deceitful leaders who, in their worldly existence, are consumed by enmity and condemnation. If religion becomes false and a tool in the hands of worldly domination and religious deceit, it turns into an adversary of true religion, subverting its essence.

The Nature of Deceitful Religion

A poignant dialogue from the series Mukhtarnameh encapsulates the peril of deceit: “Deceit is the worst affliction of religion. Deceit enters the scene clad in the garb of piety and sanctity. Deceit is a two-faced coin: one side bears the name of God, the other the image of Satan. The masses see its divine face, while the enlightened perceive its satanic one. How much anguish did Ali endure from this crowd of prostrating, scripture-reciting, outwardly pious hypocrites!”

Deceitful religion is an inverted and distorted faith, systematically opposed to divine religion. When dominant, it oppresses people in the name of God, sanctifying its injustices, carnal desires, and malevolent nature as obligatory and sacred. It is a deviant, superstitious, censored, and treacherous religion that transforms meaningless verbosity, loquacity, and incoherent rhetoric into commodities for profit, war, and expansionism. Through clamor, agitation, flattery, and the cultivation of sycophants, it marginalizes the sages and sacred texts of religion or slanders those who possess relative truth, fomenting discord and chaos. It ensnares the naive and ignorant with satanic deceptions and carnal allurements, while driving the enlightened to disbelief, resentment, and despair until their final breath.

“Deceit, a self-referential and seductive impostor driven by base desires and a malevolent core severed from God, is a scheme and conspiracy against piety, originating within religion itself and its proclamation.”

Regressive and backward-looking, deceitful religion disregards the natural diversity of faith, imposing its monolithic, self-serving, and coercive version through violence, oppression, narrow-mindedness, tyranny, intimidation, and the suppression of public freedoms. It humiliates and diminishes all members of society, enforcing uniformity without foreseeing its inevitable disgrace and ultimate failure.

The Content and Methods of Deceit

The content of self-centered, ostentatious, and hypocritical religious deceit, severed from God and driven by malevolence, is imposed through coercion. Lacking divine truth and God’s will, it is sophistic, false, and fallacious. Deceit is deaf to truth, even when that truth is the sacred text of the Qur’an, as if its ears were filled with lead.

“And when you recite the Qur’an, We place between you and those who do not believe in the Hereafter a hidden barrier. And We place upon their hearts coverings, lest they understand it, and in their ears deafness. And when you mention your Lord alone in the Qur’an, they turn back in aversion. We are most knowing of how they listen to it when they listen to you and when they are in private conversation, when the wrongdoers say, ‘You follow not but a man bewitched.’” (Qur’an, 17:45–47)

In Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh, this malevolence and depravity are depicted thus:

“Whenever you claim to have reached your place, / Needing no guide in this worldly space, / Know that you are the most ignorant of all, / If you heed not the counsel of sages’ call.”

Deceitful religion, severed from divine truth, fosters ignorance, darkness in perception, systemic hypocrisy, and flattery. It tolerates no critique or dissent. Bereft of God, it is systematically sophistic, lacking truth, sincerity, and transparency. Disconnected from revelation and divine grace, it pursues nothing but hollow, identity-less, and degrading self-interest, enslaving all in darkness and ambiguity, demanding subservience and submission.

The Moral Degradation of Deceit

The most repugnant and destructive trait of religious deceit is the pettiness and baseness of the deceiver, who, devoid of inner truth, spirituality, divine revelation, or even selfhood, lacks identity. To elevate their sophistic self above truth and claim superiority, they belittle everyone, demanding subservience and asserting dominance over all.

Among the vilest attributes of religious deceit is its mastery of wordplay, baseless oratory, incoherent verbosity, and the systematic cultivation of ignorance and humiliation. It claims staunch legitimacy through modern propaganda, portraying itself as more righteous than truth itself. Yet, its words are speculative, unreliable, and devoid of knowledge, wisdom, truth, sincerity, reason, or evidence. Deceit demands blind allegiance to its dark and misguided notions.

“Indeed, those who call upon partners besides Allah follow nothing but conjecture, and they do nothing but guess.” (Qur’an, 10:66)

The Suppression of Truth

Through rigid claims to truth in its chain of words, relentless broadcasting of its righteousness via diverse media and propaganda networks, and the exploitation of truth by its supporters, deceitful religion stifles the voice of truth, divine scripture, and the wisdom of sages. It prevents comparisons between true and false religion, maintaining unilateral dominance through monologue. It never engages in reciprocal dialogue with its people, establishing itself as the sole voice over all media and propaganda outlets. This is the coercive dominance of deceit, not the legitimate authority or social acceptability of enlightened and voluntary piety.

Deceitful religion lacks identity or dignity, especially when it reaches an overt impasse, inescapable predicament, and manifest failure. By fanatically defending its deviant religion through belligerence, militancy, and war-mongering, it breeds suspicion toward true religion, alienates people from all faiths, including the divine truth, destroys living religious sources, and fabricates documents for its self-referential religion rooted in self-worship.

Following deceitful religion without investigation or verification of its religious validity, as required of the pious, leads to misguidance born of deliberate ignorance. Such followers, driven predominantly by lust, greed, weakness, or fear, find no excuse or security before God, who holds a decisive argument against them.

The Social Consequences of Deceit

With the dominance of deceitful religion, people are driven toward secularism or self-referential religion, resulting in societal fragmentation, discord, alienation, disarray, and pervasive deception. Deceit’s belligerence and discord lack methodological unity, with its only cohesion being its arrogance and domination. It betrays even its allies, sacrificing them for its interests.

The most telling sign of deceitful religion is its lack of foresight and accurate prediction of events. It supports individuals and regimes that deceitfully turn against it, while betraying those who could remain loyal allies. It engages in conflicts doomed to failure and flees from battles that could yield success and growth, revealing its lack of true insight and penetrating discernment.

The Sagacity of True Religious Leadership

In contrast to the study of deceit, the hallmark of divine illumination, enlightenment, and sagacity in religious governance is the leader’s immunity to surprise, coupled with accurate foresight and penetrating insight. With the clarity of heart and inner purity, the sagacious leader anticipates events and possesses unyielding discernment.

Signs of Deceitful Religion

Divine understanding and authentic religious jurisprudence cannot be realized without divine appointment for the dissemination of faith. This appointment, granting insight into divine rulings, true jurisprudence, and luminous wisdom, bears distinct signs. A tradition from Imam Ali illustrates these distinctions:

“The Commander of the Faithful, peace be upon him, said: ‘O seeker of knowledge, the true scholar has three signs: knowledge, forbearance, and silence. The pretender, who labors to appear learned with only semblance of knowledge, has three signs: he disputes with those above him through disobedience, oppresses those below him through domination, and supports oppressors.’”

This tradition, relevant to its context, speaks of religious knowledge and its signs. In the era of the seal of prophethood and the occultation of the infallible Imam, sagacious religious leaders can be identified by these traits. With the closure of prophethood, religion manifests through Imamate, which possesses a hierarchical inner structure. The perfection of servitude, the essence of Imamate, is accompanied by infallibility. In the absence of the infallible Imam, inner saints and sagacious figures with profound religious insight serve as the guardians of the faithful, guiding them practically toward their divine destiny.

The logic of the sages’ sincerity is rooted in bestowed wisdom, effervescent knowledge, divine insight, boundless love, and compassion for all of God’s creation. This renders them courageous, resilient, patient, adaptable, humble, and gentle, even toward their enemies.

The False and Subversive Religion

The essence of piety, when grounded in sincerity and aligned with creation, innately seeks sagacious and divine saints, gravitating toward them. However, every religion, alongside its sages and saints, nurtures deceit that opposes these figures and harbors enmity toward them.

Deceitful religion corrupts true faith with fabricated and deviant versions, ensnaring it in satanic deceptions and corruption. If the masses align with it, it imposes an illusory, false, superstitious, arrogant, and corrupt religion, seizing control of the faith and its followers, leading them astray.

A religion devoid of the luminous wisdom of sages lacks resilience and tolerance, becoming a captive of deceit’s dominion of illusion, falsehood, and insincerity. Rather than committing to knowledge, inquiry, and sincere meaning, it exalts itself above the numbers of its living and dead followers, boasting of the grandeur of religious edifices, ostentatious displays, and accumulated wealth.

“Deceit takes pride not in the quality of faith but in the quantity of religious writings, often repetitive, fabricated, and lacking logical comprehension or scholarly innovation.”

It considers the number of religious graduates a measure of success, though these are often mercenaries propagating its dictates from pulpits. It boasts of historical precedence, conquests, and territorial expansion, not the thought or will within those domains, sustained by a monolithic propaganda apparatus. This singular voice, marked by arrogance, exclusivity, violence, and coercion, lacks a standard measure.

The Triumph of Arrogance

Through ostentatious religious pride and the suppression of critics, especially religious sages, deceitful religion fosters hubris, self-opinion, vanity, and corruption. The Qur’an warns:

“In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. Competition in [worldly] increase diverts you until you visit the graveyards. No! You will soon know. Then, no! You will soon know. No! If you only knew with knowledge of certainty, you would surely see the Hellfire. Then you will surely see it with the eye of certainty. Then you will surely be asked that Day about pleasure.” (Qur’an, 102:1–8)

When religion strays from the orbit of sages and falls prey to deceit and its sycophantic followers, quantitative disparity supplants quality. Such a religion lacks knowledge, forbearance, resilience, humility, ethics, and luminous wisdom, becoming a perverse, oppressive system that breeds misunderstanding, ignorance, domination, and suffering. It burdens people with toil, exhaustion, despair, and aversion, obstinately imposing hardship.

Self-Referential Religion: The Outcome of Deceit

With the dominance of deceitful religion and its corrupt influence over faith, people turn to self-referential, personalized religion rather than endorsing such a corrupt and oppressive faith. In the absence of sagacious and true Imams, and amidst the tyranny of deceit and the promotion of extreme, knowledge-devoid ritualism, those with an innate religious disposition naturally gravitate toward self-referential religion, which they perceive as purer and free from deceit’s corruption.

Self-referential religion is an individualistic form of piety that rejects rigid or syncretic interpretations by non-sagacious intermediaries due to their lack of expertise and scholarly rigor. It trusts innate faith and inner conviction, as these align more closely with the noble and free divine disposition.

Individuals adopting self-referential religion view traditional narratives propagated by unscrupulous and conscienceless figures as riddled with superstitions, conflicting with scientific psychology and anthropology, and a threat to human well-being. They rightly perceive such religion as lifeless, lacking scholarly exposition and vitality.

If religion lacks the living presence of a divine sage or God’s deputy, grounded in revelatory and divine insight, it becomes indistinguishable from human science or philosophy—secular, worldly, self-founded, and self-referential. The value of any religion lies in the celestial proximity of its human intermediary to God. Today, the authority of deceitful and false religions is defunct, and people seek a living faith that tangibly embodies inner meaning, divinity, and divine guidance. Recognizing the inadequacy of self-proclaimed religious intermediaries, people turn to self-referential religion, which, at the very least, carries a glimmer of divine light and truth.

The Decline of Deceitful Religion

A religion devoid of divine wisdom and afflicted by intellectual poverty succumbs to utilitarian reasoning, pragmatic expediency, and deceit. It mistakes managerial recklessness for pragmatism, employing any means to preserve piety, especially in moments of weakness or fear. By invoking the sacred goal of safeguarding religion, it justifies any strategy, even becoming an agent of oppression. This distorts the social and popular culture of religion, eroding its public legitimacy.

Lies, wherever they exist, foster a heavy atmosphere of distrust, identity loss, and worthlessness, robbing tranquility and security. The sense of insignificance makes individuals reckless and prone to norm-breaking. In deceit’s pragmatism, lies strip away sanctity and dignity, leaving no boundaries intact. Any religious authority or ruler forced to partake in the poison of deceit faces the gradual demise of their stewardship. Such ignorant and pretentious custodians, proclaiming their defense of religion in darkness, are deceitful agents seemingly tasked with tormenting people and imposing hardship and grief.

With the loss of public tolerance, magnanimity, and peaceful coexistence, deceitful religion forfeits both public acceptability and, lacking luminous wisdom, legitimacy and efficacy. It becomes a human, non-sacred religion, antagonistic to divine and sacred faith. The term “deceit” in this book denotes this anti-religious force, a slayer of true religion.

In a religion plagued by deceit, exacerbated by the misunderstanding of followers and the malevolence of adversaries, human deceit is portrayed as sacred and benevolent through propaganda, while the true saintly sage is branded as deceitful and untrustworthy by a networked, systematic propaganda apparatus. Dominant deceit inverts all values accordingly.

With slight adaptation from the poet Moein, the desolate realm of deceitful religion, not a city but a tyranny, is thus described:

“In that city where they steal bread from ants’ mouths, / Where tears are taken from candles, shrouds from graves, / Where hatred is sought in place of love, / And dogs steal lambs from ravenous wolves, / Where the infidel becomes faithful and the faithful infidel, / And sanctimonious deceivers steal light from mosques, / Where they silence the sage of the era, / Stealing song from nightingales, honor from houris, / I, in my naivety, sought love there, / In that city where charlatans steal staffs from the blind.”

The Rise of Celebrity Influence

In the absence of true religious figures, with the seat of religion denied to sages and Imams, replaced by incompetent pretenders, and amidst the onslaught of religion’s deniers and adversaries, religious discord intensifies. Tyranny, self-opinion, monologue, and nonsensical rhetoric characterize religious authorities. In this environment, as self-referential piety emerges, public attention shifts not to discordant religious figures but to celebrities who, through a networked and systematic framework, embody realities such as genius, knowledge, beauty, fitness, charm, agility, love, sanctified wealth, widespread recognition, modern propaganda, and cinematic illusions. These celebrities, as messengers of prescribed narratives, propagate messages dictated by their system.

People seek popular, compassionate, and sagacious messengers whose knowledge flows steadfastly and loyally. Among religions, prophets with greater resilience and expansiveness have succeeded, never abandoning or cursing their communities, remaining loyal and compassionate. Such prophets, especially when confronting the leaders of disbelief, shadowy deceivers, or overt tyrants, prioritize their communities, enduring greater perseverance and toil than their followers. They exhibit tolerance toward the intellectually weak, misguided followers, and those lacking reasoned arguments, as exemplified by Prophet Abraham’s compassionate dialogue with his uncle Azar, despite the latter’s obstinate idolatry and violent rejection:

“[Azar] said, ‘Have you no desire for my gods, O Abraham? If you do not desist, I will surely stone you, so leave me for a time.’ [Abraham] said, ‘Peace be upon you. I will ask forgiveness for you from my Lord. Indeed, He is ever gracious to me.’” (Qur’an, 19:46–47)

Only the prophetic system of sages can apprehend the truth and inner love of religion, as aligned with divine disposition, and provide precise responses to the needs of modern humanity, safeguarding religion from secularization, humanism, and the marginalization of God.

Anti-Religious Literature and Sophistry

Religion’s subverters include both deceitful anti-sages and eloquent anti-religious figures dominating media, propaganda, and literature. Some of their refined words, such as poetry, draw from ancient sacred texts like the Psalms of David, the Song of Songs, or the rhythmic expressions of the Tanakh, not through godless poets but through secularists aggressively opposing religion without distinguishing between deceitful and sagacious faith.

The infiltration of anti-religious ideas in Iran’s publishing market is evident from the abundance and accessibility of such works to Iranian youth. An example of this refined, anti-religious rhetoric, divorced from Iranian culture and aligned with foreign teachings, is found in rebellious poetry. This sophistic discourse reduces God to mere sentiment, reflecting the authoritarian wrath of the Jewish God rather than the truth of a God who, in love for His creation, seeks unity and expansion through love. One must see both God’s majesty and His merciful beauty to benefit from His love, and His threatening grandeur to remain an obedient servant, avoiding reckless attribution of evil to Him or succumbing to rebellious despair.

Persistent rebellion and sin, if sustained, suppress human will, rendering one hopeless, weak, and enslaved to Satan, or even a human Satan. Such rebellion breeds deception, despair, and submission, as depicted in sophistic poetry. The Qur’an critiques anti-religious literature in service of deceit:

“And thus We have made for every prophet an enemy—devils from mankind and jinn, inspiring to one another decorative speech in delusion. But if your Lord had willed, they would not have done it, so leave them and that which they invent. And [it is] so the hearts of those who disbelieve in the Hereafter will incline toward it and that they will be satisfied with it and that they will commit that which they are committing.” (Qur’an, 6:112–113)

These anti-religious rhetoricians, in their arrogance, reject servitude to God but crave communion with Satan. Their literature lacks philosophical or ontological depth, fails to recognize human will, and suffers from weakness and identity loss. Their refined rhetoric, rooted in illusory dreams, portrays a defiant Satan reveling in their submission, mocking divine grace and embracing worldly desires over divine love, leading to nihilism and alienation.

The Wisdom of Contingent Rebellion

The wisdom of rebellion in a free world governed by contingency serves as a reminder of human transience, guarding against self-deification and arrogance. It fosters self-knowledge, truth-acceptance, and relentless pursuit of pure love, courage against evil, and resilience amidst adversity. This elevates humanity to divinity, as the material world reveals not merely human nature but divine lordship, granting resistance that earns sacred endurance even in defeat.

The losers in this arena are either ignorant of divine truth or too weak to uphold God’s will, succumbing to despair and rebellion’s degradation. The Qur’an describes such individuals as “more astray, the heedless” (Qur’an, 7:179), trapped in loneliness and fear. Nature’s intelligent design eliminates those disconnected from God’s empowering source, leaving them barren and forgotten.

Phenomena are manifestations of God, with existence belonging solely to Him. While existence and manifestation are intertwined, existence possesses essence, hosting manifestation, which is merely a guest of divine radiance. Sin, narrow-mindedness, or rebellion cannot be attributed to God. The interplay of existence and manifestation is filled with love’s pull, not coercion or nihilism. Recognizing this truth grants hope, beauty, salvation, and faithful love.

Irreverent Rhetoric and Hedonism

Unlike the vibrant existence of phenomena, some modern refined rhetoric reflects the irreverent and sophistic lives of its proponents, echoing Jewish teachings. It portrays despair, hopelessness, and alienation, rooted in psychological contradictions, existential meaninglessness, and failure to endure adversity, often leading to repeated, sometimes unsuccessful, suicide attempts.

This rhetoric mirrors a modern yet alienated life, framed in words resonant with the Jewish Bible’s wrathful God and Hebrew Psalms, infused with unpolished, colloquial innocence. Its Jewish-rooted rebellion, laced with irreverence, protests with crude sophistication, unlike the Psalms’ call to reason and faith.

Some rhetoricians, far from prophetic insight or Iranian ideals, superficially emulate the Song of Songs, European secularism, or Buddhist spirituality. Driven by imagination and pleasure, they lack supernatural experience or spiritual awakening, producing mysterious, satanic rhetoric divorced from God, mimicking Jewish scriptures or Western philosophy in a depressive or frenzied state.

The Song of Songs as a Subtext

The Song of Songs, a source of inspiration for these Jewish-inclined rhetoricians, is a pre-Christian celebration of sensual love from the perspective of Jerusalem’s daughters. It intertwines the voices of lover and beloved in vivid imagery:

“Our bed of desire has become the peak of longing! / My noble love fells the cedar of the stars. / The roof of this hut of pleasure is all maples. / Here I am! The lily of every pulse of love, / And you! The only man / Whose every beat is mine! / You are the sweetest burn of my desire, / My bond! / Every inch of my body is a creeping touch, come…”

The delicacy of meaning belongs to the source text, not the derivative rhetoric, which, while skillful in word choice, lacks original imagery. The source text often surpasses its derivative in musicality and meaning.

The Limitations of Derivative Rhetoric

Derivative works excel in imaginative potency, akin to cinematic magic, but diminish life’s meaning and philosophy, producing ambiguous, superficial content. They fail to illuminate decisions or inspire action in life’s struggles, as their romantic, fantastical themes lack rootedness in the poet’s reality. Over time, despite vast propaganda, their lack of insight ensures they fade from collective memory, unlike timeless poetry that shapes daily life.

Such rhetoric is not revelation or illumination but a surge of imagination, weaving ambiguous, playful narratives that prioritize delight over definitive meaning. Literature, like science and religion, evolves, producing both sages and deceivers who propagate nonsense or wield words to oppress.

The Allure of Imaginative Pleasure

Without enlightenment or submission to sagacious insight, derivative rhetoric weaves meaningless, mundane themes into open, literary texts. Focusing on transient worldly matters, it evades moral accountability, offering imaginative pleasure surpassing sensory delight. This captivates pleasure-seekers, fulfilling their desires in a foggy semantic realm.

From the meaninglessness of dominant imagination, media-driven deception, and the erosion of identity, I have spoken in my books on divine logic, philosophy, and human consciousness, addressing the role of imagination in life.

The Pinnacle of Persian Poetry: The Ghazal

The ghazal, the pinnacle of Persian poetry, is a linguistic miracle. Disrupting its harmonious structure diminishes its charm and reverence. The orderly system of meaning demands balanced verses and a refined tone, naturally reflecting the grandeur of imaginative order. The ghazal’s elegant dance embodies the beauty of meaningful art. Its modern popularity attests to this.

The ghazal’s supremacy does not negate other poetic forms, such as Nimaic poetry, which has garnered public acclaim through emotional resonance and unbound beauty.

Meaningful Literature

A poem’s impact and endurance depend on its emotional potency, intricate imagery, and philosophical disruption, but also on its injected consciousness, truth-affirmation, and engagement with perennial human questions. Without refined logic and deep discourse, poetry remains confined to its era, lacking the sanctity to transcend time and space.

Remarkably, modern poetic movements vividly depict personal and political realities but deem meaningfulness in sacred matters the death of poetry. In a land where sanctity is intrinsic, equating meaningfulness with literary demise is not fashion but a fleeting, fast-fashion trend, soon supplanted by newer, costlier meaninglessness.

Conclusion

The extensive discussion reflects the pervasive influence of modern rhetoric and its literary assault on divine piety, particularly among youth. Some critiques here apply to popular novels, to be addressed later. Chapter Six of Deceit and Divine Religion offers a profound critique of deceitful religion, a false faith that subverts true piety through hypocrisy, oppression, and meaninglessness, urging a return to sagacious, divinely guided faith.