Also: “A few years ago, Ayatollah Javadi Amoli, a favorite Marja of the regime, suggested that the open concept kitchens are ‘against Islamic’ and said kitchens that ‘cannot hide the host from the eyes of the guest are against Islam.'”
It’s easy to laugh at the likes of Gorgani and Amoli and move on, but it should be remembered that this kind of thinking reinforces fanaticism. When someone is told that nearly everything in this world, including open-concept kitchens and apartment buildings, is against Islam, he or she will begin to think that sin is ubiquitous and unavoidable, and the tortures of hellfire a certainty. For people with such a mindset, there is the Islamic idea that an act of jihad will outweigh any sins they have committed. “We shall set up scales of justice for the Day of Judgment,” says the Qur’an (21:47): if one’s good deeds outweigh one’s evil deeds, one will go to Paradise, but if one’s evil deeds outweigh one’s good deeds, one will go to hell. And what good deed weighs the most? A hadith has a Muslim asking Muhammad: “Instruct me as to such a deed as equals Jihad (in reward).” Muhammad replied, “I do not find such a deed.” (Bukhari 4.52.44)
So if a believer goes on jihad, his good deeds will outweigh all his evil deeds. Thus if a jihadist knows he is about to wage a great jihad, he knows its value will outweigh anything evil he has done, such as have the wrong kind of kitchen or apartment. The ridiculous joyless of Gorgani and Amoli leads straight to jihad violence.
“Ayatollah Gorgani: Apartment Buildings Are a British Plot to Spread Moral Corruption,” IranIntl, October 27, 2018:
Ayatollah Mohammad Alavi Gorgani, a Marja’ in Qom city said: “Building apartments was started by the British in order to get women out of the house and spread moral corruption.”
He called apartment building an “enemy ploy” and said: “They have achieved their goal and spread the construction of apartment buildings in Iran.”
Gorgani also said: “They have made it so when someone enters Mashhad or Qom cities, they cannot see the holy shrines.”
Previously some Ayatollahs had also criticized apartment building and open concept kitchens in architecture.
A few years ago, Ayatollah Javadi Amoli, a favorite Marja of the regime, suggested that the open concept kitchens are “against Islamic” and said kitchens that “cannot hide the host from the eyes of the guest are against Islam.”