https://newlinesmag.com/first-person/how-two-months-at-an-iranian-seminary-changed-my-life/

What I saw in Tehran confirmed what Sheikh Gray Beard had told me about the hatred people felt against the clerics, which manifests as a hatred against Islam itself. What struck me first was the absence of the call to prayer; it is not broadcast by megaphone as it usually is, because neighbors complain about the noise. Even in Istanbul, after more than a century of intense Kemalist secularism, the adhan still resonates proudly in every street, five times a day. But in the heart of the “Islamic Republic,” under the shadow of the supreme leader of the ummah, the call to prayer is not heard.

Mosques are often empty. During my afternoons in the city center, I was the only one praying. (It should be noted that Tehran has a special reputation in Iran, and the countryside is more religious, but this is still significant.)

In the city of Shiraz, more than 500 miles south of Tehran, I was wandering in one of the bazaars when one of the sellers called to me: “Where are you from? But you converted to Islam! You, you want Islam, while us, we want to leave it!” He shouted at me in a bazaar full of people, in English, knowing full well that the morality police were never far away.

Another day, as I was searching for my bus to go to Isfahan, a young man offered to help me. During the bus ride, he started chatting with me about how he was fed up with the government here, despite having just met me, and that he was doing everything he could to leave. He openly identified as an atheist.

On the night train to Mashhad, I struck up a conversation with my neighbor and, as one thing led to another, he gave me to understand that he was hoping the regime would fall.

In Qom, while eating a kebab, I met another religious student, who was Iranian. He told me he was highly disappointed by the classes and that he wasn’t learning anything except brainwashing and lies to defend the government. He had been expelled from seminary after seminary because he was constantly clashing with teachers.

As I reached my hotel in the city of Yazd, I greeted the woman at the counter with a “Salam aleykum!” She jumped when she saw me and told me, “Ha! With your beard and your way of greeting, I thought you were from the Basij [religious police].”

During my three months in Iran, studying and traveling, I never met anyone (except for the university staff) who showed any kind of support for the regime. I never took the risk to share my opinion, but those were the opinions I encountered. I’m not saying the regime doesn’t enjoy any form of support from any sector of the population (which would be an absurd claim). My stories are merely anecdotes. I don’t speak Farsi, and it’s mostly the well-off classes that speak English, but this was my experience, nevertheless.

The same people that, 30 years before, had overthrown the shah, shouting “Allahu Akbar!” had become incredibly apathetic, hostile even, toward religion.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5822444&forum_id=2#49591522)