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Mr. Motahari warned that Ayatollah Yazdi’s approach would ultimately mean soccer’s defeat of Islam. The ayatollah’s position, he said was comparable to “the activities of the Catholic Church in medieval times that resulted in the Europeans’ escape from religion.”

Deputy parliament speaker Ali Motahari, scion of another prominent Shiite scholar, ridiculed the ayatollah’s criticism, according to Al Monitor, in an open letter. “Imagine that Iran scored against South Korea and some people cheered. Does that mean that the people are cheering the martyrdom of Imam Hussein? If someone after years meets his mother, father or child on the eve of Ashura, should he then not be happy and smiling to avoid violating the sanctity of the imam?” Mr. Motahari asked.

Soccer’s popularity in Iran forced the mullahs shortly after their toppling of the shah in 1979 to drop their initial opposition to the game. The mullah’s hesitancy toward the sport was expressed in a pamphlet published a year after the revolution by the government’s propaganda arm that argued that money spent on soccer would be better invested in social and economic development. Saudi Arabia’s religious establishment has similarly struggled with soccer. The official fatwa website of the General Presidency of Scholarly Research and Ifta (Fatwa) has endorsed the game but banned competitions – a ruling the Saudi government has consistently ignored.                 To Saudi Arabia’s Muslim scholars Iran’s Shiites are heretics. Iran denounces Saudi Arabia’s puritan Wahhabi interpretation of Islam as the inspiration of Sunni Muslim jihadism. There seems little that the two countries and their religious establishment can agree on, which makes the meeting of the minds on soccer all the more remarkable.

Islamist leaders have switched tactics. Long ago they realised they cannot win through the ballot, so they have been using other means. As self-proclaimed guardians of public morality, they have campaigned to ensure the school curriculum is focused on ‘Islamic science’ and used their communal influence to try to stop the government changing the ‘family code’, which keeps women under the ‘guardianship’ of men. They have had fatwas issued demanding that ministries ensure women wear veils and men grow beards, and last year attempted — albeit unsuccessfully — to block a bill that criminalised violence against women

An Algerian civil war would create huge numbers of refugees. One analyst told me he expects 10 to 15 million Algerians will try to leave. Given Algeria’s history, they would expect to be rescued by one nation: France. In its impact on the EU, even a fraction of this number would dwarf the effect of the Syrian civil war