Ironically, the harder the clerics in Iran push Islam on the youth the more they seek to emulate western culture. Iran already has the lowest youth mosque attendance rate in the Islamic world.

Tehran (AFP) – Iran is again cracking down on people with pet dogs, viewed as unclean in Islam, but Soroush Mobaraki says sales are booming despite fears the pooches might be arrested and their owners fined.

This veterinary pharmacologist, sitting in the small Tehran pet shop he owns, said there has been a sharp increase in demand for dogs in recent years.

Guard dogs, sheep dogs and hounds have always been acceptable, but the soaring number of pets acquired by a middle class keen to imitate Western culture has alarmed the authorities in recent years.

They have now criminalized walking dogs in public, or driving them around the city.

Mobaraki says many Iranians today boast about their pets, and some even show off in style.

They want to have a dog (to brag), like they want to have an expensive luxury car.

Reports of lap dogs dressed in Western designer clothes and accessories being driven in fancy cars, or walked in parks in affluent Tehran neighborhoods has drawn the ire of hardline clerics.