Is Yoga a Religion?

In its issue of May 17-23, 2014, The Economist carried a brief story on yoga in Iran. I’m not clear why this publication (in my opinion the best general news magazine in the world) found this piece worthy of attention (perhaps as an interruption of the endless stream of bad news from the Middle East). The story is about a yoga center in Iran, located in Qom, one of the holiest places in Shia Islam. The center, which specializes in teaching women the relevant techniques, has provoked opposition from the conservative Islamic establishment. The head of something called the Spiritual Health Institute, also located in Qom, has denounced yoga for advocating a “spirituality” antagonistic to Islam and urged that the center should be “carefully watched”; given the policies of the Iranian regime toward religious minorities and dissidents, being “carefully watched” is not a reassuring phrase. I have no knowledge as to whether more robust measures have been initiated. The woman in charge of the yoga center rejected the criticism, saying pithily that the Islamic Revolution will not be reversed by a headstand. In any case, according to the aforementioned story, the Qom case represents a considerably larger phenomenon: Supposedly there are 200 yoga centers in Iran, the biggest number located in Tehran.

I am not concerned here with the Iranian context of the story. Do women teaching women to stand on their heads threaten the Islamic character of the state? Would the state allowing it be a sign of the sort of liberalization that outside observers, especially in the US, have been anxiously looking for ever since the hostage crisis? Rather, I want to ask a more general question: Given its undoubted roots in a Hindu worldview, is yoga intrinsically antagonistic to the worldview of the “Abrahamic” religions? If so, does the spiritual hygienist in Qom, however objectionable may be his beliefs on other matters, have a point when it comes to yoga? The yoga teacher around the corner from him will say that the discipline she teaches is simply a practice conducive to good health, and is no more anti-Islamic than brushing one’s teeth and controlling one’s weight. It is clear that many practitioners of yoga anywhere in the world think of it in just this way, and go on being good Christians, Jews, Muslims—or, for that matter, good atheists.