As persecution of Christians intensifies in Iran so are conversions to the faith. Iran's own government agents have admitted recently that "mass conversions" are taking place despite the country's best efforts to prevent them.

Conversion from Islam and evangelizing are both illegal in the country. However, Open Doors USA reports that "Muslims are rapidly coming to Christ—so rapidly that Iran’s government leaders are acknowledging the exponential growth of the church."

The Christian persecution watchdog says that Iran’s Intelligence Minister, Mahmoud Alavi, openly admitted to summoning Christian converts for questioning, saying that mass conversions “are happening right under our eyes" at a conference for Shia Muslim leaders.

Alavi admitted his agency is collaborating with Muslim religious seminaries to combat the perceived threat of mass conversions to Christianity across the country.

In his speech, Alavi also admitted that “these converts are ordinary people, whose jobs are selling sandwiches or similar things.” According to Article 18’s Advocacy Director Mansour Borji, this admission represents a “huge shift” away from Iran’s usual rhetoric that converts are agents of the West who have undergone significant training to undermine national security.

“It is also interesting to see the intelligence minister admit to ‘whole families’ converting,” Borji said, noting that this is “an admission that such conversions are far from a rare event; rather they are happening en masse, and across the country.”

Some of the biggest conversions are coming from the city of Qom. It is the country's seventh-largest city and is considered to be the country’s epicentre for Islamic studies.

One Islamic seminary leader, Ayatollah Alavi Boroujerdi, says that “accurate reports indicate the youth are becoming Christians in Qom and attending house churches.”

Open Doors says that in 1979 there were about 500 known Christians in Iran. Today there are at least 500,000 while some other sources believe there may be over 1 million followers of Jesus in the country.

At the centre of the large number of conversions are faithful Christians who are willing to risk everything to share the Gospel.