convert

The Washington Institute for Near East Policy

Part of a merican

frustration in Iraq stems from

misestimating the Shiite religious authority and net-
work in the country. Lack of clarity about the nature
of the Iraqi Shiite religious authority, its social influ-
ence, its political capability, and its relation to the Ira-
nian clerical establishment and government has caused
various problems for U.S. policy in Iraq. Sometimes the
United States has relied too much on Grand Ayatollah
Ali Hussein al-Sistani, expecting him to calm multiple
tensions generated by different Shiite groups. Some-
times Americans have ignored the power and potential-
ity of the Iraqi Shiite religious network and its connec-
tion to the Shiite and Sunni networks outside Iraq.

A politicization and a radicalization of the Shiite

authority and network have occurred not only inside
Iraq but also throughout the Shiite world. The Ira-
nian supreme leadership has largely transformed the
unorganized traditional Shiite clerical establishment
into a systematic political and financial network that
works against U.S. interests in the region. A vast front
of moderate Shiites exists all around the Shiite world.
These moderates exist among both clerics and intellec-
tuals, with divergent traditional or democratic tenden-
cies. But what has become known as “the Shiite cleri-
cal establishment” is mainly under the Iranian regime’s
control. That apparatus has largely become a tool in
the hands of Shiite extremism, leaving other religious
or secular currents in the margins, without institu-
tional means, social influence, and communications
capability. On the basis of detailed information about
the transformation of the clerical establishment from a
civil institution into a strong arm of a totalitarian gov-
ernment, this study argues that as long as that clerical
establishment enjoys ample financial resources from
the Iranian government and is able to carry on politi-
cal activity under the cover of religious activity, the
Middle East will face serious peril from Shiite extrem-
ist fundamentalism.

The metamorphosis of the seminary from a religious

educational institute that manages the religious affairs
of worshipers into an integral part of an ideologi-

cal arsenal of the fundamentalist Iranian government
dates from the beginning of the Iranian revolution.
Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and his successor Aya-
tollah Ali Khamenei both succeeded in undermining
the civil and religious roles of the clerical establishment
and politicizing it as much as they could. Politicizing
the clerical network went far beyond Iran’s borders.
Khamenei, in particular, has tried to expand his domi-
nation of the Shiite networks in the region. Through
sophisticated mechanisms, he has altered the symbolic
and material capacity of the Shiite religious institutions
throughout the region in his own political favor, using
them for his anti-Western and anti-American policy.

Sistani may well be the last traditional Shiite

authority (

marja

) not only in Iraq but also in the Shiite

world. If the

marjas

no longer function as in the past,

the environment within which U.S. policy functions
will change. A post-

marja

era will be characterized by

politicization of the Shiite religious network and rein-
forcement of the Iranian regime’s power and influence
outside Iran; by contrast, the influence of the regime
inside the country will diminish. These results would
come from polarization of the moderate front of Shiites
and the extremist one, from the wealth of the Iranian
government as compared with other funding sources
for the Shiite religious community, and from increased
connection between different extremist groups under
the Iranian regime’s control. The effects would be felt
not only by the West but even more so by democratic
forces inside Shiite countries or communities. By end-
ing the

marja

era and destroying the traditional func-

tion of the clerical establishment, the Iranian regime
intends to eliminate any possibility of political change
from within, to marginalize civil society and demo-
cratic movements, and consequently to limit the West’s
options in dealing with the Iranian government on dif-
ferent controversial issues.

The Shiite clerical establishment can be understood

only by studying the economic sources on which it
relies. The ample economic resources of political fun-
damentalists, not the force of the faith, drive some Shi-

Executive Summary

The Washington Institute for Near East Policy

Aqida

means the system of beliefs and non-beliefs which

are the basis for all levels of connection between author-

ity and power. Power needs to be obeyed; but there is no

loyal, free obedience to an arbitrary power that is not sup-

ported by authority. Jurists and legal authorities contrib-

ute by providing a rationalized foundation to the author-

ity of those who have the responsibility of enforcing the

law; law being expression of the political power monopo-

lized by the state. . . . Islam is theologically Protestant and

politically Catholic.

—

Mohammad Arkoun,

Islam: To Reform or to

Subvert?

(London: Saqi Books, 2006), p. 258.

t h i s s t u dy at t e m P t s

to shed light on the

nature of contemporary religious authority in the Shi-
ite world, with a focus on Iraq and Iran. For the last
two centuries, religious authority in Shiism has been
known as

marjaiya

, which literally means “the source

of imitation”

and figuratively describes “the position

of a living Shiite supreme legal authority” who sup-
posedly possesses the exclusive authority to interpret

sharia

(Islamic law);1 is the main collector and man-

ager of religious taxes; is the administrator of religious
educational and noneducational foundations; and

possesses the authority to seize control of the sanctity
in society by directing rituals, rites, and religious cer-
emonies.

Marjaiya

is the upper echelon of a hierarchy

within the

ulama

s or

mojtahed

s who are Shiite jurists

and control the so-called “clerical institution.”

According to late schools of

sharia

, every Shiite wor-

shiper is either a

mojtahed

, a religious scholar who is

educationally and intellectually able to understand and
interpret religious texts2 and deduces “God’s orders to
human beings” from those texts through traditional
methodologies and conceptual apparatuses, or is an
otherwise ignorant follower of a

mojtahed

Although a large number of

mojtahed

s have stud-

ied Shiite theology and jurisprudence, only a very few

marja

s usually exist. To become a

marja

, a

mojtahed

must reach a high level of social popularity through
an economic network. Although every ignorant wor-
shiper should follow the

marja

who is recognized by

him as the most knowledgeable

mojtahed

, in reality, a

marja

is not necessarily the most knowledgeable

moj-

tahed

but rather a

mojtahed

who successfully orga-

nizes a profitable network through his relations with
different authorities inside the seminary and abroad,
such as businessmen and political or social authori-

The Nature of Shiite Religious Leadership

1. The

sharia

, the legal codification of God’s commandments, “is called ‘Divine Law’ because it is presented as fully and correctly derived from the teaching

of holy texts (the Quran and Hadith).” Ibid., p. 55.

2. Different levels of religious texts exist. Primary texts are the Quran, which is believed to be a textual revelation to the Prophet Muhammad, and the

Sunnat, which is the traditional corpus of hadith in which a reader discovers what the Prophet and the twelve imams said, did, or confirmed. Whereas

the Quran is officially a closed corpus that became in the last centuries a matter of consensus not only among Shiites but for all Muslims, the Sunnat is

an open corpus and the subject of controversy. Every jurist has not only the right but also the duty to determine the authenticity of every hadith in this

corpus though

ilm al-rijal

Ilm al-rijal

is a traditional discipline that scrutinizes the narrators of hadith, their names, genealogical lineages, lifetimes, dates

of death, characters, and circumstances of reception as well as the transmission of hadith and its topic or subject. Every

mojtahed

should be an expert on

ilm al-rijal

in order to reach his personal views about controversial subjects of this discipline. Therefore, each

mojtahed

can invoke a specific part of the

corpuses of hadith and distinguish between authentic and fake ones through his personal practice of

ilm al-rijal

and his opinion on

usul al-fiqh

(the foun-

dations of

sharia

principles).

Secondary texts are the juridical works written by earlier jurists. The closer a text is to the period of the Prophet and imams, the more a

mojtahed

can

rely on its authors’ opinions as a correct understanding of primary texts. In principle, all

mojtahed

s presume that early jurists had to have access to more

sources than a contemporary jurist because they assume that in the course of history many religious sources were lost or disappeared. For a classic study on

the formation of

sharia,

see Joseph Schacht,

An Introduction to Islamic Law

(New York: Oxford University Press, 1982).

3. According to contemporary

sharia

schools, under

sharia

every Shiite worshiper should be either a

mojtahed

or a follower or a

muhtat

(literally, cautious).

muhtat

is a worshiper who is neither a

mojtahed

nor a follower of a

mojtahed

, but one who follows the strictest verdicts of contemporary

mojtahed

s in

order to be assured that she or he practices what God expects from her or him. For example, if some

mojtahed

s consider an act to be illicit while others

say that it is not, the

muhtat

should not perform it. Indeed, the criteria of his or her adherence is not the educational character of a

mojtahed

, but the pre-

cautionary nature and harshness of a verdict, no matter who issues it. In general, the majority of worshipers are followers, and a few of them are

muhtat

To be a

muhtat

one must have the knowledge of all

mojtahed

verdicts—not an easy task for most ordinary people. The concepts of

ijtehad

and

taqlid

(fol-

lowing a

mojtahed

) entered the Shiite theology about five centuries ago, under special political and social circumstances, and have played a very important

role in developing new Shiite political theological concepts. They can be considered as an introduction to the modern theory of the jurist-ruler (

velayat-e

faqih

). See Rula Jurdi Abisaab,

Converting Persia, Religion and Power in the Safavid Empire

(London and New York: I. B. Tauris, 2004).

Mehdi Khalaji

The Last Marja: Sistani and the End of Traditional Religious Authority in Shiism

Policy Focus #59

ties.4 Recognizing the level of a

mojtahed

’s knowledge

sharia

is not based on public and concrete criteria,

because unlike a university system or some religious
organizations, such as the Catholic hierarchy, no
official certificated degree exists in the seminary tra-
dition: therefore, an ignorant worshiper must either
be a Shiite scholar and rely on his personal informa-
tion and knowledge about the living

mojtahed

s and

the most knowledgeable one among them, or be an
ignorant worshiper who should identify the most
knowledgeable

mojtahed

in two ways. First, two reli-

gious scholars can confirm that a

mojtahed

is the most

knowledgeable, provided that two other religious
scholars do not oppose them. (Many religious author-
ities, including Sistani, believe that being a

mojtahed

or the most knowledgeable

mojtahed

can also be iden-

tified by a statement of only one trusted and reliable
person.) Second, a number of seminary-trained per-
sons can certify that a particular person is a

mojtahed

or the most knowledgeable one, provided that one is
satisfied by their statement. The process of becoming
a

marja

is very sophisticated, however, and in many

cases depends not on educational level but rather on
wealth and social connections.

Apart from theological differences between Shia

and Sunni Islam, the main distinction between them
is the economic structure of the clerical establishment
in each sect. A simple formulation of this distinction
is that the Shiite clerical establishment benefits from
direct religious tax payments of worshipers and con-
sequently is economically independent from political
power, whereas Sunnis enjoy religious incomes that
are under the government’s control. The economic
structure of the religious establishment in each sect
essentially determines the nature and boundaries of
the political roles and social activities of the members
of the clerical order. Independence of the Shiite cleri-
cal establishment should not be understood as being
as simple as it seems at first; this independence is rela-

tive and certainly interacts with political power. The
authority of clerics, in all its social and economic as
well as political dimensions, is related to the histori-
cal context in which the government plays a major
role either when it is strong or weak. The foundation
of the Qom seminary in March 1922—more than a
decade after the 1906–1910 Iranian Constitutional
Revolution and on the threshold of the pro-West-
ern, nationalist, anticlerical dynasty of Reza Shah
Pahlavi—presents a significant opportunity to study
the interrelated historical and political elements that
led to the consolidation of clerics’ power in contem-
porary Iran. Seminary independence was always lim-
ited by the political agenda of the government. Before
Iran’s Islamic Revolution, no particular clerical policy
or model existed for relations with the sultan. Some
clerics were hesitant to have any relation with him;
many of them defined their duty as being a sultan’s
admonisher and adviser, and a few of them opposed
him publicly or secretly. Each kind of policy, naturally,
had its own implication: a supporter would benefit
either economically or politically, and an opponent
would deprive himself of the sultan’s patronage. Only
in the course of Iran’s Islamic Revolution would cleri-
cal opposition gain tremendous popularity and a con-
sequently huge income from religious taxes, and, ulti-
mately, succeed in removing the monarchy.

The fluid nature of the Shiite establishment trou-

bles every scholar who wants to study it through the
Western conceptual apparatus of modern social sci-
ences. The scholar must always be cautious about the
application of social sciences concepts and terms in
attempting to understand the Shiite clerical entity.
For instance, using the term “organization” or “insti-
tution” to describe the clerical entity is problematic.
Unlike Catholicism with its defined, strict, and con-
solidated hierarchy and administration, the Shiite cler-
ical establishment is not “institutionalized.” Becom-
ing a member of the clerical establishment has a very

4. A paradoxical conception of

marjayat

exists in the seminary. Although one of the necessary conditions of being a

marja

is to be pious, devout, and not devoted

to the pursuit of wealth, certain

mojtahed

s consider the position of

marjayat

as a pursuit of worldly pride—a pursuit of riches and power—and thus hesitate to

become a

marja

. They prefer to remain unknown by ordinary people and do not collect religious taxes. For example, Mirza Ali Aqa Falsafi (who died in 2006

in Mashhad) kept himself aloof from the

marja

position although most high-ranking clerics believed that he was one of only a few

mojtahed

s who received

Ijazeh-ye Ijtehad

(a certificate of being a

mojtahed

) from his mentor, Abul-Qassem Khoi.

The Last Marja: Sistani and the End of Traditional Religious Authority in Shiism

Mehdi Khalaji

The Washington Institute for Near East Policy

flexible and fluctuating procedure that is rooted in an
enduring oral tradition rather than a written one. For
instance, in the Shiite system, everyone can choose a
teacher, study theology (even at his teacher’s home),
and become a cleric without any need to attend a sem-
inary. Also, anybody can wear the clerical cloth with-
out obtaining permission from any religious authority,
or anybody can claim an

ijtehad5

degree without any

institutionalized certification; he has only to be known
as a

mojtahed

or have a certification from a

mojtahed

Everything is based on traditional convention, unwrit-
ten rules that govern the balance of power in the
religious milieu. Many clerics neither have religious
income nor are registered in the seminary. Especially
after the constitutional movement, or more specifi-
cally after the political agenda of Reza Shah to found
a modern judiciary and education system—fields that
were monopolized by the clerics for centuries—many
clerics left the seminary and became employees of the
government. Iran’s Islamic Revolution provided clerics
with much more opportunity to join the government;
many of them kept their religious income, whereas
others confined themselves to the government’s salary
and benefits. For example, former president Muham-
mad Khatami, who is a cleric, was not paid by the sem-
inary for decades.

The more than 200,000 Shiite clerics (nearly

200,000 in Iran and 12,000 abroad) constitute an
unstable network. Although most of them rely on reli-
gious incomes, the sources of the incomes vary. From
the preaching commission and the commission for
performing rituals (like the religious marriage con-
tract), which are paid by individuals and free from
any authority’s control, to the religious taxes that
every worshiper pays to his own

marja

, a vast range of

incomes exists in the decentralized clerical network.
Money transfer and turnover is another important
subject for study. Money is an important influence on
the clerical network’s political and social behavior and

influence. A traditional structure of “money keeping”
dominates the network and, as this study briefly tries
to elaborate, enables the clerical authorities to stand
beyond any scientific statistics or government control
on their incomes and expenditures. Because of the
decentralized nature of the clerical network, even the
clerical authorities do not have accurate and full infor-
mation about all the funds that come in and go out of
every cleric’s pocket. Even each

marja

generally has

only a vague notion of his own income because of the
lack of modern administration. Following Iran’s Islamic
Revolution, a dramatic change has taken place in the
Iranian seminary that has fundamentally affected semi-
nary administration as well as its economic structure;
chapter 3 develops this point and examines its political
implications.

In contemporary Shiism, Ayatollah Ali Hussein al-

Sistani in Najaf is the

marja

with the largest follow-

ing. Although the U.S. invasion in Iraq played a major
role in publicizing him outside of Iraq, his reputation
as a

marja

was established even before the death of

his mentor, Abul-Qassem Khoi, in 1992. Under Sad-
dam Hussein’s tyranny, all political institutions and
parties—all civil society—was annihilated by the gov-
ernment. The Najaf seminary, which has existed for a
thousand years, fell into crisis under severe governmen-
tal pressure. Many Iranian and Iraqi clerics immigrated
to Iran, and the seminary was left to a small group of
students and clerics who suffered from a complete lack
of freedom. After Khoi passed away, the situation got
worse. Ayatollah Sistani was placed under house arrest
and could not teach for eleven years. The Najaf semi-
nary was almost completely inactive while the Qom
seminary, which the Iranian government supported
politically and financially, increasingly flourished and
developed.

When Saddam was toppled by alliance forces led

by the United States, no reliable political group or fig-
ure existed inside Iraq. Ayatollah Sistani succeeded in

Ijtehad

as a methodology for Islamic hermeneutics and understanding divine legal codes was originally forbidden in Shiism. Nevertheless, pursuant to

a tremendous change in Shiite theology six centuries ago, the Shiites have accepted it and started to found their own principles of

ijtehad

. See Wael B.

Hallaq,

Authority, Continuity and Change in Islamic Law

(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), and Mohammad Ali Amir-Moezzi,

Le Guide

divin dans le Shi’isme original, aux sources de l’ésotérisme en Islam

(Paris: Verdier, 1992), especially the last chapter.

Mehdi Khalaji

The Last Marja: Sistani and the End of Traditional Religious Authority in Shiism

Policy Focus #59

attracting international attention as someone who could
potentially fill that gap for the following reasons:

As a

marja

he had regular relations with Iran, both

with private individuals and the government, so he
was supposed to be able to manage post-Iraqi affairs
with Iran. Shortly after the war, this perception was
shown to be faulty, and Americans discovered that
this expectation would not be realized, for reasons
that will be examined later in this study.

Sistani as a Shiite religious authority can play the

role of a Shiite community representative and be
the point of consensus for differing political tenden-
cies within this community. The post-Saddam Shiite
community has become the most powerful political
force in Iraq, along with the Kurds. Therefore, build-
ing a new government required making Sistani the
pivot of all Shiites, overcoming the differing aspects
between the Shiite parties and militias.

As a

marja

who during Saddam’s reign had little

opportunity to communicate with the Iraqi people
and therefore had no recorded history in the Iraqi
collective conscience, Sistani could easily become
respected, even by Sunni clerics and heads of tribes,
and thus become the most reliable authority to res-
cue non-Shiite societal forces in a time of crisis.

Sistani’s ideas, not only in the political sphere but

even in the religious realm, were unknown and
ambiguous to the public. Before the war, he had yet
to publish a single book and had not had the chance
to freely meet and speak with people. So whatever he
now says and writes can be taken as his opinion on

sharia

and its role in politics. Western media, in par-

ticular, emphasized the conception that he believes
in secularism and the separation of religious and
state institutions and consequently is not following
Ayatollah Khomeini’s model of the Iranian Islamic
Republic in Iraq. Even Iranian journalists, such as

Mohammad Qoochani, editor in chief of the

Shargh

newspaper, believe that Sistani is an example of a

marja

who hesitates to repeat the faults of the Ira-

nian clerics in creating an Islamic government.6

Whatever Sistani’s principles in

sharia

, he played a

very important role in post-Saddam Iraq, whether in
advising government decisions on referendums, elec-
tions, and formation of the constitution, or in calming
sectarian tensions as well as controlling some militias,
like the Mahdi Army run by Muqtada al-Sadr. Recent
sectarian violence in Iraq may prove that even Sistani’s
political capability in calming sectarian tension is
finally exhausted and thus indicates he faces grave chal-
lenges in playing an effective role in drawing the future
political map of the country.

To explain Sistani’s principles on

sharia

and their

effects on his political role and activity, this study
begins with an intellectual biography of Sistani, con-
tinuing with an elaboration of his network in the
Middle East and especially in Iran. Then, it scrutinizes
the Najaf seminary’s relation to the Qom seminary, the
relationship between Shiite religious authority in Iraq
and Iran, and the overlapping network of the Shiite
world. This explanation can help the reader understand
the “Islamic” nature of the Iranian government and the
connection between the Iranian political order and the
internal and external Shiite authorities.

The main thesis of this paper is that

marjayat,

as it

existed in the past two centuries with all its traditional
aspects, belongs to a historical context and period that
cannot last after Sistani. The end of the

marjayat

era is

not only the end of an establishment but also a funda-
mental development in the political social authority of
Shiism. In a post-

marjayat

era that transforms theology

into a political agenda, old religious concepts will sig-
nify differently. Although Shiite theology was always,
in some respects, a political theology, now all its con-
ceptual apparatus would be at the service of a “modern
Islamic ideology” that is equipped with advanced tech-
nology and weapons, with global implications.

6. See Mohammad Qoochani, “Three Islams,”

Shargh

(Tehran), June 2, 2002. Available online (http://sharghnewspaper.com/830313/index.htm).

The Last Marja: Sistani and the End of Traditional Religious Authority in Shiism

Mehdi Khalaji

The Washington Institute for Near East Policy

For instance, in terms of Iranian domestic policy,

examining the historical premises of

marjayat

’s decline

will help to better understand what President Mah-
moud Ahmadinezhad says about the Hidden Imam7
and the government’s planning for his return.

Marjayat

is an establishment that is based on the Shiite concep-
tion of the imamate and especially the Hidden Imam.

Marjayat

will be obsolete if the Hidden Imam returns,

so the political use of the Hidden Imam theme by a
political leader such as Ahmadinezhad may be under-
stood as a direct competition with the clerical establish-
ment of Shiism in Iran.8 The real competition, in fact,
has already taken place between the Iranian Supreme
Leader and the

marjayat

establishment. This study

attempts to argue that the Islamic Republic that was
founded by a

marja

, Ayatollah Khomeini, was a project

that ultimately will lead to minimizing the role of cler-
ics in the political realm and empowering fundamental-
ism led by a combined group of a few clerics and a large
number of military and armed groups and institutions.
Ironically, the increased political role of the Shiite

ulama

in the last decades has already negatively affected their
social and political authority and will eventually end the
traditional

marjayat

establishment.

Understanding the historical and political frame-

work of the decline of

marja

would help in compre-

hending some of the internal and external dimensions
of the crisis in the Middle East.

7. The Hidden Imam as a political concept has played a major role in the life of Shiites throughout history. All political concepts in Shiite theology are

related to how they perceive the imamate (succession of the Prophet) and the Hidden Imam (the last imam of Twelver Shiites) and his successors (jurists).

For a historical account of this concept, see Patricia Crone,

God’s Rule, Government and Islam, Six Centuries of Medieval Islamic Political Thought

(New

York: Columbia University Press, 2004; Hossein Modarresi Tabatabai,

Crisis and Consolidation in the Formative Period of Shi’ite Islam: Abu Ja’far Ibn

Qiba Al-Razi and His Contribution to Imamite Shi’ite Thought

(Princeton, N.J.:

Princeton University Press, 1993); Said Amir Arjomand,

The Shadow of

God and the Hidden Imam, Religion, Political Order, and Social Change in Shi’ite Iran from the Beginning to 1890

(Chicago and London: University of

Chicago Press, 1987); Kathryn Babyan,

Mystics, Monarchs, and Messiahs, Cultural Landscape of Early Modern Iran

(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univer-

sity Press, 2002).

8. The challenge between Ahmadinezhad and the clerics has already started. Please see Mehdi Khalaji, “Ahmadinezhad’s Popularity One Year On,”

PolicyWatch

no. 1125 (Washington Institute for Near East Policy, July 20, 2006). Available online (http://washingtoninstitute.org/templateC05.

php?CID=2490).

Policy Focus #59

i n t h e wo r l d o f

marjayat

, popularity dictates

the role and rank of the

marja

. Thus, the most popular

marja

s are almost always the most important. No offi-

cial polls, however, track the number of each

marja

’s

followers, or followers of Sistani in particular, because
the decision to follow a

marja

is a very personal one

for the Shiite worshiper that follows no set legal or
administrative procedure. Nevertheless, many uncon-
ventional methods are used to estimate the percentage
of followers of each

marja

. For instance, during the

obligatory and nonobligatory pilgrimage to Mecca
(Hajj and Umrah) and Medina, millions of Shiite wor-
shipers need to learn their religious duties regarding
pilgrimage ritual.

Shiite pilgrims are organized within caravans. Each

caravan consists of about 100 people and is headed by
an administrator who may be an individual or a small
group and a cleric. The administrator—like a travel
agent—is in charge of various pilgrimage matters, such
as getting visas to Saudi Arabia and arranging accom-
modation during their stay in that country. The cleric’s
responsibility is to help each pilgrim in his caravan ful-
fill her or his ritual duty. Each pilgrim’s duty may vary
from that of the others according to her or his

marja

The cleric is expected to teach every pilgrim his or her
religious tasks according to a

marja

. Therefore, when

a pilgrim asks the caravan’s cleric about what she or
he has to do, the cleric should first of all find out who
is that pilgrim’s

marja

. By knowing the

marja

of each

pilgrim in the caravan, a cleric can assist the pilgrim to
accomplish her or his ritual. Hence, a caravan cleric is
a reliable source for knowledge about the popularity of
each

marja

, whether he lives in Iran, Iraq, or another

part of the Shiite world.

A cleric needs to know the Hajj codes and laws,

which are sometimes very sophisticated. In places other
than Iran, a caravan’s cleric is usually appointed by the
caravan’s administrator because of the cleric’s reputa-
tion or abilities. In Iran, however, everything concern-
ing pilgrimage, including the caravan clerics, is monop-
olized by the government through the Organization for

Hajj and Pilgrimage (Sazman-e Hajj va Ziarat) and by a
representative of the Supreme Leader in Hajj affairs—
both controlled by the Supreme Leader. Candidates
for caravan clericship are short-listed through formal
exams and then chosen according to ideological criteria
and expediency. Before departure from Iran, a caravan’s
clerics are trained by those governmental organiza-
tions in Hajj rituals as well as other issues, such as Iran’s
annual demonstration against the United States, Israel,
and Western countries that are deemed “the enemies of
God” by the official ideology of the Islamic Republic.
Nonetheless, a cleric needs to become informed about
the details of pilgrim ritual through other sources, such
as every

marja

’s important book on “Hajj codes” and,

finally, the representative office (

be’tha

) of every

marja

in Mecca or Medina.

marja

’s representative office in Mecca and Medina

is not located in a private building, but in a hotel.
Every

marja

has his own staff in the office during the

year, but in the period of obligatory pilgrimage (Hajj),
usually the most important representatives of a

marja

will be at the office. This office has two main functions:
the first is to answer religious questions about pilgrim-
age codes asked by the

marja

’s followers and especially

by caravan clerics who want to direct the members of
their caravan who follow that

marja

. The second func-

tion is to collect religious taxes. Hundreds of thou-
sands of dollars are paid to

marja

s’ offices every year in

cash or checks. The office collects the money and sends
it back to the

marja

’s main office, either where he lives

or in Qom.

Thus, the number of people or clerics who come

to the representative office of each

marja

as well as

the amount of money they pay as religious taxes are
very evident signs of the extent to which each

marja

is followed by Shiite worshipers. Iranian governmental
pilgrimage organizations conduct a confidential poll
annually to figure out the approximate number of fol-
lowers of each

marja

. They distribute the questionnaire

among the clerics of Iranian caravans, asking them par-
ticularly about followers of

marja

s. According to the

Sistani as a

Marja

The Last Marja: Sistani and the End of Traditional Religious Authority in Shiism

Mehdi Khalaji

The Washington Institute for Near East Policy

annual confidential polling, Ayatollah Ali Sistani is the
most-followed

marja

in the Shiite world, and many

more people ask his views on pilgrimage codes or pay
their taxes to his office and representatives in Mecca
and Medina than those who follow other

marja

The other source for estimating the quantity of fol-

lowers is the

marja

’s main office in Qom. Whether a

marja

lives in Qom or in Najaf, or other cities in other

countries, he has a main office in Qom that is very
important for his prestige and credit. This office has
many tasks: publishing

sharia

codes (

towzih ol-massael

)

in Persian, Arabic, and other languages; managing the

marja

’s facilities, charities, libraries, religious schools,

hospitals, and other institutions; collecting religious
taxes; paying monthly salaries to religious students and
clerics; creating a clerical network of preachers who
will be sent to various cities of Iran or abroad to fulfill
religious ceremonies of Muharram, Safar, Ramadan,
and other religious events; and controlling different
financial and quasi-political affairs of the

marja

. How

big and active an office is would certainly be good evi-
dence of how many worshipers follow a

marja

. On this

basis, Sistani’s office is the biggest office in Qom in
terms of financial capability and ownership of multiple
institutions.

According to clerical sources, whether from confi-

dential pilgrimage polling or Qom

marja

offices, nearly

80 percent of Shiite worshipers follow Ayatollah Ali Sis-
tani. The rest of them follow other great

marja

s: Sayed

Muhammad Hussein Fadlallah in Lebanon; Muham-
mad Said Hakim, Bashir Pakistani, and Muhammad
Ishaq Fayyad in Najaf; Muhammad Fazel Lankarani,
Naser Makarem Shirazi, Lotfollah Safi, Yossef Sanei,
Abdolkarim Mossavi Ardebili, Mossa Shobeiri, Hos-
sein Vahid Khorasani, Javad Tabrizi, Muhammad Taqi
Bahjat, Hossein Nori Hamedani, Sadeq Shirazi, and
Sadeq Rowhani in Qom; and Ali Khamenei, Supreme

Leader of the Islamic Republic, in Tehran. Other cler-
ics claim

marjayiat

and have published their

sharia

codes and collect religious taxes, but their followers do
not exceed a few hundred at the most.

What is the significance of the number of follow-

ers and its religious, social, and political meanings and
implications? A large part of this study is devoted to
examining the Shiite clerical network in the Middle
East and, through it, the multiple dimensions of the
popularity of a

marja

in general and some of them in

particular. To explain the mechanism of

marjayiat

and

how a

mojtahed

can achieve this position, we first have

to look at the biography of Sistani as an outstanding
example of a

marja

Sistani and His Road to

Marjayat

Only by superficial generalization can we deduce some
elements explaining the passage of a

mojtahed

mar-

jayat

. Sistani’s destiny is not common among

marja

his itinerary to

marjayat

is exceptional and linked to

unique political and economic circumstances.

Ayatollah Ali Hussein al-Sistani,1 originally from

Sistan, a southeastern province of Iran, was born
August 4, 1930, in Mashhad, a holy city in northeast
Iran. He grew up in a clerical family. Sistani prelimi-
narily trained in Mashhad and studied Arabic litera-
ture and elementary texts in Islamic jurisprudence in
the city’s seminary. In 1949 he moved to Qom, the
center of Shiism in Iran, and among various courses
he attended those of Great Ayatollah Sayed Hossein
Tabatabai Borujirdi, who was the Great Marja not only
of Iran, but also throughout the Shiite world.2

After three years, in 1951, Sistani left Qom for Najaf,

the Shiite center in Iraq, for further study. In Najaf,
he started mostly attending the lectures of Ayatollah
Abul-Qassem Khoi and Sheikh Hussein Helli on Shi-
ite jurisprudence and the foundations of

sharia

(

usul

1. The honorific title of Husseini refers to his genealogy and means that he is a descendant of Hussein, son of Ali, the Shiite first imam, and through him

son of the Islamic Prophet. A

sayed,

or a descendant of the Prophet Muhammad, has a distinguished position in Islamic law as well as in Muslim societies.

Among many other privileges, she or he can use a part of religious taxes. One can claim relation to the Prophet through a traditional genealogy, which is

neither scientific nor necessarily accurate. Because of the favoritism given to

sayed

s, fabricating a genealogy to prove that someone is the descendant of the

Prophet is not very difficult. The social position of a

sayed

is very important, especially to Shiites. Historically, most

marja

s are

sayed

2. Sayed Hossein Borujirdi was called “Marja alal-itlaq,” that is, the absolute

marja

. The absolute

marja

is the one who does not have any competitor

marja

in his time and is recognized by the Shiite community as the most credible and knowledgeable

marja

without any controversy. In the history of

marjayat,

the emergence of an absolute

marja

was a rare and exceptional event. After Borujirdi, not a single

marja

appeared as absolute.

Mehdi Khalaji

The Last Marja: Sistani and the End of Traditional Religious Authority in Shiism

Policy Focus #59

al-fiqh

). He was awarded the certificate of

ijtehad

(offi-

cial clerical status) from both of them.

In 1960 Sistani returned to Mashhad, Iran, where

he wanted to settle and be appreciated for his Najaf
training. For unclear reasons, he left Mashhad in 1961
and returned to Najaf, where he started to teach juris-
prudence (

fiqh

) and the science of the foundations of

jurisprudence.

Some rumors indicate that Ayatollah Khoi was look-

ing for a person who would be able to replace him as
a great

marja

and undertake the responsibility for the

Najaf seminary. The rumors say that many of Najaf ’s
high-ranking clerics suggested that Khoi choose Sistani
for that role. After Khoi’s decision, he asked Sistani
to be prayer imam in his mosque, al-Khadra. Sistani
accepted this symbolic position that enabled him to
prepare himself for

marjayat

and acted as imam from

1987 until the mosque was closed by Iraqi government
order in 1993.

Many scholars, such as Allamah Sheikh Mahdi

Murwaarid, Sayed Murtadha al-Mohri, Sayed Habib
Husaynan, Sayed Murtadha Isfahani, Sayed Ahmad
Madadi, and Sheikh Baqir Irwaani, were his students.
But not one of those scholars became prominent aca-
demically or socially. Since the middle of 1998, after
pressure on Sistani and other Shiite

ulama

s by Sad-

dam’s regime, Sistani decided to stay home and quit
teaching.

When Sistani announced his

marjayat

in 1992, he

was relatively well known in Qom through his son-
in-law Sayed Javad Shahrestani’s institutes. Ayatollah
Sistani had no prominent disciples in Qom, nor had
he written a book. He would not have been able to
become a famous

marja

in Qom if Shahrestani had

not prepared the practical conditions for his

mar-

jayat

. Shahrestani was born in 1954, married Sistani’s

daughter in 1975, and immigrated to Qom in 1977. He
founded the Aal-Olbayt Institute for Revival of Shi-

ite Heritage (Mo’assassat Aal-Olbayt li-ihya ittorathi
shii’i) in 1983. About nine years later, Sistani began his

marjayat

after his mentor, Khoi, passed away.

Aal-Olbayt Institute described its function as gath-

ering manuscripts of traditional Shiite scholars and
editing and publishing them in a very elegant form at
a very low price. From the beginning of its work, the
institute obviously had more in mind than publish-
ing forgotten, neglected, or important manuscripts.
The expenses of editing and publication were much
more than what the institute could gain from book
sales. The institute was financially supported by Sayed

Javad Shahrestani and his network in Iran and abroad.
Shahrestani’s principal project was establishing his
own institute in the very competitive climate of Qom
seminary. But Shahrestani’s ultimate goal for the foun-
dation of that institute, which has been followed by
many other institutes, libraries, campuses, and even an
observatory, appears to have been to spread the name
of his father-in-law, Sistani, who was almost unknown
in Qom seminary until that time.

When Qom’s influential clerics figured out that Sis-

tani was trying to present himself as a

marja

, they cam-

paigned against him. Abdullah Javadi Aamoli and Reza
Ostadi, two members of the association of the Qom
seminary’s mentors ( Jameh-ye Modarressin-e How-
zeh-ye Ilmiyeh-ye Qom), a pro-government clerical
institute, explicitly worked on delegitimizing Sistani.
Along with other pro-government clerics, they tried
to goad Shahrestani into a reaction and then suppress
him and close Sistani’s offices in Qom. But they finally
failed because of the wise and diplomatic measures
Shahrestani took that spiked their destructive efforts.

Javad Shahrestani tried to use Khoi’s network in

part. A considerable number of Khoi’s representatives
became Sistani’s representatives. According to Shahres-
tani, Sistani has more than 2,000 religious represen-
tatives worldwide.3 Although the religious properties

3. The concept of “representative” is very important for understanding the flexibility and fluidity of religious networks. A religious representative means one

who is trusted by a

marja

or his office to spread his name and to campaign for the

marja

, to explain and answer the religious questions of worshipers, and

finally, to collect their religious taxes. The representatives have many ranks; a few of them are

mojtaheds,

but most of them are not. Also, a few of them are

disciples of the

marja

. Most of them are not, and many of them have no knowledge about the

marja

’s views on

sharia

except through his book “Codes

Sharia,

” which is available to everybody. Few representatives are important enough to have an office for themselves, like Sheikh Fazel Sahlani, Sistani’s

representative in New York, or Sayed

Morteza Mohri, Sistani’s representative in Kuwait, and most of them work at their homes. A religious representative

The Last Marja: Sistani and the End of Traditional Religious Authority in Shiism

Mehdi Khalaji

The Washington Institute for Near East Policy

and economic capital of Khoi mostly remained in the
hands of his sons, sons-in-law, and his disciples and
some of his main representatives, Khoi’s network—
which was the most established and expansive religious
network in the world—could be a great help to Sistani.
Moreover, if Sistani carried the title of Khoi’s most
prominent disciple and his successor, that acknowledg-
ment could help Sistani use Khoi’s symbolic capital as
well, namely his prestige and social influence. The Ira-
nian government could not harm Shahrestani because
he played a major role in showing the Iranian people,
as well as clerics, that Sistani was the best potential
successor of Khoi, which allowed Sistani to take over
Khoi’s place.

A very tough part of Shahrestani’s job as Sistani’s

most important assistant and representative was to
maintain the balance of power in Qom seminary,
not only between Sistani and other

marja

s but also

between Sistani and Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei,
who claims that he is a

marja

, too. Shahrestani made

every endeavor to depoliticize his activity and be neu-
tral vis-à-vis various clerical and political tendencies
and currents. For instance, when Montazeri was disfa-
vored by the government, Shahrestani worked on nor-
malizing its relations with the cleric in order to prove
that he (and consequently Sistani) was an independent

marja

and did not fear government security and police

forces. When Abdullah Nori, former interior minister,
was released from prison, Shahrestani went to Tehran
and visited him. Meanwhile, he has very close ties with
the Supreme Leader’s offices in Qom and Tehran and
very often welcomes in his office Muhammad Muham-
madi Golpayegani, the head of the Supreme Leader’s
office. Shahrestani’s office in Qom is a convergence
point that includes everybody from all political and
clerical sides and even religious intellectuals like Abdul-

Karim Soroush, who was extremely disfavored by both
the government and clerics and is still considered a
great enemy of the clerical establishment by clerics. By
expanding the range of people who have connections
with Sistani’s office, Shahrestani has created a security
belt around himself for protection against government
surveillance and interference.

Sistani gained much of his power from his popu-

larity, and through it his economic power. A

marja

’s

wealth reinforces his popularity, and his popularity
helps him increase his financial resources. As the most-
followed

marja

in Iran and abroad, Sistani is the richest

marja

of the Shiite world. (In chapter 5, we take a look

at the economic structure of the seminary and

marja

s.)

The most accurate estimates of Sistani’s wealth indicate
his annual income is between $500 million and $700
million and his worldwide assets exceed $3 billion.

Because of his assets, Sistani would be able to pay

higher monthly salaries to seminary students and clerics
than any other

marja

. The amount of monthly salary is

very significant; it proves the wealth and consequently
the popularity of a

marja

, briefly, his economic and

social power. Although Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei
does not have that many followers and does not collect
a remarkable amount of religious taxes, by unwritten
law he pays the highest monthly salary at the seminary
in order to resemble the late Khomeini, who was a very
popular

marja

and collected hefty religious taxes and

donations. Khamenei is using the governmental bud-
get rather than religious resources for responding to
his expenses in the seminary. Hence, Khamenei has
altered the natural order of paying seminary salaries to
keep himself above all, while he relies on nonreligious
funding resources.

Shahrestani, respecting Khamenei’s desire to be

above all in administration and in salary amount, is

can represent many

marja

s. He does not represent them politically. A representative collects the religious taxes of each worshiper and usually after taking

one-third of it for himself, he sends the rest to the

marja

’s main offices.

Marja

s are normally unable to have any control or do any audit on their repre-

sentative and all takes place only through trust and confidence. Some representatives send a small portion of the money they receive to the

marja

’s main

offices and keep a large part of it for themselves. Sistani in a

fatwa

(religious edict) stated that a worshiper is not religiously forced to pay his taxes to his

representatives and is allowed to spend it himself for religious goals that are specified in the codes of

sharia.

Sistani has repeatedly denounced the statements of his representatives that purported to express his view. He explicitly and specifically declared on

many occasions that statements purporting to represent his views but lacking his office’s seal or signature should be considered as “merely the personal

views of those who express them.” See Reidar Visser, “Sistani, the United States and Politics in Iraq: From Quietism to Machiavellianism?” Norwegian

Institute of International Affairs, No. 700, Oslo (2006), p. 9. Available online (http://historiae.org/documents/Sistani.pdf ).

Mehdi Khalaji

The Last Marja: Sistani and the End of Traditional Religious Authority in Shiism

Policy Focus #59

excused when he pays less while he collects more. But
Shahrestani spends the money in other ways. He pays
monthly salaries outside the seminary system, which is
under Khamenei’s control, to those whom the seminary
deprives of salary. Shahrestani pays salary to clerics who
become disfavored by the government at his office, and
by virtue of such generosity he attracts the support of
various parts of the seminary who are unable to resist
government injustice or protest publicly.

Sistani’s Institutes in Iran

Javad Shahrestani, after founding the Aal-Olbayt Insti-
tute, created specialized multilingual libraries. First, he
set up the general Library of Literature, which includes
Persian, Arabic, English, and other classic and contem-
porary texts, from literary works such as novels to lit-
erary criticism and theory. This library now contains
more than 30,000 books and is increasingly open to
new books. Foad Al-Assadi, the director of the Library
of Literature, tries not only to bring new publications
into the realm but also to buy old books that are out of
print, some of which are not allowed to be reprinted
under the Islamic Republic’s censorship system. The
Library of Qoranic Exegesis and Sciences holds 20,000
books under its director Muhammad Ali Mahdavi
Raad, a pro-Khatami and a pro-Montazeri cleric. The
Library of History, with more than 60,000 books, is
run by Rasoul Jafarian, a fundamentalist extremist
cleric who has a close relationship with Khamenei’s
religious and security establishment in Qom. The
Library of Fiqh, Fiqh Principles, and Law, with 25,000
volumes, is run by Muhammad Mehdi Mehrizi, a leftist
cleric who is close to Iranian reformers and to Muham-
mad Khatami, former president. The Library of Hadith
is under an unknown cleric, Meraji, and the Library
of Philosophy, Theology, and Logic is run by Ahmad
Abedi, a conservative cleric. Even though since Iran’s
Islamic Revolution many multilingual modern librar-
ies have been built up, notably by the pro-government
institute, Sistani’s six libraries in Qom are very useful
for religious students, with free admission and accept-
able service. The interesting thing is that Shahres-
tani, by appointing six clerics from different and even
opposing sides to run those libraries, has tried to prove

his political neutrality and his willingness to generalize
the benefits of Sistani’s institutions as well as protect
them against the government.

Shahrestani also founded the Center for Shiite

Manuscripts, which contains more than 12,000 man-
uscripts and is constantly buying valuable personal
Shiite libraries throughout the world. This center also
gathers microfilms from world libraries and puts them
at the disposal of clerics at a very low price. Shahrestani
has purchased a site (360,000 square meters, equal to
3.88 million square feet) for building an observatory to
help jurists figure the accurate time for religious ritu-
als like prayers or fasts. Moreover, Shahrestani initi-
ated welfare projects by building 800 residential units
within five residential complexes (totaling more than
100,000 square meters, equal to 1 million square feet).
In future, his project will compete with Khoi’s town of
Madinatol Ilm and Khamenei’s town of Mahddieh in
the suburbs of Qom.

Shahrestani was the first to bring the internet to

Qom and gain the government’s permission for creat-
ing several internet service providers (ISPs). By doing
so he provided the clerics with very cheap internet
lines that initially were not filtered but after a while
filtered out pornography as well as anti-Iranian-regime
material. His initiative to import the internet to the
seminary climate was groundbreaking and has been
welcomed by reformist clerics. Shahrestani’s ISPs pro-
vide internet access not only for Qom customers but
also for other cities, such as Mashhad, Isfahan, Ilam,
and Tehran.

Shahrestani has established Sistani’s network

through those institutions and also through religious
institutes. Outside Iran, Sistani has two kinds of
offices: one works under the name of Sistani’s office
and others work under the name of a religious insti-
tute, like Imam Ali Institute in London. Sistani has
offices and institutes in Africa as well as New York,
London, Paris, Damascus, Beirut, Lahore, Karachi,
Tbilisi, Baku, and other cities around the world. For
instance, the stated objectives of Imam Ali Institute,
which is run by Kashmiri, another son-in-law of Sis-
tani, are translation of religious books, especially Sis-
tani’s

sharia

codes, into nearly thirty languages; reli-

The Last Marja: Sistani and the End of Traditional Religious Authority in Shiism

Mehdi Khalaji

The Washington Institute for Near East Policy

gious publication; performance of ritual in Britain and
other Western countries; and the sending of preachers
to Africa, Europe, and North America to proselytize
with Shiites and

marjayat

of Sistani as well as other

religious missionaries.

Shahrestani’s institute, Aal-Olbayt, itself has many

branches throughout the world, including Beirut,
Damascus, and London. Aal-Olbayat Institute as well
as Sistani’s official institutes and offices supposedly
connect with Sistani’s 2,000 representatives and collect
the money they send, spending some of the money in
their countries and sending the rest to Qom, Najaf, or
wherever Shahrestani deems expedient.

Unlike the traditional clerical mentality, Shahres-

tani believes in organization and institutions. For
instance, Sistani’s office in Qom was the first office of
a Najafi

marja

in Qom since the foundation of Qom

seminary in 1922,4 even though most of them had
representatives there. Sistani is the only

marja

after

Khoi who thinks about the institutionalization of
his

marjayat

throughout the world, including Iran;

no one except Khoi and Sistani had a single institute
in Iran. For the time being, Sistani’s institutes are the
strongest and broadest institutes of a Shiite

marja

the world.

Sistani in the Najaf Context

Besides Sistani, three other

marja

s exist in Iraq: Sayed

Mohammad Said Hakim, grandson of Sayed Mohsen
Hakim (born in Najaf, 1935), Muhammad Ishaq Fayy-
adh (born in Qaznei, Afghanistan, 1929), and Bashir
Najafi (born in Jalandhar, India, 1942). None of
them have Sistani’s popularity and financial network.
According to seminary tradition in Najaf, a non-Ira-
nian

mojtahed

rarely could attract Shiites around the

world to accept him as a

marja

. Since the nineteenth

century and basically after the invention of the tele-
graph, when

marjayat

became a global matter tran-

scending geographical borders, only Sayed Mohsen

Hakim’s

marjayat

was able to grow overseas. All Iraqi

marja

s, from Sayed Abul-Hassan Isfahani to Khoi and

Sistani, were and are originally Iranian. An Indian,
Pakistani, or Afghan has very little chance to be known
in the Shiite world. In contrast, Muhammad Ishaq
Fayyadh is one of the prominent disciples of Khoi and
was well known in Qom seminary much before Sistani
because of his notes from the acroamatic (oral teach-
ing) of his mentor Khoi, which has been published
several times in Qom and Beirut and is considered
to be one the most reliable sources for understanding
Khoi’s principles and the methodological foundations
of

fiqh

(Islamic jurisprudence).

Two kinds of salary payments are made to clerics in

Najaf seminary: general salaries and those limited to
some specific clerics. Sistani pays a salary to all clerics
(the highest salary is 100,000 Iraqi dinars [ID], equal
to about $70). Iranian Supreme Leader Khamenei (the
highest is ID 90, about $60) and Muhammad Said
Hakim (the highest is ID 30,000, about $20) are two
other

marja

s who pay salaries to all clerics. But other

marja

s, such as Fayyadh and Najafi or a few Qom

marja

s like Javad Tabrizi, pay salaries to only a limited

number of clerics because they lack the economic capa-
bility to pay all.

The best courses (in the highest level, which is

dars-e

kharej

) in Najaf seminary are given by Fayyadh, Najafi,

Baqer Iravani, and Muhammad Reza Sistani, the son of
Ali Sistani. Ali Sistani, who started teaching in 1961,
quit in 1999 under pressure from Saddam’s regime and
has not taught again to the present day.

Sistani holds a levee nearly one hour a day in which

he meets people and clerics; yet his conversations with
them usually do not exceed a simple greeting. In his
meetings, he hesitates to answer political questions,
including his opinion on

velayat-e faqih

(guardianship

of the jurisprudent, the doctrine granting the Iranian
Supreme Leader his authority), a question he has been
asked many times.

4. Few studies are available on the history of the foundation of Qom seminary. In Persian, an important collection of memoirs of the clerics of that time was

published in 1995, but after a short while the Iranian government prohibited its sale in bookshops and forbade its reprinting (

Peydayesh va Tahavvolat-e

Howzeh-ye Ilmiey-ye Qom, Tarikh-e Shafahi-e Inqelab-e Islami-e Iran

, edited by Qolamreza Karbaschi [Qom: Bonyad-e Tarikh-e Inqelab-e Islami-e Iran,

1374]).

Mehdi Khalaji

The Last Marja: Sistani and the End of Traditional Religious Authority in Shiism

Policy Focus #59

Every morning, he reads some prominent Iraqi and

Iranian newspapers or what his office has selected from
news websites in Persian, Arabic, or translated from
English. He spends a small portion of his time listening
to radio, mostly Iranian state radio and BBC Persian or
Arabic. He normally does not watch television. Overall,
Sistani tries to get firsthand information about world
and regional news through the media and his own con-
nections. His apostles say that he is very knowledgeable
in the history of Iran and Iraq, especially the history of
clerical systems in the last two centuries.

His relations with the three other

marja

s in Najaf

are respectful, and they are not on a level that allows
them to defy Sistani’s position or authority. Neverthe-
less, in some major issues on the management of the
seminary or political issues, he consults with them, but
those consultations are pro forma and he usually makes
the final decision.

His office in Najaf is headed by his son Muhammad

Reza Sistani, but observers believe that Muhammad
Reza is not an important consultant to his father. He
does his job as a head of Ali Sistani’s administration in
Najaf, but in political issues, Mohammad Reza does
not have much influence on his father. Sistani’s main
consultants in political issues are Javad Shahrestani, his
son-in-law in Qom; Hamid al-Khaffaf, his only offi-
cial spokesman and his only nonclerical representative
in Beirut; Murteza Kashmiri, his son-in-law in Lon-
don; Muhammad Reza, as his main mediator to the
Iraqi government; and Ahmad Safi and Dr. Hossein
Shahrestani.

Sistani is reluctant to visit with journalists. He has

never given an interview to the media. He does not
allow photographers to take his picture, except one or
two official photographs, nor is he filmed. Sistani is
not interested in dealing with political officials. When
Sistani decided to go to London for medical treatment,
Javad Shahrestani, who was in charge of trip arrange-
ments, proposed three conditions to British officials

for Sistani’s stay in London: no meetings with politi-
cal officials; no journalists around him; security forces
should stay very far from him and not approach him.5
So Shahrestani refused to meet the representatives of
the British ministry of foreign affairs. When Sistani
left the hospital in London, most world political lead-
ers sent messages for a speedy recovery, but only in the
case of Khamenei did Sistani send Javad Shahrestani to
convey his appreciation in a private meeting, declining
to reply to the others.

Sistani’s representatives justify his avoidance of the

media by claiming that he is a man of God and does
not like to show off as a political leader. They also say
that he has no trust in journalists, because he is afraid
that they will misquote him or not broadcast his inter-
views in their entirety. In general, Sistani endeavors to
keep himself aloof from the public. Giving interviews
to journalists is basically a Qom, or Iranian, tradition,
not a Najafi tradition, and it would have quite a nega-
tive effect on his reputation as a religious leader.

Creating distance is a very effective mechanism that

has its position and meaning in Islamic tradition. Cre-
ating

haram,

or a special distance, from architecture

to social and human relations is an indication of the
power order. A religious leader should not be publi-
cized, especially by modern technology, because in that
case he loses his religious pomp and spiritual glory.6

Sistani resides on a small street, Masjede-e Hindi,

about 200 meters from the Imam Ali Shrine in Najaf.
In his modest home, which is also his office, he receives
ordinary visitors, representatives, and political activists
and officials. After Saddam’s fall, the street became very
crowded. It is closed by fences from both sides. Sistani’s
home is surrounded and secured by his own security
guard, not by government police, but the neighbor-
hood is under official security surveillance by the
police. The Iranian regime has purchased many homes
in this neighborhood in the name of various individu-
als over the last three years,7 permitting Iranian minis-

5. Javad Shahrestani, interview by author.

6. For the relation between special distance, political power, and social hierarchy, see Edward T. Hall,

The Hidden Dimension

(New York: Anchor Books,

1969).

7. A couple of years ago, Sheikh Muhammad Mehdi Assefi (a relative of Hamid Reza Assefi, spokesman of the ministry of foreign affairs of the Islamic

Republic of Iran), a member of the Dawa Party, and the head of the office of al-Majma al-Aalami li Ahli-lbayt (International Academy of Ahlilbayt)—an

The Last Marja: Sistani and the End of Traditional Religious Authority in Shiism

Mehdi Khalaji

The Washington Institute for Near East Policy

try of intelligence and Revolutionary Guard members
to surround Sistani’s street.

Despite the security organizations surrounding Sis-

tani, whether Iraqi or Iranian, he has kept his control of
Najaf seminary. Other Shiite seminaries in Iraq, under
Saddam’s tyranny, lost their vivacity and activity. Najaf
was the only one that persevered, with substantial diffi-
culty. Now the Najaf seminary consists of nearly 2,500
clerics, and about 500 clerics are active in Karbala sem-
inary and other very small seminaries.

Sistani and Politics:

Theory and Practice

Does Sistani espouse any specific theory on Shiism and
politics? Should Sistani, as a

marja

, be considered a

“theoretician” of Shiite jurisprudence rather than Shi-
ite politics? First, one has to examine whether Sistani
is a “theoretician” in Shiite law or merely a Shiite jurist
who then seeks his own theoretical perception of Shi-
ite politics.

If by theoretician we mean one who can create a new

theoretical framework, formulation, or at least new
concepts that replace old ones—that is, respond to old
questions of a discipline and displace or discredit them
by defining new ones in order to participate in the
process of that discipline’s development—then most
jurists of this time, including Sistani, are obviously
not theoreticians. They did not create a remarkable
conceptual apparatus that challenges former or exist-
ing theoretical frameworks. The differences between
various Shiite

marja

s or

mojtaheds

do not go beyond

a very minor contrast in very minor issues of

sharia,

such as inconsequential and subordinate edicts con-
cerning details of legal codes in religious rituals and
commercial, civil, or criminal acts. The philosophi-
cal, theological, and paradigmatic presuppositions of
Shiite contemporary jurists in

fiqh

and

usul al

fiqh

are

much the same. One of the easiest ways to determine
the theoretical proximity of Shiite jurists’ principles in

sharia

is their

sharia

codes, from which one can hardly

discover a controversy on an essential issue.

Ijtehad—

which requires, by definition, one’s own endeavor to
understand

sharia

or sacred texts through traditional

hermeneutical methodology and based on classic
Islamic worldview—has been exhausted and is unable
to bring up new dynamism for historical and episte-
mological reasons.8

Curriculum and publication are signs of the frozen

state and deep-seated arteriosclerosis of thought and
knowledge in the seminary. The highest level of semi-
nary education is called

dars-e kharej

, literally “external

course,” a course that is not based upon reading and
exegesis of a text but one in which a teacher who is sup-
posed to be a

mojtahed

raises a question in

fiqh

, bring-

ing up different juridical opinions of jurists, criticizing
them, and finally arguing for his own opinion. His
course does not have a textbook, and students usually
take careful notes on his criticism and argument. Acro-
amatic tradition in the seminary (purely oral teaching)
has been very important. A disciple who manages to
take down the argument and who can properly and
eloquently explain what his mentor means can parlay
his mentor’s approval of his writing so that his notes
can be regarded as a proof of the disciple’s

ijtehad

well. Thus, the most perfect acroamatic notes are pub-
lished and become an indisputable document of both
the mentor’s and the disciple’s

ijtehad

. None of the

content, methodology, or subjects of current acroamat-
ics of contemporary jurists in Qom or Najaf, nor publi-
cations that concentrate on new editions of traditional
texts or publications of acroamatic notes, show any
creativity or dynamism in the theological thought of
seminary jurists. Not surprisingly, most new ideas on
religion in general and Shiite

sharia

in particular are

institution controlled by the Iranian Supreme Leader with its headquarters in Tehran—purchased a home close to Sistani’s. His purpose in doing so

appears to have been twofold: (1) using the security cover of the neighborhood, and (2) having control over Sistani’s home.

The International Academy of Ahlilbayt has nothing to do with academics, and its objectives basically are to spread the Supreme Leader’s name and

campaign for his

marjayat

throughout the world by publishing his books in different languages as well as to campaign for the Islamic Republic’s ideology

by issuing publications, performing religious ceremonies, and collecting and diffusing money to loyalists of the Iranian regime.

8. Explaining the nature of classic Islamic or Shiite thought is one of the most challenging duties of the historiographers of Islamic thought. If we want to

categorize the structure of classic thought in Islam, most probably we can describe it as “primitive” thought in the way that scholars such as Hallpike use

this term. C. R. Hallpike,

The Foundations of Primitive Thought

(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979).

Mehdi Khalaji

The Last Marja: Sistani and the End of Traditional Religious Authority in Shiism

Policy Focus #59

taking place outside the seminary, even those produced
by clerics.

To understand the impact of modernity on a jurist’s

world outlook, one has to take into consideration the
last part of

sharia

codes. Usually, in the last part of the

book (or in a separate pamphlet), called “new-found
issues,” a Shiite jurist responds to the questions that are
raised by modern life and were absent in the traditional
books on

fiqh

. “New-found issues” are simply a few

issues about which a worshiper cannot recognize what
his duty is, because he lives in an age different from the
age of tradition and confronts new circumstances and
requirements—issues such as migration to non-Mus-
lim countries; the problems arising from socializing
with non-Muslims, because they are not traditionally
considered pure men and women; medical issues that
challenge the separation of men and women and the
veiling of women; some general economic issues like
insurance, bank systems, and investment; and so forth.
In all cases a jurist tries to regard every issue as a new
subject that can be treated by the old methodology of

fiqh

, because the dominant paradigm of

ijtehad

assumes

that every human act has its own verdict and religious
status, because God is “the knower of the unseen,”9 who
knows what will happen to his creatures and gave his
acts legal status in the Quran or in the speeches of the
Prophet and imams. Emergence of new historical, epis-
temological, social, and political conditions does not
affect the essence of the

fiqh

methodology or system.

Thus, Sistani has not created a new theory on

sharia

nor on politics in Islam. His

fatwas

are the same

fat-

was

as those of other

marja

s, especially his mentor,

Abul-Qassem Khoi, with few modifications in details

according to a reading of his

sharia

codes and compar-

ing it to those of other

marja

Some might find it justifiable to say that Sistani lags

behind the late Ayatollah Khomeini as a theoretician
of

sharia.

Khomeini is the

marja

who founded a con-

temporary Shiite state and has the privilege of being
the only one among the

mojtahed

s who developed a

new conception of

sharia

and its relation with the gov-

ernment, which is not radically different from Shiite
tradition but is still considerably distinct from it as
well as from his contemporaries’ views.

Sistani and the Absolute

Power of a Shiite Jurist

The main issue that differentiates Khomeini10 and Sis-
tani may be “the absolute power of the Shiite jurist,”
which differentiates Khomeini from other

mojtahed

in general.

Abul-Qassem Khoi, Sistani’s mentor, held that

the authority (

velayat-e faqih

) who has all the con-

ditions11 is limited to

hesbiaeh

(religious) affairs,12

custodianship of endowments that do not have a
custodian assigned by the endower, and litigations
that should be judged by

faqih

. Besides those cases,

Khoi believed that a

faqih

did not have any kind of

authority.13 Khoi’s opinion is not a special view that
differs from the mainstream view on the subject.
The problem remains, however, that some

hesbiaeh

affairs do not have a precise and defined domain and
can be expanded by personal discretion and expedi-
ency of

mojtahed

to unknown results. In other words,

the rubric of some

hesbiaeh

affairs, like “enjoining

the right/honorable and forbidding the wrong /dis-

9. Quran 34:47, Arbery.

10. For the best comprehensive biography of Khomeini in English, see Baqer Moin

, Khomeini, Life of the Ayatollah

(London and New York: I. B. Tauris,

1999).

11.

Faqih-e Jami-osharayet

is a new political-theological term describing a jurist who has all the conditions for

marjayat

and additionally an ability to manage

the Shiite community, courage, and “awareness about his time,” namely a vast knowledge about the political and social characters of the contemporary

world.

12.

Hesbieah

affairs include issuing

fatwa

(

ifta

); propagating religious primary rules that create an obligation or duty by declaring an act to be obligatory,

prohibited, recommended, disapproved, or permissible; enjoining the right/honorable and forbidding the wrong/dishonorable (

Amr bi al-Maruf and

annahi bi al-munkar

); performing communal and Friday prayer; making judgments and its related issues, such as application of

hudud

punishments and

retaliation; collecting religious taxes, custodianship of general endowments, and guardianship of orphans, minors, and the insane; and also adjudicating

the legal right of unknown ownership. In this sense, with some exceptions like Friday prayer,

velayat-e faqih

is almost a matter of consensus in late schools

fiqh

, or even in the classic era. For a historical account of classic perception of

velayat-e faqih,

see Rula Jurdi Abisaab,

Converting Persia, Religion and

Power in the Safavid Empire

(London and New York: I. B. Tauris, 2004).

13. For his

fatwa

velayat-e faqih,

see www.alkhoei.org.uk/fatawa/1taghleed.htm.

The Last Marja: Sistani and the End of Traditional Religious Authority in Shiism

Mehdi Khalaji

The Washington Institute for Near East Policy

honorable” is so general that it can be applied to any
individual, social, or political issue. In the absence of
a “philosophy of politics” in Islam as well as a “politi-
cal theory” in

sharia

, general rubrics can justify either

activity or passivity of a

faqih

Even though a difference exists between Najaf

schools and Iranian schools of thought, the differ-
ence essentially relates to the historical position and
circumstances of

faqih

rather than their theological,

legal principles.14 Chapter 3 tries to explain the dif-
ferences between the two schools of Shiite theology,
especially in terms of politics. As the reader will find,
one of the main characteristics of the Najaf seminary
is that it was historically far from political power cen-
ters and eager to keep itself independent. But histori-
cal investigation shows that even Najafi

ulama

tried

to intervene in politics when such activity was to
their benefit.

Sistani as a disciple of Khoi basically holds to his

mentor’s view on

velayat-e faqih

, even though he has

not written a word on this issue or on any other juridi-
cal debates. Obviously, he has published a few

fatwa

with regard to

velayat-e faqih

. In one of his edicts, he

responded to the question of what his opinion is about

velayat-e faqih

. He states that in the traditional sense of

velayat-e faqih

that refers only to

hisbiyah

affairs, every

faqih

has the authority (

velayat

). But in cases other than

hesbiaeh

affairs, which are general affairs “with which

social order is linked,

velayat-e faqih

and enforcement

velayat

depend on certain conditions, one of which

is the popularity and acceptability of

faqih

among the

majority of worshipers.”15 Despite Khomeini, who
understood

velayat-e faqih

as a privilege assigned to

faqih

by God, Sistani emphasizes one condition, which

is popularity and social acceptability.

Reidar Visser, in his illuminating research on Sis-

tani, is absolutely right when he writes that

the apolitical tradition has certainly made its mark on

Sistani’s writing [works written by his disciples and

office members and published in his name]. In much

of his prescriptive literature, society seems nearly

stateless. The relationship between followers and jurist

takes center-stage; situations that involve forces exter-

nal to this two-way relationship are rendered almost

as unwelcome disturbance of an ideal state of affairs.

In Sistani’s model, Shiite believers ask questions about

everything from rituals of ablution to the use of rec-

reational drugs or listening to music; the

mojtahed

provides answers. The state, if visible at all, is in the far

background.16

But Visser is mistaken when he writes that a few

fatwa

issued by Sistani and published on his websites sug-
gest that “shortly after the fall of the Baathist regime in
2003, Sistani could for the first time issue statements…
[in which] ‘the state’ is present in these writings and
perhaps more clearly now if compared to his former
scholarship.”17 It seems that for understanding the
meaning of “state” in Sistani’s late

fatwa

s, one should

position it within the framework of Shiite classic liter-
ature. Thus the term “state” in Sistani’s

fatwa

s does not

refer to anything but the traditional perception of “the
state,” which is a temporal nonreligious government
that can be run by either just or unjust men.

Furthermore, several representatives of Sistani, such

as Murteza Mohri, who is one of Sistani’s disciples and
one of his representatives in Kuwait, say that Sistani
deliberately hesitates to express his opinion on

velayat-

e faqih

because if he declares that he holds that

velayat-

e faqih

is an accurate principle in Shiism, since he

believes in priority and superiority of “the most knowl-
edgeable

mojtahed

” (

mojtahed

e aalam

), it would mean

that he believes in himself as the only legitimate ruler-

faqih (vali-e fahi)

, not only in Iraq but also in the Shi-

ite world. Sistani knows, Mohri adds, that he does not
have the capability that Khamenei projected, without

14. On the main historical characteristics of Najaf ulama, see Pierre-Jean Luizard, La formation de l’Irak contemporain, le rôle politique des ulémas chiites à

la fin de la domination ottomane et au moment de la création de l’Etat irakien (Paris: Edition du CNRS, 1991); Jaber A. Faleh, The Shi’ite Movement in

Iraq (London: Saqi Book, 2003); Meir Litvak, Shi’i Scholars of Nineteenth-Century Iraq, The “Ulama” of Najaf and Karbala (Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press, 1998).

15. http://sistani.org/html/eng/main/index.php?page=4&lang=eng&part=4.

16. Reidar Visser, “Sistani, the United States and Politics in Iraq: From Quietism to Machiavellianism?” Norwegian Institute of International Affairs, No.

700, Oslo (2006), p. 1. Available online (http://historiae.org/documents/Sistani.pdf ).

17. Ibid., p. 12.

Mehdi Khalaji

The Last Marja: Sistani and the End of Traditional Religious Authority in Shiism

Policy Focus #59

which his claim for

velayat-e faqih

would remain with-

out any social, political, and even economic support. In
addition, such a claim would put him in competition
with the Iranian regime and its Supreme Leader, which
would damage Sistani more than the Iranian regime.
On the other hand, if Sistani announces that

velayat-e

faqih

in its current political meaning and implications

is an illegitimate principle and is not compatible with
juridical law and theological concepts of Shiism, then
he publicly announces a symbolic war against the Ira-
nian regime by calling its government religiously ille-
gal. Mohri describes Sistani’s lack of full freedom and
political and social power and economic facility as a
sustainable reason behind the ambiguity of Sistani’s
position and opinion on

velayat-e faqih

.18

Javad Shahrestani, in his response to a question on

Sistani’s view on

velayat-e faqih

, said that he does not

know exactly what his father-in-law thinks about it and
was even unaware about what is published on Sistani’s
website with regard to the concept.19 He may implicitly
want to mention that the

fatwa

on Sistani’s website was

published by the Qom office, in order to diminish the
Iranian regime’s pressure on Sistani as well as to send
an implicit signal to the regime that he does not have
any intention to delegitimize the Iranian government.

What a researcher on Sistani’s view can say with cer-

tainty is that Sistani’s view on politics is very different
from Khomeini’s formulation of

velayat-e faqih.

Also,

one can be assured that because of Sistani’s histori-
cal and educational background, he cannot make an
epistemological rupture with Shiite traditional juris-
prudence. As a consequence, in the realm of theory,
Sistani does not differ much from his contemporary

mojtahed

s in Najaf or even in Qom, or with his theo-

logical ancestors.

The traditional theory of Shiite jurists, especially

in the last four centuries and since the emergence of

ijtehad

in Shia Islam, leaves a

mojtahed

free to define

his own social and political position. Historically,
whenever central governments were weak, the inter-
ference of

mojtahed

s was more frequent. In fact, a

reciprocal relationship exists between the power of

ulama

mojtahed

s, and the government. Although

the theory of

velayat-e faqih

enables a

faqih

like Kho-

meini to build up a government, for Islamization of
the government most of the religious countertheories
on

faqih

authority can work the same. A brief histori-

cal account of political positions of

mojtahed

s in the

last four centuries sheds light on the fluidity of Shiite
juridical perception of the political role and rule of

faqih

In sum, the theoretical framework of Shiite jurispru-

dence opens the way for a pragmatism that is founded
on the special mentality of the

mojtahed

and his tra-

ditional perception of historical, social, and political
conditions. It impels him toward a specific, predictable
position. Everything is related to external elements and
can be justified by juridical formulations.

Some other considerations can be enlightening in

explaining specific political actions taken by a

mojta-

hed

, especially at the current time:

The political actions of a

mojtahed

are extremely

dependent on his economic capability, his social
popularity, and the weakness of central government.
When a government functions properly, in either a
despotic or a democratic way, a

mojtahed

’s authority

would be restricted. Of course,

mojtahed

s in gen-

eral use all means for expanding their popularity or
capability, even against the government’s interests,
provided that such means do not lead to any explicit
confrontation with the government that would
destroy

marjayat

foundations.

For a

marja

, preservation of his own establishment

and interests as a religious leader and then preser-
vation of his seminary entity is the absolute first
priority. He believes that without the seminary and

marjayat

establishment, Islam itself would be at

risk. That explains why a

marja

is always open to

compromises with any kind of government if he
sees that he is capable of leading a social or politi-

18. Murteza Mohri, interview by author, Kuwait, March 2006.

19. Javad Shahrestani, interview by author, during his pilgrimage in Mecca, October 2005.

The Last Marja: Sistani and the End of Traditional Religious Authority in Shiism

Mehdi Khalaji

The Washington Institute for Near East Policy

cal movement against it. When a

marja

is in a weak

position, he takes refuge in the principle of dissim-
ulation (

taqiah

),20 in which he justifies his political

or social passivity.

marja

usually does not care about his successor for

many reasons; he rarely fully confirms an individual
because he is not certain whether his confirmation
would damage his reputation in future or not, and
also because

majayat

is a very individual and per-

sonal position without a fixed hierarchy. Religiously,
a

marja

is not obligated to confirm a successor, and

he is incapable of giving a moral guarantee of the
piety and justice of a person after his own death. A

marja

very often leaves the question of his succession

to a future generation of clerics.21

Appointing a person for

marjayat

either directly or

indirectly can cause unpredictable and unpleasant
problems for a

marja

, because it can provoke com-

petition between many candidates and generate
hostility between them. Furthermore, it can lead to
questioning of the existing

marja

position as an axis

of unity. So far, Sistani has not supported any

moj-

tahed

as his successor. His failure to do so may stem

from the fact that no other

mojtahed

among his dis-

ciples or elsewhere can take the responsibility of a
great

marja

and enjoy the same popularity and social

acceptability as Sistani himself does.

Sistani’s Political Activities

A glance at the political pronouncements of Sistani
in the last three years proves that he is limited in his
power and he can exercise his power only when the
government is in a very weak position or the country
is in a transitional period. The current situation in Iraq
allows Sistani to become involved in politics only in
states of emergency and as an arbitrator.

On many occasions, Sistani and his assistants have

publicly announced that he is not interested in politics
at all. Examining his claim and measuring it against
his actions proves that he does not intend to take any
official political position like the Supreme Leader. He
knows very well that such a position is impossible for
him in Iraq’s current situation or in the country’s histori-
cal context. He even recommended that the clerics avoid
any political and administrative position in the new gov-
ernment. But his position does not mean that he is not
interested in politics if we mean by politics something
beyond daily management of the country. He certainly
believes that the government and the laws should not
oppose Islamic laws, which suggests that all secular laws
have to be consistent with Islamic laws. Islamic laws are
defined by

mojtahed

and above them by

marja

s—espe-

cially the great

marja

. Therefore, he believes that all laws

should be compatible with what he recognizes as Islamic
laws. A

marja

like Sistani holds that he has the right to

do his religious duty of ordering people to do good and
preventing them from doing bad (

Amr-e bi al-maruf

and

Nahy-e ane al-munkar

) by all means. Thus, he sees him-

self as absolutely right in putting any kind of pressure on
the government in order to impose on it what he thinks
is good from a religious perspective and to prevent it
from what he believes is bad. We have seen his efforts in
shaping the new Iraqi constitution in accordance with
Islamic law. The dualities and paradoxes inherent in the
constitution that arise from emphasizing that every law
should be both democratic

and

not against Islam are a

very important point. They give Sistani and future

mar-

s the legal right to influence the policymaking and

legislative process. Education and judiciary systems in
particular are his target, and insofar as he can play a role
in the determination of law, he will use his influence to
shape those systems.

The politics exercised by Sistani are obviously not

the kind we witnessed Ayatollah Khomeini use in Iran.

20.

Taqiqh

is a Shiite’s duty when the person feels or fears a real danger if she or he expresses her or his beliefs. Shiite imams have ordered their followers to

protect their life by dissimulation of their religious beliefs.

21. Although theologically and traditionally a

marja

cannot appoint his successor, in the course of the past two decades some

marja

s have tried to campaign

for their successor in a very sophisticated way. See, for example, Meir Litvak,

Shi’i Scholars of Nineteenth-Century Iraq

, chapter 3, “Monopolization of

Leadership in Najaf.”

The Washington Institute for Near East Policy

ayat o l l a h r u h o l l a h K h o m e i n i

, the

founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran, transformed
the

marjayat

from a merely religious position possess-

ing ambiguous relations with political authority to a
religious position with explicit political connotations
and implications.1 According to the constitution of
the Islamic Republic, the Supreme Leader must be
not only a

mojtahed

but also a

marja

. Conditioning

leadership on

marjayat

was the main attempt to unify

top religious authority with top political authority
in postrevolutionary Iran. According to the Iranian
constitution, “the belief in the Imamate and constant
leadership and its fundamental role in the continuity
of the Islamic revolution” is one of the components of
the Islamic Republic.2 Also, “all civil, penal, financial,
administrative, cultural, military, political, and other
laws and regulations must be based on Islamic criteria.
This principle applies absolutely and generally to all

articles of the constitution as well as to all other laws
and regulations. The Guardian Council’s jurists are
judges in this matter.”3

Making Islamic criteria a basis for all types of laws

does not make sense without a government of Shiite
jurists, because they are the only people who have the
social right to give official interpretations of Islam. In
this regard, the Islamization of the government directly
leads to

clericalization of the political system.

Ayatollah Khomeini has elaborated the theory

of “absolute authority of the jurist” (

velayat-e faqih

which is rooted in

sharia

foundations and theories

of Shiite

ulama

s of the early Safavid period and com-

bined from

sharia

principles and Islamic mysticism. In

his formulation of the theory, the ruler-jurist (

vali-e

faqih

) is the one who generally represents the Hidden

Imam.4 Therefore, as the Hidden Imam’s representa-
tive, the

vali-e faqih

has all the authorities, rights, and

1. For a historical account of the relationship between religious authority and political power in modern Iran, see Shahrough Akhavi,

Religion and Politics

in Contemporary Iran, Clergy-State Relation in the Pahlavi Period

(Albany: State University of New York Press, 1980), especially chapters 2 and 3; Said

Amir Arjomand,

The Turban for the Crown, The Islamic Revolution in Iran

(New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988); Nikki R. Keddie,

“The Roots of the Ulama’s Power in Modern Iran,” in

Scholars, Saints and Sufis, Muslim Religious Institutions since 1500

, ed. Nikki R. Keddie (Berkeley:

University of California Press, 1972), pp. 211–229; Abbas Amanat,

The Pivot of the Universe, Nasir al-Din Shah and the Iranian Monarchy, 1831–1896

(London: I. B. Tauris, 2005). And for a brilliant study on the relationship between religion and politics in premodern Iran, see Omid Safi,

The Politics of

Knowledge in Premodern Islam, Negotiating Ideology and Religious Inquiry

(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2006).

2. Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran, article 2.

3. Ibid., article 4.

4. In Twelver Shiite theological doctrine, in the period of the minor occultation of the Hidden Imam (873–939), he had four appointed representatives:

Uthman bin Said al-Asadi, Abu-Jafar Muhammad bin Uthman, Abu-Qassim Hussayn bin Tuh al-Nawbakhti, and Abul-Hassan Ali bin Muhammad al-

Sammarri. After the death of the fourth representative, the period of major occultation began. For a groundbreaking study in this regard, see Hosssein

Modarresi Tabatabai,

Crisis and Consolidation in the Formative Period of Shi’ite Islam: Abu Ja’far Ibn Qiba Al-Razi and His Contribution to Imamite Shi’ite

Thought

(Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1993). In later Shiite theology, especially since the Safavid period, the theory of general representa-

tion has been elaborated by jurists. They hold that a Shiite jurist is a general representative of the Hidden Imam. He represents the Hidden Imam, not by

being appointed by the imam personally, but through holding the position of jurist, he is appointed by the imam to represent him. In the course of Iran’s

Islamic Revolution, Khomeini was dubbed by the people and his loyalists as “Nayeb al-Imam” (the representative of the Imam), a title that was repeated

on posters and placards, and also in religious tribunes (minbar) (see Rula Jurdi Abisaab,

Converting Persia, Religion and Power in the Safavid Empire

(London and New York: I. B. Tauris, 2004). In the last year before the victory of the revolution, “Nayeb al-Imam” was replaced by the title “imam,” which

was surprising and unacceptable for the nonrevolutionary traditional faction of Shiites, because imam was the exclusive title of the twelve Shiite imams.

Before Khomeini, no jurist in the history of Shiism was called an imam. The term “imam” was used by Sunnis in a different way. Although imam had no

divine status for Sunnis, this term could be used as an honorific title for political leaders and accomplished scholars of Islamic religious sciences without

any theological implications. In the classical period of Islam, some prominent scholars, such as Abu-Hamid Ghazzali, were called imam. It is my conjec-

ture that giving the title of imam to Khomeini is one of the signs that shows the connection of the Iranian Islamic movement to Islamic movements in

other Islamic countries, especially in Egypt. Iranian Muslim activists called Khomeini imam under the influence of the Sunni, Arabic usage of term. In the

1970s, Mussa Sadr, an Iranian cleric who immigrated to Lebanon and became the leader of the Lebanese Shiites, was called imam, which was obviously

in the Arabic context of its usage (see H. E. Chehabi and Majid Tafreshi, “Musa Sadr and Iran,” in

Distant Relations: Iran and Lebanon in the Last 500

Years

, ed. H. E. Chehabi [London and New York: Center for Lebanese Studies, 2006], pp. 137–161). But certainly, the usage of this term in the Shiite

Iranian context has its connotations and implications. The title of imam showed the degree of Khomeini’s sacredness within revolutionary Shiism and his

charismatic character and spiritual perception by others. This significant term has played a major role in the establishment of his political power because

in Shiism, the imam has an ambivalent position: secular and spiritual.

After the death of Khomeini, two theories on

velayat-e faqih

have emerged: one holds that the ruler-

faqih

is a general representative of the imam who

is elected by the people, and the other is based on the assumption that the ruler-

faqih

is a jurist who is personally appointed by God to be a ruler, but that

Iran’s Islamic Revolution

and the Confluence of Two Authorities

Mehdi Khalaji

The Last Marja: Sistani and the End of Traditional Religious Authority in Shiism

Policy Focus #59

responsibilities that the Hidden Imam possesses. Aya-
tollah Khomeini held that

government

(in its Shiite

sense) is an absolute authority that is handed over to
the Prophet by God and that it is the most important
order of God, which comes before all other divine
secondary orders (

sharia

). The authority of the jurist-

ruler is not limited by

sharia;

if it were, handing over

the authority to the Prophet would be senseless. The
government is a branch of the absolute authority of the
Prophet, which is one of the primary orders of Islam
and beyond

sharia.

Khomeini believed that the

velayat-e faqih

is the

continuity of the

velayat

of the Prophet and the twelve

imams. Thus, a Shiite jurist has been promoted at least
to the political authority of the highest saints of Shi-
ism.6 But Khomeini as a

marja

was not elected to lead-

ership by the people or by an assembly of experts, which
was created after the revolution. Khomeini reached the
position of leadership within a revolutionary process
and as the charismatic leader of the revolution. He was
respected and obeyed by most of the political leanings
in Iran, even by Marxists (like the Tudeh Party) and
other secular groups.

After Iran’s Islamic Revolution, a few ayatollahs in

Qom opposed Khomeini’s formulation of the

velayat-e

faqih

and considered it an illegitimate tool for legiti-

mizing the religious foundations of the Islamic Repub-
lic. Mohammad Shirazi, Mohammad Rowhani, Reza
Sadr (Imam Musa Sadr’s brother), and Hassan Qommi
were among the opponents of the

velayat-e faqih

who

publicly criticized Khomeini’s attempt to use the the-
ory to legitimize his government. The most important
figure among them was Sayed Kazem Shariatmadari
(1904–1985), who was known as a senior

marja

even

before Khomeini. But the Iranian government, after
a massive propaganda campaign against him, accused
Shariatmadari of planning a coup with Sadeq Qutbza-
deh. The government treated Shariatmadari harshly,
arrested dozens of his assistants and followers, con-
fiscated all of his personal and religious property, and
sentenced him to house arrest. After a confession on
state TV, Shariatmadari returned home and died a few
years later. Mohammad Shirazi and Mohammad Row-
hani were among the

mojtahed

s who opposed

velayat-

e faqih

and spent the last two decades of their lives

under house arrest. Muhammad Reza Golpayegani, a
popular

marja

in Qom, disagreed with Khomeini’s for-

mulation of the

velayat-e faqih

but was more cautious

than Shariatmadari and criticized the government’s
behavior more lightly and through intermediaries. In
order to prevent the opposition front in the seminary
from spreading, Khomeini appointed Lotfollah Saafi,
Golpayegani’s son-in-law, as a member of the Guardian
Council. By this appointment, Khomeini was assuring
Golpayegani of the legitimacy of decisions made in the
Islamic Republic.

Shahab-eddin Marashi Najafi was another popular

marja

and an example of a cleric in Qom who tried to

be apolitical by avoiding criticism of the government
and devoting himself to his religious duty. Khomeini’s

the only function of the election is to let worshipers discover the divine decision. The “discovery approach” to the election of the ruler-

faqih

is an impor-

tant step toward making his power absolute, because it equalizes the divine position of the ruler-jurist to that of the four specific appointed representatives

of the Hidden Imam. Mohammad Yazdi, the former head of the judiciary and a hardliner ayatollah, is one of the most well-known supporters of this

approach.

5. The letter of Khomeini to Sayed

Ali Khamenei, in Ruhollah Khomeini,

Sahifih-ye Noor,

volume 11 (Tehran: Sazman-e chap va intesharat-e vezarat-e far-

hang va irshad-e Islami, 1378 [AD 1999/2000]), pp. 459–460. Khomeini wrote this letter to Khamanei, the Friday prayer imam of Tehran and the presi-

dent at that time, in order to criticize his interpretation of the

velayat-e faqih

. Khamenei, who became Khomeini’s successor after his death, in a sermon

in a Friday prayer said the authority of the Supreme Leader is not absolute and is limited by

sharia

. Khomeini in his strong letter attacked Khamenei’s

interpretation of

velayat-e faqih

and explicitly unveiled his formulation of the theory.

6. Some revolutionary jurists who supported Khomeini went far beyond that and claimed that a ruler-

faqih

has the right to cancel any basic principle of the reli-

gion, such as monotheism. Ahmad Azari Qomi, who became an opponent of Khamenei after Khomeini’s death (and died under house arrest), believed that

the principle of monotheism and other principles of the religion can be annulled by the ruler-jurist in some circumstances. Ahmad Jannati, a hardliner cleric

and a member of the Guardian Council, said that the expediency principle overrules other rules, and if under special conditions the ruler-jurist deems Islam

to be incorrect, he can cancel basic principles of the religion. This belief was enunciated after Khomeini’s order to stop the pilgrimage caravan to Saudi Arabia,

because Saudi police crushed Iranian pilgrims in Mecca in a demonstration against Saudi Arabia, Israel, the United States, and other Western countries in

September 1987. Following that event, Khomeini described the Saudi officials as nonbelievers and pledged that if Iran forgot the Palestinian issue or even the

Iran-Iraq War, it would never forgive the Saudi regime. Khomeini, ibid., pp. 420–423. A few years after Khomeini’s death, Iran normalized its relations with

Saudi Arabia, canceled its annual political demonstration in Mecca, and resumed sending pilgrims to Mecca and Medina.

The Last Marja: Sistani and the End of Traditional Religious Authority in Shiism

Mehdi Khalaji

The Washington Institute for Near East Policy

true rival, however, was the most-followed

marja

in Iran

and abroad, Sayed Abul-Qassem Khoi of Najaf. A great
number of religious scholars in Qom were the disciples
of Khoi and under his school of influence. He was the
richest

marja

of the Shiite world and had many institutes

and schools in Iran and abroad. It was not easy, therefore,
for Khomeini to oppose him, though a dispute between
Khomeini and Khoi already had begun before Khomei-
ni’s return to Iran in the revolution.7 Khomeini avoided
any explicit confrontation with Khoi and allowed Khoi’s
representatives to participate in the management of the
seminary within the framework of the Supreme Council
of Seminary Management.

The most problematic individual in this regard was

Hossein Ali Montazeri. Second to Khomeini, Mon-
tazeri had a very high social and political status among
the religious-revolutionary strata of Iranian society. He
was considered a respected

marja

who supported Kho-

meini during the revolution and greatly helped him
in organizing the religious network throughout the
country. After the revolution, Montazeri was elected
head of the assembly for formation of the constitution.
In December 1982, the Assembly of Experts voted for
him to be the Supreme Leader after the death of Kho-
meini. Because of his controversy with Khomeini,
however, the Supreme Leader—in an illegal deci-
sion—dismissed Montazeri. He was the second

marja

after Shariatmadari in the Islamic Republic to fall into
disfavor; but in contrast to Shariatmadari, who was not
known as a revolutionary

marja

, Montazeri was one of

the most important founders of the Islamic Republic.

Removing Montazeri from power in the last year of

Khomeini’s life was a deep and enduring crisis. It raised
the question of Khomeini’s successor. Nearly one
month before his death, in a letter to Sayed

Ali Khame-

nei, then the Iranian president, Khomeini appointed
some political figures and ordered them to form an
assembly to revise the constitution. He even specified
the items of the revision, and leadership was the first.8

Five days after this letter, the assembly was formed, and
Ali Meshkini, the head of the Assembly of Experts, was
appointed to its head. In response to Meshkini’s query
about leadership, Khomeini wrote:

From the very beginning, I have believed that

marjayat

is not a necessary condition [for leadership]. A righ-

teous jurist, who is confirmed by experts from around

the country would be sufficient. If the people vote for

experts in order to let them elect a righteous

mojtahed

as their leader of government, so a leader elected by the

experts would be necessarily acceptable by people…

I had said the same during the original writing of the

Constitution, but friends insisted on the condition of

marjayat

and I accepted. I knew that there would come

a time in the near future when this condition [for lead-

ership] would not be possible to implement.9

Even though Khomeini’s order to revise the constitu-
tion was constitutionally illegal, this constitutional
adjustment and removal of the

marjayat

condition

broke the impasse of the Islamic Republic and opened
the way for middle-ranking clerics of the government
to take positions of leadership. Though the assembly
for the revision of the constitution was not yet com-
plete at the time of Khomeini’s death, the Assembly of
Experts nevertheless immediately appointed Khame-
nei to leadership. This appointment was also constitu-
tionally illegal, because the new constitution was not
yet ratified by a referendum. In August 1989, the presi-
dential elections and the referendum for the revised
constitution took place simultaneously after Khamenei
had taken over as the leader.

The revised constitution not only did not require

the leader to be a

marja

, but it also greatly expanded

the authorities of the Supreme Leader. According to
the constitution and based on Islamic criteria, some
political and juridical positions must be in the hands
of a

mojtahed

, because orders issued in that position

depend on the

ijtehad

(being a

mojtahed

) of their issu-

ers: a judge,10 the six members of the Guardian Coun-

7. On 1978, Khomeini implicitly attacked Khoi for his support of the Pahlavi regime and especially for sending the shah a ring.

8. Khomeini, ibid., volume 11, pp. 687–688.

9. Khomeini, ibid., p. 695.

10. In Islamic

sharia

, a judge should be a

mojtahed

, but after the revolution, Iranian leaders found that not enough

mojtahed

s were in the country. Hence,

Ayatollah Khomeini resolved the problem through administrative mechanisms. He appointed some

mojtahed

s (or clerics whom he considered

mojtahed

Mehdi Khalaji

The Last Marja: Sistani and the End of Traditional Religious Authority in Shiism

Policy Focus #59

cil, the minister of intelligence, members of the Assem-
bly of Experts, and others. Above them, the Supreme
Leader must be, at the very least, a

mojtahed

, because

he possesses authorities vested only in a

mojtahed

The

Ijtehad

of Khamenei

Sayed

Ali Khamenei, before he assumed leadership,

was called “Hojjat ol-Islam” (the proof of Islam), a title
that shows one’s middle rank and lack of

ijtehad

. On

the same night he was appointed as Supreme Leader
by the Assembly of Experts, state radio and television
referred to him for the first time as an ayatollah. Such
a term has the explicit connotation that the holder
is a

mojtahed

. Obviously, this title change was strik-

ing for clerics, especially the nonextremist ones. At
that moment the controversy began over Khamenei’s
degree of religious knowledge. Rumors spread in cleri-
cal circles that Khamenei was trying to convince some

mojtahed

s to issue him a certificate of

ijtehad

. Most

mojtahed

s in Qom believed that Khamenei had not

sufficiently studied the religious sciences to be eligible
for a certificate of

ijtehad

. Certain assistants of Khame-

nei went to Qom to the offices of

marja

s (

bayt

s) or

mojtahed

s in order to encourage them to recognize the

Supreme Leader as a

mojtahed

. Their attempts to con-

vince Muhammad Reza Golpayegani, a senior

marja

in Qom, failed and he stated that he knew nothing of
the educational level of Khamenei. Through threats
and coaxing, they were able to convince only a few

mojtahed

s in Qom, such as Mohammad Taghi Bah-

jat, to issue a certificate of

ijtehad

for the leader. Those

mojtahed

s issued the certificate not because they were

convinced of the

ijtehad

of Khamenei, but because the

petitioners justified the matter of

ijtehad

for political

reasons—if Khamenei did not get the certificate, then
the reputation of the only Shiite government in the
world would be at risk.

Golpayegani’s refusal to give the certificate to

Khamenei was very significant. Although it did not
indicate that Khamenei is not a

mojtahed

and has no

constitutional right to rule, it did mean that Khamenei
does not have the religious right to give orders regard-
ing issues that require the decision of a

mojtahed

. Fur-

thermore, it was a sign that Golpayegani believes he is
the right person to issue orders regarding some govern-
mental matters, which would clearly be an instance of
interference by a

marja

in government, and something

Iranian leaders did not necessarily want—except for
Khamenei who was trying to consolidate all power in
himself. In this case, a cautious campaign against Gol-
payegani took place. Golpayegani was the

marja

who

prayed over Khomeini’s body. The prayer for the dead
is significant, and Khomeini’s prayer was supposed to
send a signal that the next supreme

marja

—to be con-

firmed by the government—would be Golpayegani.
But as a result of the issue of Khamenei’s

ijtehad

, Gol-

payegani fell out of favor. On one hand, the Supreme
Leader in political affairs could not claim to be a

marja

, because even his claims of

ijtehad

were the sub-

ject of much suspicion. On the other hand, Montazeri,
Marashi, and Khoi could be confirmed by the govern-
ment as religious successors of Khomeini for different
reasons. Then the government decided to appoint a

marja

countering the other candidates.

Muhammad Ali Araki (1894–1994) was a respected

mojtahed

in Qom from the first generation of the Qom

seminary and a disciple of Sheikh Abdu al-Karim
Haeri Yazdi, the founder of the Qom seminary. He was
in his mid-nineties when Khomeini died. He was not
a

marja

, he had not written a book of

sharia

codes,11

and he was completely unknown to the public. Also,
he suffered from many age-related illnesses and was
hard of hearing and speech. Politically, he was known
for his ignorance about political affairs; he never read

over the judiciary system to supervise judicial procedures, especially on life sentences. Now, in Iran, few judges are

mojtahed

s, but the head of the judiciary,

the general prosecutor of the country, and some other top officials are supposed to be

mojtahed

11. Publication of

sharia

codes is a very significant act in contending for

marjayat

. According to a confidential survey by Daftar-e Tablighat-e Islami-e How-

zeh-ye Ilmiyeh-ye Qom, nearly 400 published

sharia

codes exist in Iran alone, which indicates that nearly 400 people claim to be

marja

s and expect oth-

ers to follow them. Each

marja

publishes his own

sharia

codes. To understand the mentality of

marja

s, one can read the cover and the first page of each

of the

sharia

codes. Readers will find that

marja

s describe themselves with self-assertive and laudatory religious titles, such as “The sign of God in the two

worlds” (Ayatollah-e fi al-Alamein) or “The proof of God in the two worlds” (Ayatollah fi al-Arazein). The titles

marja

s give themselves in the beginning

of their

sharia

codes are very similar to one another.

The Last Marja: Sistani and the End of Traditional Religious Authority in Shiism

Mehdi Khalaji

The Washington Institute for Near East Policy

a newspaper in his life. Khamenei chose Araki to be
Khomeini’s successor as

marja

first, because he was on

the threshold of death, so he could not make long-term
problems; second, because he was absolutely apoliti-
cal, not ambitious, and unable to interfere in political
issues; and third, because he owed his

marja

status to

Khamenei, Araki could be used as Khamenei’s tool.
Furthermore, Araki was one of the few

mojtahed

s at the

time who believed in the legality of following a dead

mojtahed

; as a follower of Khomeini while Khomeini

was alive, Araki had no problem continuing to follow
Khomeini after his death. That belief allowed all the
governmental regulations following Khomeini’s edicts
to remain relatively untouched and disarmed other

mojtahed

s like Golpayegani from protesting against

the illegitimacy of government decisions in the absence
of a

mojtahed

atop the political order.

Khamenei mobilized his institutions in Qom, nota-

bly Daftar-e Tablighat-e Islami-e Howzeh-ye Ilmiyeh-ye
Qom, to establish Araki’s

marjayat

. They built an office

for him and compiled a book of

sharia

codes in his name

and started to campaign for him in the media. Gol-
payegani and other

mojtahed

s and clerics who did not

support the revolution were angry but could not speak,
because Araki was highly respected for his religious
morality as a veteran of the seminary and they were
under pressure from security forces to keep silent and to
not interfere in political issues such as

marjayat

Nevertheless, the controversy over the

ijtehad

Khamenei did not stop. Nobody could really be con-
vinced that Khamenei is a

mojtahed

except low-rank-

ing pro-revolutionary clerics. High-ranking clerics who
were skeptical about his

ijtehad

gradually divided into

many factions, particularly after the death of senior

marja

s Abul-Qassem Khoi in Najaf, Muhammad

Reza Golpayegani, Shahab Oddin Marashi Najafi, and
Muhammad Ali Araki in Qom.

When Muhammad Ali Araki (who ironically out-

lived other senior

marja

s), passed away on December

2, 1994, Jameh-ye Moddaressin Howzeh-ye Ilmiyeh-e
Qom12 issued a resolution emphasizing that only seven
people are

mojtahed

s who are eligible to be followed:

Muhammad Fazel Lankarani, Muhammad Taghi Bahjat,
Ali Khamenei, Vahid Khorassani, Javad Tabrizi, Mossa
Shobeiri Zanjani, and Nasser Makarem Shirazi.13

The death of Araki was an important turning point

that left room for the new generation of

marja

s. A

new wave of competition among various persons who
claimed

marjayat

began, although it truly had begun

just after the death of Khomeini in 1989.14

In the list of Jameh-ye Modarressin, many

marja

were absent, including Yussof Sanei, a disciple of Kho-
meini and former prosecutor of the Islamic Republic,
and Abdul-Karim Moussavi Ardebili, the former head
of the Supreme Court. After the death of Khomeini
both of them posed mild opposition because they did
not believe that Khamenei deserved the leadership.
More significant, two important

mojtahed

s were not

on the government’s list: Montazeri and Sistani, the
successor of Abul-Qassem Khoi in Najaf. Needless to
say, Montazeri was left off because he was disfavored
by Khomeini and consequently by Khamenei. The
absence of Sistani from the list, which was issued by
the greatest political institute of the seminary, proves
that at that time the social reputation of Sistani was
weak enough that Khamenei and his team in Jameh-
ye Moddaressin were able to ignore him as a

marja

Ironically, however, the ignored

marja

s, especially

Montazeri and Sistani, gradually became the most-fol-
lowed

marja

s in Iran.

Leaving out certain

marja

s and introducing some

marja

s—who cooperate with the government or who

at least are silent with regard to political issues and par-
ticularly to the Supreme Leader’s political behavior—

12. This institution was spontaneously created by many teachers of the seminary before the revolution in order to support Iran’s Islamic Revolution, but espe-

cially after Khomeini’s death it went under the Supreme Leader’s control and became fully affiliated with his office. Therefore, the institution’s announce-

ment took place with Khamenei’s confirmation and can be considered as indirectly issued by him.

13. To read the entire resolution (in Persian), see www.jameehmodarresin.com/bai/730911.htm.

14. People like Nasser Makarem Shirazi, who had many institutions, such as Madrassat Ol-Amir al-Momenin, and was considered a very rich

marja

who

relies on his business activities more than religious traditional resources, had begun their

marjayat

campaigns just after Khomeini passed away, principally

by publishing their

sharia

codes.

Mehdi Khalaji

The Last Marja: Sistani and the End of Traditional Religious Authority in Shiism

Policy Focus #59

was meaningful. The action was necessary to insert the
name of the Supreme Leader (the third name in the
resolution’s order) onto the list.

The

marjayat

claim of Khamenei provoked a vast

controversy. In October 1997 in his

fiqh

course, Hos-

sein Ali Montazeri openly criticized Ali Khamenei’s
despotism, his overreliance on his security forces, and
his disrespect of the seminary. Then Montazeri loudly
attacked Khamenei’s claims of

marjayat

and stated:

“Mr. Khamenei? Why

marjayat

? You are not at the

level of

marjayat

.” Montazeri, who was the mentor of

Khamenei for a short time in Qom before the revolu-
tion, claimed that Khamenei does not have sufficient
religious knowledge and is academically incapable of
issuing an edict (

fatwa

).15 After his speech, as many as

a thousand security forces personnel violently attacked
Montazeri’s home and office, beat his office members
and students, confiscated his property, and damaged
the buildings. Montazeri thus began several years
under house arrest isolated from the outside world
except through his family.

The opposition to Khamenei’s claim to

marjayat

was not unobtrusive. After a few weeks, Akbar Hash-
emi Rafsanjani, then the president, in his sermon in
Friday prayer implicitly and mildly criticized Khame-
nei and said that the Supreme Leader “has no intention
of being

marja

inside the country and his

marjayat

effective only for abroad,” an astounding statement
that Khamenei and his loyalists took amiss. It served to
diminish the tension somewhat, however.

After Khamenei took over leadership, not only did

semi-public criticism of his personal

marjayat

ijte-

had

begin, but also criticism of the concept of

velayat-e

faqih

in the clerical and intellectual milieus strength-

ened. In his book

Theosophy and Government

,16 Mehdi

Haeri Yazdi, son of Abdul-Karim Haeri Yazdi, the
founder of the Qom seminary, and a disciple of Ayatol-
lah Khomeini, explicitly criticized and delegitimized
the notion of authority of the Shiite jurist. In con-
trast, Abdul-Karim Soroush, an Islamic philosopher,
published his magnum opus,

The Theory of Evolution

of Religious Knowledge,

17 which generated a huge cul-

tural debate. In this book, Soroush argued that the
traditional methodology of understanding religious
texts is no longer adequate and that modern herme-
neutics should be applied in a modern paradigm. Con-
sequently, the authority of the

faqih

that supposedly

comes from his “sacred” knowledge became question-
able. Dozens of books and articles have been published
since the death of Khomeini that explicitly or implic-
itly, from a religious perspective or a secular viewpoint,
criticize any absolute power—including that of a jurist.
Therefore, the theoretical legitimacy of

velayat-e faqih

is bound to lose strength as time goes on. Hence,
Khamenei not only failed to reconstruct the unity of
the religious authority as created by Ayatollah Kho-
meini, but he also unknowingly created many prob-
lems in the theory and practice of

velayat-e faqih

ijte-

had,

and

marjayat

Unexpectedly, after a long period of tyranny under

Saddam Hussein, the most powerful and followed

marja

in Iran emerged from Najaf, a city that was

expected to be religiously barren for a long time, where
no

marja

was expected to emerge after Khoi. This and

other challenges to his regime’s legitimacy propelled
Khamenei to undertake future measures to strengthen
and extend his religious authority and influence over
clerics and their institutions. The next chapter will
show the impact of Khamenei’s policies and their long-
term consequences.

15. For full text of Montazeri’s speech, see www.bazgasht.net/archives/2006/06/272/.

16. Mehdi Haeri Yazdi,

Hekmat va Hokoomat

(London: Shadi, 1994). Despite the book’s publication outside Iran, it has been widely distributed in Iran,

especially in Qom seminaries, and many criticisms have been written against it.

17. Abd ol-Karim Soroush,

Qabz va Bast-e Theoric-e Shariat

(Tehran: Serat, 1991).

The Washington Institute for Near East Policy

t h e t r a d i t i o n a l

financial resources of the

marjayat

have been fundamentally affected by politics

since the clerics became involved in the struggle with
Pahlavi’s dynasty that led to the victory of Iran’s Islamic
Revolution in 1979.

Muhammad Reza Shah’s regime pursued a specific

policy of gradually controlling religious activities. To
pursue that goal, some state institutes, such as the Fac-
ulty of Theology (Daneshkadeh-ye Uloum-e Maqoul
va Manqoul) in Tehran University and the Ministry of
Education, had begun to hire clerics to organize them
in the government’s religious program. Many clerics
went to the university, either as teachers of theology
or as students, as well as to the ministry of education
to teach religious doctrines. Revolutionary figures like
Morteza Motahhari, Muhammad Mofatteh, Muham-
mad Beheshti (the first head of the Islamic Republic’s
judiciary), Muhammad Javad Bahonar (former prime
minister), and Muhammad Khatami (former presi-
dent) were among the clerics who left the seminary for
the university in order to teach or study. Many clerics
were hired by the judiciary system. Muhammad Reza
Shah’s regime had allowed the clerics to take some
government positions. For the first time in the mod-
ern period, Iranian clerics became official employees
of the government and enjoyed an income that was
essentially different from their traditional income.
Muhammad Reza Shah had his policy for supporting
Shiism in the Middle East, especially in Lebanon, and
was regularly and financially supporting some clerics,
such as Imam Musa Sadr, an Iranian cleric who went to
Beirut to raise the Shiite community’s living standard
and organize it. The shah also supported the Ham-
burg Mosque that was built by Boroujirdi, the

marja

of that time, and financially equipped the imam of that
mosque (Muhammad Beheshti, Muhammad Mujtahid
Shabestari, and Muhammad Khatami were successively
the imams of Hamburg Mosque). Certain clerics who

benefited from government positions and economic
incomes were revolutionaries who fought undercover
against the shah’s regime, whereas many others sup-
ported and served the shah.

Revolutionary

mojtahed

s like Ruhollah Khomeini

changed the traditional financial mechanism of the
seminary. Traditionally, the exclusive income of a

marja

came from his followers’ religious taxes. These

taxes included

khums

—a tax of a one-fifth share of var-

ious profits that in the thirteenth century was split into
two portions (one portion went to support indigent
descendants of Muhammad, and the other portion
went to

mojtahed

s);

zakat

(an obligation of Muslims

with financial means to give 2.5 percent of their net
worth annually to charitable causes); and other taxes
and income related to performing religious duties,
such as the Hajj. According to the later

sharia

schools

in Shiism, each worshiper has to pay most of his or
her religious taxes to the

mojtahed

he or she follows

and give the rest to poor people. In the course of Iran’s
Islamic Revolution, many people who favored the
revolution converted from their own

mojtahed,

if he

was not revolutionary, to Khomeini, who was the reli-
gious leader of the revolution. Although traditionally
choosing a

mojtahed

to follow was based on religious

criteria, at that time politics intervened and affected
people’s choices. Especially starting in the early 1970s,
when the shah injected the sharply rising income from
petroleum into the national economy and made people
very rich, especially the

bazaari

s, Khomeini’s income

increased greatly as a result of his followers’ greatly
increased contributions of religious taxes. Some experts
believe that without the shah’s faulty petroleum policy,
Khomeini could not have achieved his political goals.1
Khomeini’s religious income overshadowed other

marja

s’ income only because of the country’s political

conditions and his position as a leader of a revolution.
Meanwhile, in Iraq, Saddam’s pressure on the Shiite

1. Alinaqi Aalikhani, the first Iranian minister of economy, in “Iranian Revolution and the Decline of Monarchy,” a serial documentary program broadcast

by Radio Farda (the U.S.-government-funded Persian-language radio station) in 2004.

Marjayat

, Politicizing the Seminary, and Clerical

Economic Networks

Mehdi Khalaji

The Last Marja: Sistani and the End of Traditional Religious Authority in Shiism

Policy Focus #59

community began in the early 1970s and coincided
with the political movement in Iran, thus reinforcing
the power of Iranian

marja

The Seminary under Khomeini

When the revolutionary clergy came to power in 1979,
they felt that an important source of danger might
come from the seminary and so felt the need to develop
a system to control such an amorphous institution.
The basis of the government’s legitimacy was Islam,
and the official exegeses and interpretations of Islam
are issued by the seminary; therefore, if the govern-
ment fails to keep the seminary within in its grasp, the
source of legitimacy remains uncontrolled and open to
opponents. For the dominant clergy, being made ille-
gitimate by the members of the seminary on the basis
of theological arguments is more harmful and danger-
ous than being made illegitimate by secular scholars
and political activists. The citadel of legitimacy was the
potential source of threats.

After the revolution, Khomeini succeeded in secur-

ing full access and control in the government, but as a
very popular and overwhelming

marja

in Iran, he did

not need to use direct and immediate governmental
resources to control the seminary. Instead, he elimi-
nated and suppressed many

marja

s, such as Moham-

mad Kazim Shariatmadari and other clerics who did
not support his fight against the shah or publicly criti-
cized his theocratic principle of

velayat-e faqih

. He also

confiscated their properties and gave them to newly
built pro-government clerical institutes like the Center
for Islamic Propaganda (Daftar-e Tablighat-e Islami).

He tried to show his willingness to protect the sem-

inary’s independence by allowing the other traditional

marja

s who were not political to participate in the

management of the seminary. After the revolution and
while the country’s political atmosphere was energized,
a wave of young people from the high schools and
universities immigrated to Qom to follow the revolu-
tionary examples of clerics and realize their ideological
ideals by studying in the seminary. The traditional sem-

inary suddenly became crowded with a new generation
of students who were mostly political and had different
expectations and demands.

The Council of Management of Qom seminary

had been created by the contributions of

marja

s like

Abul-Qassem Khoi (in Najaf ), Muhammad Reza
Golpayegani, and Shahb al-Ddin Mar’ashi Najafi, but
the institute was basically under the influence of Kho-
meini. The duties of this management council were
basically administrative: arranging the admission pro-
cess in a very simple way and coordinating the annual
exams. It did not grant any degrees and had no offi-
cial graduates, but it had some superficial control. It
provided the exemption certificate to those liable for
military service and some simple recommendations
for those who wanted to enter the judicial system or
join the Leader’s Representation in Military and Police
(Namayandeggi-e Vali-e Faqih dar Sepah-Artesh) or
the Ideological and Political Organization (Sazman-e
Aqidati Siassi), two ideological groups founded a few
months after the revolution in order to strengthen con-
trol over military and police forces.

Although the political support of the seminary and

its students was very important for Khomeini, he did
not directly and explicitly push for any change in the
seminary’s structure. Rather, he tried to slightly change
the seminary’s composition to take it into his grasp.
Before the revolution, certain political pro-govern-
ment institutes in the seminary were created sponta-
neously, like the Association of the Qom Seminary’s
Mentors (Jameh-ye Modarresin-e Howzeh-ye Ilmiyeh-
ye Qom), but now Khomeini began creating institutes
in the seminary that could control it ideologically and
politically. Alongside the management council, Kho-
meini founded the Special Court for Clerics, outside
judiciary supervision and totally against the Islamic
Republic’s constitution, which does not allow anybody
to form any judicial center outside judiciary control.2

The declared reason behind the formation of this

special court was that the special reverence and social
prestige of the clerics required that their cases—even

2. Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran, article 159. The courts of justice are the official bodies to which all grievances and complaints are to be

referred. Their formation and their jurisdiction are to be determined by law.

The Last Marja: Sistani and the End of Traditional Religious Authority in Shiism

Mehdi Khalaji

The Washington Institute for Near East Policy

when they involve common crimes—be tried in a spe-
cial court rather than in regular courts like other peo-
ple. Thus, the Special Court was originally supposed to
be a respectful, safe place for clerics, but after a short
while, this court became the most efficient formal judi-
cial institution to try the political cases of clerics. Two
grand

marja

s became victims of this court: Ayatollah

Mohammad Kazem Shariatmadari in 1980 and Aya-
tollah Hossein Ali Montazeri in 1988. Dozens of cler-
ics, at all religious and scholastic levels, are still being
imprisoned, violently tortured, and executed by the
Special Court. The court rapidly became a political
court under direct supervision of the Supreme Leader
and linked to the Intelligence Ministry and other
political and security organizations. This court is not a
judicial body dealing with legal procedures, but rather
a star chamber that has its own regulations.

In the decade after the Iranian revolution, although

the income of other

marja

s in Iran did not see a dra-

matic change, Abul-Qassem Khoi’s income greatly
increased for many reasons. He was the representa-
tive of moderate and traditional Shiism who opposed
Khomeini’s ideology and did not believe in the prin-
ciple of

velayat-e faqih

. He also was more Arab than

Iranian even though he was born in Iran; conse-
quently, nationalist Shiite Arabs were more attracted
to him than to Khomeini. Most of Khoi’s income was
in Arab countries’ currencies or dollars, whereas Kho-
meini’s income relied on Iranian currency. Many of
Khoi’s former representatives say that when he passed
away, he left $2 billion cash that went into his sons’
hands. Khoi founded many institutes in Qom and
Mashhad, but his international network was man-
aged from his institutes in London and Africa.

From the beginning of the Islamic Republic, Kho-

meini’s position of superiority over the seminary was
evident. The monthly salary he paid to the clerics was
much more than that of other

marja

s, and he had many

institutes that provided the clerics with economic facili-
ties and benefits. In accordance with the ideological
slogan of the Islamic Republic—export of the revolu-

tion—pro-government clerical institutes started admit-
ting foreign students to Qom seminary. Hundreds of
people from Lebanon, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq,
India, and other Islamic countries throughout Asia and
Africa and even Muslims from the United States and
Europe immigrated to Qom in order to learn Shiite
doctrines and study at the seminary. Foreign students
had a different educational program that focused on
Islamic ideology rather than theology, and the objec-
tive of that program was to make the students able to
propagate the Islamic Republic’s ideology in their own
countries. A hefty budget was allocated to this program,
and many schools and campus were dedicated to it. All
foreigners were (and still are) under strict control of the
government and Khomeini-appointed managers.3

Under Khomeini, the seminary was linked to the

external world for the first time. Institutes affiliated
with the seminary, like the Center for Islamic Propa-
ganda, started training students and teaching them
Arabic and English in order to send them to foreign
counties as “prophets of the revolution.” The ideo-
logical agenda of the government required systematic
connection to all fundamentalist Islamist cells, groups,
and movements throughout the world. The traditional
structure of the seminary definitively ended after
the revolution, when the seminary was supposed to
become the symbolic center of the revolution and its
ideological arsenal.

The Seminary under Khamenei

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei lacked two important elements
that characterized Ayatollah Khomeini: charisma and

marjayat

. His leadership was problematic for two rea-

sons: first, because he did not have an image of

faqih

the seminary, and second, because Ayatollah Montaz-
eri, who was expected to be Khomeini’s successor, was
dismissed by Ayatollah Khomeini just a few months
before his death. Ayatollah Montazeri, as a

marja

and as

one of the founders of the Islamic Republic, was popu-
lar in Iranian society and among the seminary clerics.
Khamenei was appointed to leadership by the Assem-

3. For many years, Montazeri was in charge of foreign students, such as Arab students. After he was dismissed by Khomeini, all the establishments and facili-

ties that Montazeri had run came back under Khomeini’s control.

Mehdi Khalaji

The Last Marja: Sistani and the End of Traditional Religious Authority in Shiism

Policy Focus #59

bly of Experts June 4, 1989, amid a political crisis and
a deep shock in the seminary. At that time, he needed
to claim to be a

faqih

and try to get an

ijtehad

certifi-

cate from some pro-government

marja

s. His scholastic

weight did not allow him to interfere with seminary
affairs directly. But after the death of grand

marja

s like

Ayatollah Golpayegani, Ayatollah Najafi, Ayatollah
Khoi, and Ayatollah Araki in the following four or five
years, he claimed that he was a

marja

as well. As a non-

marja

, Ayatollah Khamenei could come to power only

according to the revised version of the constitution that
was finally ratified after Khomeini’s death, because in
accordance with the original constitution only a

marja

can hold authority as a leader. At that time, consensus
existed that Khamenei was not a

marja

. He became a

leader in a clouded and doubtful atmosphere, facing
questions about whether he could even be called a

moj-

tahed

or had not yet achieved such a degree.

Therefore, Ayatollah Khamenei approached the

seminary cautiously in the beginning. He mostly
focused on clerics’ welfare issues and housing prob-
lems. Despite not being a

marja

at the time, he started

giving pensions to the clerics. In seminary tradition,
only a

marja

can pay pensions to clerics, because only

he benefits greatly from religious financial resources.
After Khomeini passed away, Khamenei was in charge
of the deceased leader’s religious offices in the seminary
and around the country. Khamenei not only tried to
convince the people that he was eligible to inherit Kho-
meini’s political position, but furthermore, claimed to
be his successor in religious authority as well. He con-
sequently increased his pensions to the clerics to cover
the gap between the

marjayat

and leadership.

Spring 1995 was a turning point for the seminary.

Khamenei made a well-organized and highly planned
trip to Qom with a retinue of his office members and
pro-government clerics to give a public speech in
Madraseh-ye Fayziyeh. He talked about the need for
fundamental reform in the seminary structure, which
observers considered the vanguard of deep-rooted
changes to come in the seminary. He mainly empha-
sized the need for restructuring educational programs
and improving the living conditions of the clerics. He
even insisted that to make the seminary more efficient,

the clerics should take English as a compulsory course.
His gestures made some people hopeful and left oth-
ers in despair. The low-ranking clerics who coveted the
improvement of their economic conditions heard his
speech as a glad tiding of economic reform, whereas the
high-ranking clerics, like most independent teachers,

marja

s, and

mojtahed

s, felt that Khamenei had an ax

to grind. These groups intuited that Khamenei wanted
to compensate for his lack of

ijtehad

and charisma by

spending and spilling governmental resources into the
seminary, thus turning it into an obedient, dependent,
and pro-government institution, and by cracking down
on all his opponents, especially the critics of

velayat-e

faqih

. After the death of Ayatollah Khomeini,

velayat-e

faqih

was increasingly exposed to criticism, and secu-

lar scholars and independent clerics had felt freer to
reconsider the Islamic principles of the government
and stand aloof from the revolutionary ideas that ide-
ologized religion and led to a particular kind of theoc-
racy. As previously mentioned, critiques coming from
the seminary are more threatening than others, because
without an Islamic interpretation from the seminary,
no justification would exist for the religious legitimacy
of that state.

Ayatollah Khamenei changed the Management

Council of the Seminary to the Management Center
of the Seminary, totally excluding other

marja

Mar-

s and top-level clerics are welcome to cooperate with

the Management Center, provided that they accept
the principle of the absolute power of

faqih

(

velayat-e

motlaqeh-ye

faqih

). Some new

marja

s, such as Naser

Makaerm Shirazi or Hossein Noori, felt themselves
obliged to work closely with the Management Center,
partly to protect their economic activities and invest-
ments in the import/export business. But most inde-
pendent

marja

s and clerics were mistrustful, apprehen-

sive, and isolated.

One of the most active and efficient parts of the

Management Center is called the Statistics Office. That
name could be misleading for those who do not know
its functions. The misdirection may be intentional, to
hide the real nature of its work, which in the absence of
any official report, I can describe to some extent, based
on my experience and presence in the seminary until

The Last Marja: Sistani and the End of Traditional Religious Authority in Shiism

Mehdi Khalaji

The Washington Institute for Near East Policy

2000 as well as on my interviews of clerics at various
levels in Iran and abroad.

Every

marja

pays a monthly pension to every cleric.

The amount of the pension depends on the financial
ability of each

marja

, which varies. Every month,

each cleric collects the pension from the office of
each

marja

and the sum of all these pensions is his

monthly income. After the revolution, in accordance
with an unwritten rule, Ayatollah Khomeini paid
higher pensions to the clerics. The amount of the
pension is significant, because the financial ability
of a

marja

dictates the quantity of his followers and

then his social and religious power (the traditional
source of a

marja

’s financial resources is religious

money that is paid by each follower to each

marja

Ayatollah Khomeini distributed relatively high pen-
sions, because he was a

marja

himself and more than

half of the worshipers in Iran and a great number of
Shiites abroad were his followers and they discharged
their religious debts to him. Thus, that Khomeini’s
pensions were higher than others’ pensions seemed
logical. But Ayatollah Khamenei was not recognized
as a

marja

and consequently did not have the same

religious financial resources as others. Nevertheless,
he continued the policy of Ayatollah Khomeini by
paying the highest pension among the

marja

s. To

do so, he needed to know the financial resources of
the other

marja

s. The Statistics Office is supposed to

monitor the personal office of each

marja

in Qom

(including the office of Ayatollah Sistani there) and
their financial records. This office tries to maintain
the economic balance in the seminary in favor of the
Supreme Leader.

Before spring 1995, the financial records of each

marja

were confidential and nobody could estimate

the real amount of his assets, income, and expenses.
Nobody had the right to ask a

marja

’s office to give

a pension to somebody or rule out anybody. The
process of paying pensions was almost free of gov-
ernment surveillance and based only on the

marja

’s

responsibility. But the Statistics Office gathered the
pension account books of each

marja

and comput-

erized the information. Thus, the eligibility of each
cleric to receive a pension is at the disposition of the
Statistics Office, restricting the free transfer of reli-
gious money.

What criteria make a cleric eligible to receive a pen-

sion? The educational files are in the educational sec-
tion of the Management Center of the Seminary. The
office is not interested in what a cleric studies or how
he passes the exams. The essential criteria are politi-
cal. First, the cleric should be faithful and obedient in
practice to the absolute power of the leader (

velayat-

e motlaqh-ye faqih

). Second, the cleric should not be

inclined to modernist ideas in theology and philoso-
phy or be capable of instilling doubts in other cler-
ics’ minds or be doubtful himself, in order to—as
one of the pro-government seminary figures once
said—prevent the clerics from atheism and protect
the seminary against Westernization. For that goal,
the office needed to know what each member of
seminary says in writing or sermons. Therefore, the
agents of this office collect a huge archive for poten-
tial inquisition.

In both previous cases, finding a cleric not obedient

in practice to the current political order or ideologi-
cal beliefs of the Management Center can make the
person subject to several sorts of punishment: stop-
ping payment of his pension (not only the pension
from the Supreme Leader but also from all the

mar-

s); refusing to give him any certificate (from edu-

cational certificates to exemption certificates); pre-
venting him from getting a passport and leaving the
country; and, finally, introducing him to the Special
Court for Clerics, which can pronounce sentences
on him varying from deprivation of wearing clerical
clothes (turban, clergy robes) to execution.

And last but not least, the most important function

of the Statistics Office is rooted in its daunting image
among the clerics. Almost everybody feels the restric-
tions imposed on him and the censorship he should
submit to. The fear is internalized and nobody can
escape it.

Mehdi Khalaji

The Last Marja: Sistani and the End of Traditional Religious Authority in Shiism

Policy Focus #59

Ayatollah Khamenei built numerous facilities, includ-
ing

madreseh

(schools), libraries, and so on; intro-

duced the clerics to electronic information technol-
ogy by founding the Center for Islamic Computerized
Research; brought internet to the seminary; founded
the Insurance Center for Clergy and an Islamic Mort-
gage Institution in order to enable clerics to resolve
their housing problems and finally created a residential
district for clerics. In my view, however, Khamenei’s
most important work in the seminary field was and
is making the Qom seminary a more structured and
bureaucratic institution. Through executive mecha-
nisms such as the Statistics Office, he succeeded in
documenting and making files for every member of the
seminary, which may explain how he transformed the
previously amorphous and unstructured seminary into
a manageable center and established a huge system of
political and security control.

In fact, the Islamic government played the greatest

role in modernizing the Qom seminary and created a
bridge between the Shiite institution and “modern”
technology, management, and administrative order,
but this fact was not the result of a series of internal
challenges and developments in the clerical institution.
Instead, the modernization of the seminary happened
thanks to an authoritarian government that provided
an eclectic ideology that took modern technology but
left behind the values, ideals, and basic concepts of
modernity. Modernizing the seminary resulted not in a
modern seminary but rather in a more divided, fragile,
and hopeless institution.

The injection of the government’s money into the

seminary along with strict political and security sur-
veillance has transformed the traditional structure of
the seminary into a quasi-governmental institution
that prevents even traditional

marja

s like Sistani or

the

marja

s who want to be independent actors from

engaging in independent activities without govern-
ment supervision. Khamenei has successfully con-
trolled the transfer of religious funds in Qom and all
clerical networks in Iran.

Outside Iran, Khamenei attracts Shiites in Arab

Gulf countries like Kuwait using different motiva-
tional tools. Dozens of Kuwaiti millionaire business-

men pay their annual religious taxes to Khamenei; his
annual income from Kuwait reaches billions of dol-
lars. Khamenei has built many mosques and schools
through his businessmen followers in Kuwait and has
tried to organize the Kuwaiti political community,
especially through his nonclerical representative in
Kuwait, who is prayer imam at Imam Hossein Mosque.
Khamenei also makes connections between Hizbal-
lah and Shiite or Sunni anti-Israel businessmen. Since
Iran’s Islamic Revolution, the government’s religious
assistance to Shiites around the world has overlapped
with its financial aid, making the distinction between
the government’s financial network and traditional
religious network very difficult to make. Especially in
countries such as Lebanon, where Khamenei has reli-
gious offices, military organizations like Hizballah are
using religious networks for cover. The Iranian regime’s
aid to Shiite organizations is not limited to Hizbal-
lah. The Shiite Supreme Council was taking $360,000
annually from the Iranian government, and when
Muhammad Khatami came to office, aid was increased
to $460,000. But almost all Shiite religious activity
in Lebanon is under the control of the Iranian Intelli-
gence Ministry. Even the office of Sistani in Beirut and
his representatives’ phones are believed to be under
surveillance by the Iranian intelligence service.

An important factor is the mechanism of money

transfer, which is very primitive but very effective
and far beyond banking system control. Muhammad
al-Rumaihi, a Kuwaiti sociologist close to the gov-
ernment, told me that the Kuwaiti government has
attempted several times to uncover the Shiite financial
networks in Kuwait but failed. Money transfer takes
place in cash and to some extent resembles a mafia
money transfer. For instance, in the

marja

s’ offices in

Mecca and Medina, clerics gather the money, put it
into a big sack, and carry it to Iran themselves by air.
Of course, arrangements with airport officials are well
organized, but transferring millions of dollars in this
way is very hard to imagine. Much cooperation takes
place between different

marja

s’ offices outside Iran,

and by giving them advantages, the Iranian regime uses
their network for its own goal. For instance, Sistani’s
office in different places may be used for money trans-

Policy Focus #59

s h i i t e r e l i g i o u s au t h o r i t y

in its mod-

ern form, which came into existence during the Qajar
period, will fade after Sistani. Because the formation
of

marjayat

depends on a specific epistemological and

theological paradigm as well as a chain of social, cul-
tural, and political historical contexts, the decline of

marjayat

can be ascribed to the paradigm shift as well

as historical changes.

That Sistani is the last

mojtahed

to achieve such pop-

ularity and influence is not accidental. In Iran, the pro-
cess of becoming a

marja

has gradually come under the

government’s control and surveillance, and

marjayat

has almost lost its legitimacy as a civil and independent
institution. In Iraq, the seminary itself—isolated from
Iran and unable to receive Iranian students, who have
more chance of achieving

marjayat

than other nation-

alities—has been in decline for many decades because
of political and historical reasons. Najaf seminary is
in such a tough situation that it will be intellectually
impotent for decades to come. Seminary intellectual
production, if any exists, is centralized in Iran; even if
Iraq achieves stability, the seminary is not capable of
dynamic and lively intellectual activities such as high-
level courses or publications and the like.

Needless to say, because the Shiite clerical establish-

ment lacks an official institutional hierarchy, a

marja

has—in theory and generally also in practice—no
power or right to appoint his successor. In Shiism, a

marja

passes away without delivering his political and

social influence or his economic wealth to anybody
else. His properties and financial heritage remain in
the hands of his family, and the family usually keeps
the assets, spending part of them for religious expenses
and keeping part of them as their personal benefits and
wealth. A

marja

’s symbolic and material wealth is not

transferable at all.

From the beginning,

marjayat

was tightly wound

up with the state of political authority and the exist-

ing government. As previously noted, when the cen-
tral government is weak, the involvement of the

marja

in political affairs or in the general in public sphere
increases, and vice versa: when the central government
is strong and capable of implementing its authority
in the country, the political and social power of the

marja

decreases. Thus,

marjayat

as an independent

establishment could operate on the political and social
level during various opportune moments, such as the
Tobacco Affair of the Nasir al-Din Shah period1 or,
most obviously, Iran’s Islamic Revolution. But in all
cases,

marjayat

did its job not from a political position

but merely as a religious authority. Whatever Sistani
does in the political domain also occurs from that per-
spective. He does not regard himself (nor do his fol-
lowers regard him) as a political figure with a political
agenda or ambition but rather as a religious and spiri-
tual authority who has the right to control public cri-
ses or its effects on the political process. After Sistani,
a kind of polarization will happen: on the one hand,
a category of

mojtahed

s will keep themselves from any

political tendency and action, and on the other hand,
other

mojtahed

s will try to become official

marja

s of

government. In both cases, their religious and conse-
quently their political influence and social popularity
will remain limited to narrow strata of worshipers or
government loyalists.

The Islamic Republic of Iran (as the first religious

government in the Shiite world in recent centuries)
and Khomeini (as a

marja

who founded a government

by theological justification) have played a major role in
the secularization of

marjayat

and the transformation

of Shiite religiosity, at least in Iran. Religiosity in Iran,
under the failed political agenda of

fiqh

for governing,

has been remodeled from a maximalist perception of
religion and a belief in its eligibility and capability to
manage all of society and politics to a minimalist per-
ception of

sharia

that allows it to govern only the rela-

1. This episode is described in detail in Nikki Keddie,

Religion and Rebellion in Iran: The Tobacco Protest of 1891–92

(London: Frank Cass, 1966).

The End of

Marjayat

and Its Political Implications

The Last Marja: Sistani and the End of Traditional Religious Authority in Shiism

Mehdi Khalaji

The Washington Institute for Near East Policy

tion between God and human beings. Hence most of
a

marja

’s influence will be confined to religious indi-

vidual duties of worshipers as well as rituals and will
hardly reach politics. Politicizing of religion has ironi-
cally led to depoliticizing of religion. Future

mojtahed

will be forced to conform to the new circumstances;
either they will officially join the political power struc-
ture and lose their independence, or they will try to be
apolitical and take care of personal states and collective
rituals of religiosity.

Political Implications of the

Decline of

Marjayat

in Iran

It is very hard to imagine that in Iran, in any politi-
cal development in the future,

mojtahed

s can play an

important role as they did in the 1906–1910 Con-
stitutional Revolution or in the Islamic Revolution.
The limited influence of the

mojtahed

in quality (as

it would be limited by religious individual tasks and
rituals) and in quantity (because many of the younger
generation do not pay their religious taxes or do not
follow a

mojtahed

as their ancestors did) makes him

unable to mobilize and organize people for political
and social goals. In the last decades, especially after
most Iranian

mojtahed

s and clerics supported Muham-

mad Khatami’s rival, Ali Akbar Nateq Noori, and their
decisive failure, experience proved that the clerical
establishment, including

mojtahed

s, has lost its politi-

cal and social ability for mobilization. The increasing
power of

maddahs,

or noncleric preachers, in the last

decade, which worried the government, is a significant
proof that even in the realm of rituals with regard to
Moharram or other religious ceremonies, worship-
ers prefer nonclerics to clerics. This phenomenon is
very important to the extent that clerics as well as the
Supreme Leader have mildly attacked such nonclerics,
and the Assembly of Experts has created a committee
to consider the issue.

The deterioration of

marjayat

results in the empow-

erment of two religious groups: nonclerics who are
in charge of the management of religious ceremonies

and rituals, like

maddahs

, and religious intellectuals.2

After much criticism of fundamental religious con-
cepts, especially their social and political promises and
roles, religious intellectuals were able to discredit the
clerical understanding of Islam in general. For younger
Iranians, especially students, the traditional perception
of Islam produced in the seminary has been delegiti-
mized for many epistemological and historical reasons.
In this situation,

mojtahed

s do not represent the “real”

Islam. Instead, that role falls to the intellectuals who
can understand Islam in a way that makes the believer
able to reconcile his beliefs with liberal democratic ide-
als of modernity. Henceforth, two kinds of religiosity
will appear or already have appeared: a popular, ritual-
focused, and traditional religiosity, which chooses its
reference in groups such as

maddahs

, and a new form

of religiosity, which is reasoned, critical, and dynamic
and seeks its reference in intellectuals. Although non-
cleric managers of religious affairs cannot undertake
the responsibility for any kind of social and political
leadership, intellectuals have the chance to mobilize
the people in certain circumstances.

The beginning of the post-

marjayat

era is one of the

effects of the dramatic change in financial resources
of the clerical establishment. Whereas traditionally
the main financial resources of

marja

s were the bazaar

(commerce) and worshipers’ religious taxes, in the new
era, a

mojtahed

who does not belong to any govern-

ment would have only limited financial resources. In
his stead, the wealthy

mojtahed

would be the one who

officially works with the government, with traditional
business investments as well as benefits from govern-
mental favoritism and monopolies. Hence the power
is where the money is. Having more power, a

mojtahed

is forced to become loyal to a government and depen-
dent on it; being depoliticized means that he accepts
the limitation of his financial resources and their effect
on social popularity and influence. Ironically, both
categories—state

mojtahed

s and nongovernmental

mojtahed

s—are depriving themselves of the means to

increase their social popularity. In the history of

mar-

2. By religious intellectuals, I do not mean the group that calls themselves so, but in the general sense of the word: all intellectuals, whether believers or not,

who think about and study Islam in nontraditional ways.

Mehdi Khalaji

The Last Marja: Sistani and the End of Traditional Religious Authority in Shiism

Policy Focus #59

jayat

, the wealth of a

mojtahed

was a major component

of his religious authority and social popularity, but in
the post-

marjayat

era, the wealth of a

mojtahed

comes

mainly from nonreligious sources and does not help
much in setting up a religious advantage and social
acceptance.

The Iranian clerical networks in Iran and abroad

will become essentially political rather than religious
networks. One of the main differences between a reli-
gious network and a political network is that the first
is very traditional and primitive and the second is very
modern and sophisticated, using advanced technology
for expanding its political and social authority. There-
fore, in the post-

marjayat

era, the nature of clerical

networks will change.

The post-

marjayat

period is the result of the Islamic

Republic’s successful project of confiscating the semi-
nary in the service of the political regime. Financial
resources of the seminary and almost all religious insti-
tutions, from shrines and endowments to study centers
and publications, now depend on the government. The
money-making institutions have come under govern-
ment control (for example, shrines and endowments),
and institutions that cannot produce money need the
government’s support. By allocating a hefty budget to
religious institutions, the Islamic Republic took away
their independence and made them very fragile. Any
dramatic political change in Iran that leads to removal
of the religious regime will affect the situation of reli-
gious institutions tremendously. The Islamic Republic’s
governmentalizing of religious institutions not only
led to their secularization but also made their destiny
obscure and ambiguous.

Political Implications of the

Decline of

Marjayat

in Iraq

In the absence of a great

marja

in Iraq, such as Sistani,

any other

mojtahed

s would have a small community of

followers in the country without the chance to expand
their network outside Iraq. Localization of

marjayat

would have many consequences, including a transfor-
mation of the social and political role of

mojtahed

s. In

such a situation, the political and social influence of a

mojtahed

would seem to be no more than the influence

of a tribal head. Whereas the head of a tribe has a posi-
tion of authority within a precisely defined community
and on specific issues as determined by tradition, the
authority of a

mojtahed

in quantity and quality would

remain obscure, fluid, and flexible.

In a context such as Iraq, where religion and sect are

not merely a matter of spiritual belief but also a compo-
nent of political and social identity, every Shiite politi-
cal party needs to attract the support of

mojtahed

But in the absence of a great

marja

, the variety and

number of

mojtahed

s and their followers will dimin-

ish the importance of their support, leaving no choice
but for the relation between political parties and reli-
gious authority to undergo a fundamental change. This
would also diminish the role of

marja

s in the commu-

nity. If during the last three years, Muqtada al-Sadr, the
radical Shiite militant, could not be fully controlled by
a

marja

like Sistani, or Sistani could not manage the

hostility between Shiites and Sunnis in today’s Iraq,
then after him a

mojtahed

can hardly hope to usurp or

have any significant authority over a political move-
ment or party.

In a post-

marjayat

era that coincides with the politi-

cization of the religious network and the economic
weakness of independent

mojtahed

s, Khamenei’s influ-

ence in Iraq will increase. By injecting money into
charities and civil or religious institutions and by finan-
cially supporting the religious establishment in Najaf
and other Shiite areas, Khamenei will expand the Shi-
ite network in Iraq and take advantage of the absence
of a great

marja

to create an overwhelming Shiite net-

work that is not only Iraqi but also connected to a large
global network controlled by Khamenei.

Religious authority in Iraq would remain inde-

pendent from the Iraqi government and without any
ambition to participate in government decision mak-
ing except in crisis moments. But because the Iraqi
seminary is not strong intellectually and financially, it
will remain eclipsed by the Qom seminary. The Najaf
seminary, if it wants to survive and revive, must coop-
erate closely with Qom, which means working with
an establishment that has already come under govern-
ment control. Iranian authority in Iraq will restrict the
activities of Iraqi

mojtahed

s and carry out strict surveil-

The Last Marja: Sistani and the End of Traditional Religious Authority in Shiism

Mehdi Khalaji

The Washington Institute for Near East Policy

lance of them as it did for Sistani. The

mojtahed

s in Iraq

see themselves as having their own considerations and
hesitations with respect to the Iranian government. If
Iraqi

mojtahed

s keep themselves independent from the

Iraqi government, they will be more dependent on the
Iranian government.

By politicizing religious authority, the independent

mojtahed

will be marginalized and left without any

significant importance and influence. The process of
politicizing religious authority will reduce the inde-
pendence of the clerical establishment, and its politi-
cal and social activities and functions will be linked to
political power games. Even in a stable and secure Iraq,
its clerical establishment would likely be unable to play
a fundamental role while remaining independent.

Political Implications of the Decline

Marjayat

in the Middle East

In the post-

marjayat

period, the winner in the

short term is the Iranian Supreme Leader, who has
usurped the religious network in the Middle East.
From Kuwait and other Gulf countries to Lebanon,
the Supreme Leader has already taken control of
most clerical networks. Besides Iran and Iraq, only
Beirut has a

marja

, Muhammad Hossein Fadlallah,

who does not have many followers even in Lebanon.
Despite respect for him in Lebanon and abroad, his
financial resources would not allow him to set up a

vast network and compete with Khamenei’s net-
work even in Lebanon. His dispute with the Iranian
Supreme Leader on the notion of

velayat-e faqih

and

Khamenei’s claim that he is the leader of the Islamic
world has considerably hurt Fadlallah’s position in
the highly politicized milieu of Lebanese Shiites.
Khamenei has launched an effective campaign against
Fadlallah in Lebanon and Qom and tried to discredit
him religiously as well as politically. Now Fadlallah
has his own humble network, and he and Khamenei
try not to clash, but Fadlallah knows very well that he
cannot expand his

marjayat

network further without

Khamenei’s cooperation.

In the post-

marjayat

era, the Iranian Supreme Leader

will become the head of religious networks in the Mid-
dle East that may not represent the diversity of Shiite
discourses, but that monopolize authority and influence
with massive financial facilities and capabilities.

The effect of politicizing religious establishments

and networks and the consequent degeneration of

marjayat

is not the same in Iran and abroad. Its effect in

Iran is perhaps the reverse of what may happen outside
Iran. Politicizing religion in Iran would enable religion
and its institutions to mobilize socially and politically,
whereas outside Iran such politicization would unify
the Shiites under the leadership of Iran’s Supreme
Leader in order protect their identity in political and
social quarrels and challenges.

Policy Focus #59

t h e d e c l i n e o f

marjayat

, which is related to

the waning of the Shiite seminary’s independence, is
essentially caused by two facts: the anti-Shiite policy of
Saddam Hussein in Iraq, and the emergence of a Shiite
clerical government in Iran. Both in opposite ways suc-
ceeded in destroying the seminary and the authority
that comes from it—the first by suppressing it directly
and hostilely, and the second by depriving it of its inde-
pendence and transforming the seminary from a semi-
independent semi-civil institution into an affiliate of
the political authority.

The end of

marjayat

is a sure sign that Shiism has

used up all its theological and historical capital for
becoming more political. The process of politicizing
Shiism has its historical roots in and also is affected
by political developments in the region, especially in
Iran, Iraq, and Lebanon. Tehran’s confiscation of Shi-
ite networks will probably be very challenging to the
West and devastating to the region. In the absence of
Shiiite moderate organizations and independent polit-
ical institutions, the tolerant, liberal, democratic, and
moderate front in Shiite worlds will remain seriously
weak and unable to launch an effective political, social,
and cultural operation. Moderate forces, whether tra-
ditional or modernist, are in such a divided, scattered,
and unorganized position that no effective, operative,
and independent moderate forces exist in the Shiite
world that can derail or resist the vast, suppressive, and
aggressive machine of Shiite extremist forces, whether
in the form of government or in the framework of a
group or organization.

Politicizing the seminary and ending

marjayat

are

the direct result of deliberate policies carried out by
Ayatollahs Ruhollah Khomeini and Ali Khamenei.
Among the various Shiite networks in the region, the
Iranian Supreme Leader is above all. He, who believes
himself to be “the Leader of the Islamic World” (his
official title in Iranian state media), has achieved the
creation and expansion of a Shiite network at least
throughout the Middle East. He became the master
of the network through his radical ideological propa-

ganda, which responded to the multiple aspects of the
regional crisis; to the absence of democratic forces, or
the ineffectiveness of democratic intellectuals; to the
tremendous gap between these intellectuals and soci-
ety; and to the dysfunctional and undemocratic gov-
ernments of other Islamic countries. He also reached
this position of leadership over the Shiite network
by allocating a hefty part of the country’s national
income to his ideological campaign in a way that
overwhelmed the traditional financial resources of
the seminary.

Khamenei is now the master of the Shiite network

in the region. Even Sistani as the greatest

marja

the Shiite world has no great power to make any dra-
matic change in politics or on social grounds. Devel-
opments in Iraq have shown that Sistani has been
incapable of preventing the Shiite political groups
from entering into a sectarian war. He no longer
seems particularly able to use his role as a spiritual
figure to reduce tensions.

Most important, from the viewpoint of American

policy, is the fact that a post-

marjayat

era means the

success of the Iranian regime’s ideology to mobilize
all Shiite radical forces in the region and organize
them against Western interests. In every political cri-
sis in the region, the United States should be aware of
the extraordinary degree of influence Iran has on all
political organizations among Shiites throughout the
region. The United States also should be aware that
the traditional independent Shiite religious authori-
ties no longer exist or are on the threshold of decline.
Those authorities cannot be considered reliable in
resolving the crisis in favor of Western countries.

Among many mechanisms for fighting Shiite radi-

calist networks in the region, the most important is
the cultural and intellectual campaign against Shiite
extremism and especially against the Iranian regime.
Supporting liberal and democratic secular intellectu-
als in the region may also help the traditional moder-
ate clerics defend themselves against the Iranian regime
and Shiite radical groups.

Conclusion

Institute Staff

Executive Director

Robert Satloff

Counselor/Ziegler Distinguished Fellow

Dennis Ross

Deputy Director for Research

Patrick Clawson

Counselor, Turkish Research Program

Mark Parris

Senior Fellows

Soner Cagaptay
Michael Eisenstadt
Chris Hamilton
Simon Henderson,

Baker Fellow

David Makovsky
David Schenker

Associates

Michael Knights
Zeev Schiff
Ehud Yaari

Adjunct Scholars

Hirsh Goodman
Avi Jorisch
Joshua Muravchik
Daniel Pipes
Robert Rabil
Harvey Sicherman
Raymond Tanter

Visiting Military Fellows

Lt. Col. Michael Bauer,

U.S. Air Force

Col. Selahattin Ibas,

Turkish Air Force

Jeffrey White,

Berrie Defense Fellow

Visiting Fellows

Hassan Barari
Barak Ben-Zur

Emily Hunt,

Soref Fellow

Mehdi Khalaji,

Next Generation Fellow

Martin Kramer,

Wexler-Fromer Fellow

Hala Mustafa,

Keston Fellow

Researcher and Special Assistant to Dennis Ross

Ben Fishman

Research Assistants

Peter Badal
Zeynep Eroglu,

Dr. Marcia Robbins-Wilf

Young Scholar

Daniel Fink
Sadie Goldman,

Dr. Marcia Robbins-Wilf

Young Scholar

Nathan Hodson
David Jacobson
Zachary Snyder

Research Interns

Steven Leibowitz
Jake Lipton
Etan Schwartz

Administration

Deputy Director for Administration

Stephen Borko

Events Coordinator

Maya Chertock

Data Services Coordinator

Beverly Sprewer

Administrative Assistant

Gina Vailes

Communications

Director of Communications

Alicia Gansz

Managing Editor

George Lopez