Part 8: Iran - Late Modern Revolutionary Theocracy?

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The Ayatollah Khomeini’s revolution firstly arose out of the special circumstances of the Twelver form of Shi’a Islam that predominates in Iran. According to that sect, the valid political and religious authority is the Imam (the Prophet’s son-in-law and then a relative chosen by ‘his’ predecessor). The 12^th Imam had been occulted (hidden) from the mortal world near Samarra in Iraq as a young boy many centuries ago and as such there was no available political or religious sovereign and Shi’a Muslims at first adopted the view that Sunni Caliphs and local rulers, while not legitimate, should be obeyed until the return of the Imam. Occasionally, but by no means generally under Sunni Caliphs, local rulers in Iran (such as the Buyids) also had Shi’a sympathies. The Iranian Shi’a got their big break when they were finally independently ruled from home by the Shi’a Safavid dynasty. More interests were also involved, however.

The decline of the Safavids may have led to a renewed interest in jurisprudence and other circles in more activism in the 19^th and early 20^th Centuries in Iran. This was probably exacerbated by the extension of the influence of the Western Powers in the region at the level of government. The Shi’a Safavids had managed to create an expectation of consultation of religious authorities that were closely related to their community. This expectation began to grow the more later governments attempted to suppress it. An 1881 visit by Afghani proved a catalytic instigator of this new trend of religious opposition to government (as unduly influenced by Western ‘imperialists’). The famous Tobacco Revolt of 1891 against tobacco concessions given to Westerners followed soon after this visit. On the constitutional front, Iran gave itself a new constitution in 1906 following the Western inspired Tunisian and Ottoman precedents but leaving a role in final approval or refusal of laws to jurists. So ultra-constitutional theocratic "constitutionality" was the order of the day even in modernising Iran.

Within the Shi’a legal/religious establishment there had been two long established schools up to this point, the Usulis and the Akhbaris, but despite their interest in activism, neither had given much theoretical thought to what constitutional Islamic government required. The establishment also had two major cities of learning, Qom in Iran and Najaf in Iraq, so the idea of Iran itself was diluted by the apparent dissolution of the international Iran/Iraq border in local Shi'a thought. The Akhbari School resembled the Sunni Ahl al-Hadith and Saudi Arabian Islam in its extreme conservatism. The Usulis in turn were more receptive to independent contemporary legal thought and reasoning in interpretation of the law and became the dominant group in Iran. It's worth noting that modern thinking (as we've often seen in recent posts) has often been more radical in its anti-Westernism than much conservative Islamic thinking.

There were two great early 20^th Century thinkers in the Shi’a establishment, Abul Qassim al-Khoei and Muhammad Baqir as-Sadr. As-Sadr was the more modernising of the two but al-Khoei was a prolific writer of opinions (known as fatwas in English and fatawa in Arabic, singular fatwa, as I've mentioned before). Later there were two other prominent scholars based at times in Lebanon, Musa as-Sadr (who started the Amal (Hope) Movement there) and Muhammad Husayn Fadlallah, who has been associated with Hezbollah. Of these four scholars Fadlallah is the only scholar alive today [subsequently died in 2010]. The first as-Sadr was killed under Saddam Hussein and the second disappeared.

The term Ayatollah (God’s Sign), by the way, which was attained by these (except for Musa as-Sadr) and several other men, refers to the second highest rank in religious/legal academic circles in Usuli Twelver Shi’a Islam, the highest being Grand Ayatollah. There is an equivalent ranking to Ayatollah for learned women. A cleric/legal thinker generally attains the rank of Ayatollah upon being male, completion of certain studies (especially in Iran), seniority and production of at least one suitably acclaimed work of religious scholarship. It is usually established somewhat informally by the acceptance of usage of the title by colleagues and students of the person. Grand Ayatollah 'Ali as-Sistani in Iraq is influential there today. One can thus attain the rank and not interest oneself in politics, interest oneself in politics and not attain the rank or, as the example below shows notably, attain the rank and interest oneself in politics.

The most influential Ayatollah (along with his supporters) has been Ruhollah Khomeini (1902 – 1989). His family hailed from Eastern Iran though he was born in Khomein near Qom. His family was steeped in Islam containing many clerics and he was educated at Qom and Najaf and later taught in both of those preeminent centres of Shi’a learning. As I mentioned above, the constitution of 1906 gave him (as a leading cleric) some constitutional power and his position also made him a religious figure of major importance. He was quite influenced by Sufi thought and practices and therefore was able to teach both jurisprudence and irfān (Islamic mystical philosophy).

For most of the time his views of politics were being formed, the Pahlavi dynasty, which had first come to power in 1925 by means of an officer coup, ruled (until 'his' revolution deposed them in 1979). The dynasty proved so unstable that the first dynast was deposed by Western Powers during the Second World War in favour of his son and the son had to flee the country in the 1950s before being restored with American support. Muhammad Reza Shah Pahlavi’s new regime (upon his restoration) continued to be flagrantly discriminatory in favour of westerners and their interests. At the same time, he carefully hid the oppression that he was perpetrating from the westerners (as his father probably did before him) thus maintaining a veneer of respectability with them. One of the most offensive things he did to Islam was symbolic. He effectively ignored it at an extravagant gala at the ancient (and pre-Islamic) ruin of an ancient capital, Persepolis, to celebrate 2,500 years of ‘unbroken’ royal rule of Iran. The clergy (including Khomeini) were also treated badly by the regime but were supported (including economically) by the equally oppressed population.

In this light, and also in keeping with the recent tradition among the senior clerics mentioned above but more so, Khomeini became a militant political activist. He entered clerical politics with confidence as a critic of the establishment in his early 20s in about 1929. He then wrote his first major political work in 1944 while still in his 30s urging scholars to speak up for God against political leaders regardless of personal cost. Later in the 1940s he wrote Kashf al-Asrar (the Revealing of Secrets) about, among other things, the issue of religious and political leadership in the interregnum caused by the occultation of the 12^th Imam (confirming the rightness of the Usuli position with regard to legal reasoning and of the constitutional position of the clerics brought about by the 1906 constitution). In addition to the 1906 constitutional position threatened by the Pahlavis, he suggested that the ulema should also have a role in formally approving or rejecting a proposal for any new ruler as had been the practice in the Safavid period.

The 1962 Electoral Bill and the 1963 Reform Bill were clearly not favourable to this legitimate position of the clergy (as Khomeini perceived it). Their joint effect was to remove the clergy from all constitutional roles. By 1964, Khomeini’s actions (in concert with other outraged clergy) had led to his expulsion from Iran and asylum in Iran’s neighbour and rival, Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. While he was in exile at Najaf, he wrote further on the role of government (and the role of the clergy in it) in Tahrir al-Wasilah and expanded upon that and the meaning of Velayat e-Faqih (Rule of the Jurist) in a work of that name in 1970. In essence, his claim was that the Qur’an required that Islamic scholars formally have and exercise political as well as moral authority. In the meantime, as relations between Iran and Iraq thawed, by 1978 Khomeini was again expelled (this time from Iraq) and this time chose to seek refuge in France. From there, he continued to exert influence on the militant opposition in Iran by means of sermons on cassette tapes smuggled into the country from France suggesting a ‘modernised’ and ‘progressive’ Iran be brought about (i.e. regime change).

After the revolution he had encouraged had occurred, he was able to return from exile in 1979 and effectively lead the revolution (and the revolutionary government). He was placed in a category with Abraham and Muhammad as “the Third Idol Destroyer”. During his life, he may also have encouraged (or at least not discouraged) the belief that he was the 12^th Imam returned from occultation after hundreds of years. He was certainly given the honorific title Imam and that is a title considered a couple of magnitudes greater in Shi'a Islam than Ayatollah.

His revolutionary supporters included at that time socialist students and communists as well as bazaaris (members of the rich merchant class that was from time immemorial aligned by marriage with the ulema class in Iran) and the revolution was about removing Western control from Iranian life for many revolutionaries as much as a religious movement. It was also about permitting the bazaaris and the ulema the freedom and independence denied them by the hated Pahlavi Shah rather than imposing theocracy.

Its first orders of business, however, had essentially religious overtones, though they may have seemed opposed mainly to Western influence. Bars and cinemas were outlawed by the new Iranian Revolutionary Council. The revolutionary constitution gave the supreme position of Rahbar (Farsi for captain-navigator) to a cleric. Khomeini was, of course, the first Rahbar. In addition, there was an elected President, an elected parliament and a supervising council of senior ulema including the Rahbar. After Khomeini, each new Rahbar was to be elected by the senior ulema. All government actions were required to be two things: modern and Islamic. There could be no question of legalising brothels or bars or permitting the unveiling of women. In addition, religious police existed to police morality.

The ulema now began to theorise about how to govern whereas before Khomeini they had theorised on how to oppose government (when they could be bothered to discuss politics at all). Traditional Shi’a quietist jurisprudence was therefore supplanted by Khomeini in favour of the revolutionary extension of the rule of the ulema. Khomeini was a charismatic ruler and his rule was thus able to subsume under it divisions within the ruling classes which have nevertheless re-emerged. There has only been one Rahbar since Khomeini, Grand Ayatollah ‘Ali Khamanei, but his rule has not had the charisma that could continue to subsume divisions. The control of the mullahs (mullah being a Farsi (Persian) word for cleric), as the conservative ascendency was called, is hotly debated today in Iran even between the mullahs themselves and has waned somewhat.

Iran was perceived as a threat by many Gulf countries including Iraq and this led to the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s known at the time as the Gulf War. The revolution inspired both Shi’a and Sunni groups and regimes. Its influence in Lebanon, Syria and Palestine continues to be felt. Sunni Islamists in Sudan and other countries saw the regime as a worthy model of Islamic government and it influenced and was favoured by governments in Tajikistan and other Central Asian states, especially those as in Tajikistan with large Iranian populations.

Despite the strict nature of the revolution, relaxations have occurred over the years. Women are now permitted to wear coloured veils, for example, and the police are now (generally) more polite in their policing as they have lost influence. The President before Ahmadinejad, Mohammad Khatami, was firmly in the reformist camp. Democracy has been more limited recently with the limitation of candidates for elected office by the ulema and an apparently flawed recent election. There is an ongoing struggle between conservative and other elements in the society and polity. Devout women, who participated actively in the revolution, have proved winners in post-Revolutionary Iran becoming prominent in business, politics, public life and higher education. The media is subtly suppressed but the blogosphere has been relatively unmolested by government repression until recently (though there has certainly always been some). Such subtle suppression has required subtle expression of controversial views. Student groups remain active politically today (as they were during the vital stages of the 1979 revolution).