insideIRAN » Clerics

Clerics, not Judges, Decide Who Is Mohareb

insideiran — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 14:11:58 +0000

Rasool Nafisi

WASHINGTON—Browsing through the Iranian journals and listening to the current discourses in that country, one might be shocked to find out that a major debate is under way over whether the government is entitled to “cut the right arm and the left leg” of those opposing the regime. But such is the state of discourse in a country that enjoyed a century of secular life and a penal code largely copied from those in France and Belgium, before it became an Islamic state.

Today, people actually could lose their limbs or lives simply because an ayatollah believed it should happen. The case in point is the recent conundrum over the death sentence for a student who was found guilty of throwing rocks “three times” at the police in a demonstration. The judge used the fatwa by an ayatollah to back up his verdict; fortunately, the ayatollah backed down, and the student is still alive.

In the case, an Iranian court condemned to death a twenty-year-old student, Mohammad-Amin Valian, for mohareba, or fighting against God and His Messenger. He was accused of violating the sanctity of the day of Ashura, the time of mourning for Shiite Muslims over the unjust martyrdom of the third Imam. The presiding judge referred to a fatwa by Ayatollah Nasser Makarem-Shirazi, who called the demonstrators mohareb who deserved a death sentence.

As soon as the case was publicized, the oppositional cleric Ayatollah Yousef Sanei rebutted the opinion and issued his own fatwa saying participation in the demonstrations is not considered mohareba, but indeed in certain circumstances it is mandatory for Muslims to participate in such oppositional actions.

Ayatollah Bayat-Zanjani followed suit immediately, and even announced that those who attack people and bludgeon them (that is, the security forces) are the real moharebs, because they use weapons against other Muslims. Eventually, Makarem-Shirazi himself had to intervene and go back on his words, saying, “We have never issued [the mohareba fatwa] against such people [demonstrators].” He claimed that “some people” (that is, Ahmadinejad supporters, and especially his advisors, such as Mashaee) use this and other tactics to weaken the institution of Marjaia (highest rank of clergy). Shortly after this clerical scramble, Attorney General Salavati announced that Valian’s death sentence “is not final.”

The fact of the matter is that Ayatollah Makarem-Shirazi had indeed preached against the violators in the sacred day of Ashura, and called for sentencing them like a mohareb. There could be multiple reasons why he changed his verdict. Obviously, the public outcry against the death sentence of a kid accused of stone-throwing was the main reason. But the reversal by Makarem also demonstrates how some of Iran’s clerics run their mouths before thinking of the consequences of their statements. Most clerics in power are not used to behaving like state officials, and they still act like Shiite preachers, using the hyperbolic and sanctimonious language of the pulpit.

Why did the judge use Makarem’s statement as the basis for his verdict? Was he really trying to undermine Makarem, as he later claimed? To the contrary, it seems that the judge was trying to sanctify Makarem’s assertions. Isn’t it the final test of greatness when even your passing words can cause life and death for others, especially a young man?

More important, what about the due process of the Islamic court? How can a judge discard the penal code of the country, and just use a single sermon of a cleric to condemn someone to death? Isn’t it a breach of the laws of the country? Well, not really. In the hierarchy of the legal system, primacy belongs to the Shariah, not the Constitution of Iran (which itself is largely based on Shariah). As a result, the penal code (which is mainly the translation of the Shariah) can be breached by the opinion of a marja or grand ayatollah.

The case of Valian highlights the state of lawlessness that is codified into law in Iran. From the constitution to various codes, supremacy is given to the Shariah, which only can be interpreted by a cleric. This ensures the absolute rule of the clergy over the life of the country, and never allows for the growth and development of the civic laws, and therefore suspends the rise of a robust civil society for the foreseeable future.

Rasool Nafisi is a scholar in Virginia who specializes in Iranian clergy.

Politics and Religion Collide: The Attempt to Defrock Ayatollah Sanei

insideiran — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 20:26:46 +0000

Rasool Nafisi

WASHNGTON—In early January, following the demise of Grand Ayatollah Hossein-Ali Montazeri, the Society of Teachers and Researchers at Qom Seminaries, a pro-statel clerical body, announced that it did not acknowledge cleric Yusuf Sanei as an ayatollah. The reason for such a decision, like many other seemingly religious decisions of the Islamic regime, was rather political. A great part of politics in today’s Iran is based on clerical rivalry and personal innuendo rooted in the clerical community.

The death of Montazeri created a vacuum for the emergence of a new marja-i taqlid, or source of emulation, which is the highest ranking in Shi’ite Islam, granting an ayatollah the right to interpret Islamic doctrine to followers and less-qualified clerics. To many reformist and oppositional groups, Sanei and Ayatollah Dastgheib in Shiraz were qualified to take up this mantle because of their seniority, their religious knowledge, and of course their opposition to the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. No wonder that the Ansar-e Hezbollah, a militant group charged with upholding the principles of the Islamic revolution, harassed Sanei and attacked his residence and Dastgheib’s, and even shut down the mosque where Dastgheib holds his sermons and prayers.

The editor of IRNA, the sate-run national news agency, also ordered his reporters to drop the title of ayatollah from the name of former president Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani, who has emerged as a sympathizer with the opposition. By forcing the oppositional clerics out, the regime could nominate its own supporters to become the next marja, such as Ayatollah Hussein Nouri-Hamadani, alongside with Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. The Islamic regime has had it with reformist ayatollahs, such as Sanei and Montazeri, who have gone out of their way to support reformist agendas, and condemn Khamenei and President Mahmoud Ahamdinejad.

Ayatollah Yusuf Sanei is specifically targeted by the regime for numerous reasons. Aside from his most recent sermons, in one of which he called Ahmadinejad “a rascal and a liar,” Sanei is well known for his shaaz (rare and innovative) fatwas regarding women. In numerous opinions expressed by the ayatollah, he asserted that women are equal to men, and they can become judges, the president, and even Vali Faghih, supreme leader. According to his fatwas, a nuclear weapon is forbidden, not only to own one but to use it, and suicide bombing is against the teachings of Islam.

However, it is worth noting that Sanei was not always as progressive as he is today. In fact, he reversed his positions on many issues, including the role of Vali Faghih, the leadership of Khamenei, the use of force, and the imposition of strict Islamic punishments, such as stoning. Sanei was the prosecutor general for four years in the early 1980s, when opposition members were being mowed down on a daily basis in prisons and on the streets. In fact, he was instrumental in defrocking Ayatollah Shariatmadari, a formidable rival to Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and the first ayatollah ever to suffer such humiliation.

I had the opportunity to meet with and confront Ayatollah Sanei about women’s rights at his residence in Qom in 2003, when I was visiting the Qom Seminary for a research project. His house, which is located in the same ally as the late Montazeri’s, is divided into three sections. In one section, or andarouni, the family lives. In two other sections, or beerooni, he meets visitors, or holds sermons. At that time, the reformists around then President Mohammad Khatami were still in power, and in fact the reformist parliament and the cabinet members kept requesting fatwas about women, and he would maintain his position in every occasion about gender equality. This is why he is nicknamed the ayatollah of the reformists.

The question that I most wanted to ask him was about the Koranic injunction regarding inheritance for women. Unlike many other injunctions, the verse on inheritance is very clear: it is women who inherit half that of men. Ayatollah Sanei answered, “Unfortunately there is nothing we can do for this one. It is god’s law, sound and clear, and we cannot go around it.” Then he added the cliché that men are the breadwinners of the household and need the capital, while women stay at home. I believe he was right about his own household, but I am not even sure that in Qom today women stay home, while men go to work.

Can an Ayatollah Be Demoted?

One needs to make a clear distinction between Iranian Shi’ism and its rules and norms before and after the 1979 Islamic Revolution. As the clerics became the rulers, they ignored a great number of Shi’ite bylaws, and added quite a few. In the tradition of Shi’ite clerical hierarchy, there has never been an office to promote or demote clerics, from the time the titles, such as hojjatolislam and ayatollah, were coined in nineteenth century. An ayatollah normally is a senior cleric who has established himself as knowledgeable and upright mujtahid, (the one who can issue fatwa, and his qualifications are already approved by a marja, the highest ranking clergy). An ayatollah needs to have published religious guidelines that may or may not differ from other mujtahids. But the litmus test of an ayatollah’s status is the number of students he supervises, and the stipend he offers them. This of course requires strong ties to the merchant community in order to be able to collect their religious donations, and spend it on various religious needs including seminary students. Once all the conditions are met, an ayatollah emerges, meaning he is neither appointed nor promoted by a secular or religious authority.

The game changer was the office of the Vali Faghih, which was created after 1979 Islamic Revolution. The boundless powers of the Vali eroded many well-established norms of the Shi’ite clerical system, including the multiplicity of voices and opinions to interpret religious doctrine, which was such a pride of the Shi’ite leaders. Ironically, Ayatollah Sanei himself was one of the first advocates of the unlimited powers of the Vali Faghih; he called it the highest office whose edicts superseded all others. As the office became formal and the consensus-based tradition weakened, the marjaih itself was undermined.

This process of the politicizing the clergy paved the way to defrock Ayatollah Shariatmadari in the early days of the Islamic Republic, and force him to confess on national television, where he was called simply, “Mr. Shariatmadari.” Then, the Society for the Theological Instructors and Scholars of the Fayzyiah Seminary took the action of defrocking Shariatmadari. Ayatollah Sanei at that time was instrumental in discrediting Shariatmadari, and confiscating the endowments under his supervision. Now, Sanei is the latest victim of the vanishing religious authority of the clerics.

Rasool Nafisi, a renowned expert on Iran’s clerics, is a professor living in Virginia.

Iran’s Conscience Ayatollah Montazeri: Powerful Force in Life and Now Death

insideiran — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 21:14:42 +0000

Rasool Nafisi

Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri’s death at the age of 87 at his home in Qum coincided with the second day of the Islamic month of Moharram, when the Shiites’ passion for the martyrdom of Imam Hussein rises. IRNA, the official news agency of Iran, reported his death without even using his title (ayatollah), but the title was used later in an obituary by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. In his short message, he mentioned the high religious status of his former rival, and his struggles for the Islamic republic, but Khamenei added that Montazeri failed the godly test, a reference to his opposition to the regime. He wrote that “may the later worldly travails [of Montazeri]” compensate for his sin of rebelling against the regime. Those “travails,” of course, is a reference to five years of house arrest and the later harassments ordered by Khamenei himself, who in this message discreetly assumes the role of the hidden hand of Allah in punishing Montazeri.

The ayatollah’s objection to mass killings of the prisoners in 1988 led to his removal from the office of heir apparent to Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic. He emerged as the spiritual leader of the civil movement in Iran in his last year of life. This agrees with the Shiite configuration of the just rule, and prohibition of selling out to the tyrants. Recently, he repented for helping to create the present form of the Islamic republic, largely because of the atrocities committed after the June 2009 presidential election. Ayatollah Montazeri will be remembered as the embodiment of defiant Shiite leader who purportedly stood against unjust powers.

The Impact on the Shiite Clerical System

Ironically, the career of Ayatollah Montazeri also will serve the cause of the Shiite clergy. It is noteworthy that the millennia-old prestige of the Shiite clergy largely is tarnished by its direct rule in Iranian politics for the past thirty years. Many think that, once the present regime is removed, the discredited clergy will have to look for another job as well. Iranians trusted the clerics to be just rulers, but they turned out to be as oppressive as any. This legitimacy deficit of the clergy in Iran will be somewhat compensated for by the existence of the leaders like Montazeri. He fulfilled what is expected from a Shiite leader. He was brave, knowledgeable in his field, and fought for the right cause against tyranny.

The Impact on the Opposition Movement

Ayatollah Montazeri had turned himself into the spiritual leader of the Green Movement. In a series of opinions issued by the Ayatollah, he denounced the regime as a dictatorship which is “neither an Islamic nor a republic.”

Montazeri did not have a direct role in the day–to-day operations of the movement, and his demise will not have a negative effect in practical terms. In fact, Montazeri passed away at the zenith of his career as a cleric defending people’s rights. His challenge to the prevailing powers and his willingness to let go of power when he doubted its legitimacy earned him a saintly stature. In the collective memory of the Shiites, he will be equated to Horr Riahi, a commander of a war campaign against the revered Imam Hussein, the ultimate martyr of the faith. According to the legend, Horr changed sides as he learned more about the unjust war, and came to defend the Imam, and died for the right cause. In Shiite lore, Montazeri already has been elevated to the level of martyrs. Montazeri will be commemorated for his courage and honesty to leave the crown for truth.

In fact, Montazeri may serve the civil movement in Iran as much in his death as in his life. The besmearing machine of the regime could not destroy his image in his life, and he turned into a larger than life figure after his death. As the security forces witnessed the gathering of thousands of people for his funeral and suppressed the early clashes, they decided to ban the forthcoming commemoration on the traditional seventh day. The ban reflected fear by the regime from a dead ayatollah and added to anti-regime emotions of the urban Iranians who take it to the street at every occasion.

Incidentally, the seventh day of Montazeri’s passing coincided with Ashura, the holiest of holy days of the Shiites when they mourn the unjust martyrdom of Imam Hussein. Ashura of 2009 turned into a fateful day for the regime and a turning point for the movement. Hundreds of thousands of mourners took it to the streets, clashed severely with the security forces, and left behind an undetermined number of dead and scores injured.

Montazeri now will serve as an icon of the civil movement, a man who saw the truth behind the diabolical regime in Iran, and gallantly defied it. It is ironic that the man who was almost as important as Ayatollah Khomeini in establishing the new Islamic regime, and more important than him in codifying the laws, rules, and regulations for the daily operation of the newly born Islamic state, should go down in history as the symbol of opposition to the same system.

Rasool Nafisi, a renowned expert on Iran’s clerics, is a professor living in Virginia.

Three Pillars of the Opposition Movement March On Despite Violence

insideiran — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 18:30:45 +0000

Rasool Nafisi

WASHINGTON–A natural division of labor has taken place within the Green Movement in Iran. As much as Mir Hossein Moussavi is the moral and organizational leader of the movement, cleric Mehdi Karroubi inspires the movement with his courage, and perseverance. The third leg of the leadership is Ayatollah Hassan-Ali Montazeri, who has acquired the de facto position of the religious patriarch of the movement.

As much Montazeri’s fatwas have undermined the religious mandate of the state, the perseverance of Karroubi in accusing the regime of the crimes committed in prisons since the June 12 presidential election has damaged irreparably the regime’s claim to its moral legitimacy. Accusing the prison guards of systematically raping the prisoners has become the most serious issue so far. In an interview, Karroubi’s son said that such behavior with the prisoners has been unprecedented since the “invasion of the Mongols”—a landmark event that the Iranians blame for the near total destruction of their culture.

Authorities are hard at work to whitewash the regime from the rape accusations, but rape victims have provided their stories on the record, and have substantiated Karroubi’s claims. The severity of Karroubi’s accusations about the raping of prisoners becomes more manifest once it is contextualized. It is an anathema to the claims of the Islamic state to safeguard the chastity of the people; a regime that uses its stringent rules for correct sexual conduct as a means to control the population, and as a claim to legitimacy.

Karroubi’s courage emanates largely from his ethnic background. He is from the Lor ethnicity. Members of this ethnic group are known for their outspokenness and forward character. On the other hand, Karroubi is not a stranger to hardship and incarceration. He was arrested nine times by the previous regime, and spent years in prison, where he met cellmates from all political brands: religious, nationalist, and communist. This forced companionships, Karroubi writes in his autobiography, which made him aware of the pain of the others, and relieved him from sectarian behavior.

Karroubi is known for his charitable works. Not surprisingly, the late Ayatollah Khomeini assigned him to establish two main charity organizations of the Islamic state: The Martyrs Foundation, and the Fifteenth of Khordad Foundation. Those foundations provide for the poor, and nowadays are used by the regime to garner support, and votes, from the needy.

Accusations of embezzlement against Karroubi had tarnished his image before the rise of the Green Movement. In one case alone, he had received equivalent of $600,000 from a money launderer (Shahram Jazaeri). Karroubi does not deny receiving the money, but he says as a clergy with the degree of Ijtihad, he was authorized by Khomeini to receive money, and spend it in the ways he deemed correct, such as helping the poor. One group of recipients of such gifts is families of the incarcerated journalists and politicians. The prominent Iranian cleric Mohsen Kadivar supports Karroubis’s claim. He unequivocally confirmed that Karroubi is well known for his charitable works among the Iranian poor, and families of prisoners.

Rumors of the imminent arrest of Karroubi have been around since the inception of the Green Movement. It appears that there is a difference between the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps leaders and Khamenei on that matter. The former pushes for Karroubi’s arrest, while the latter refuses to allow it, for obvious reasons. Karroubi used to be one of the most trusted confidants of Khomeini. This makes him somewhat sacrosanct. Moreover, he is now widely popular among the youth, and his arrest may even trigger a larger unrest.

Rasool Nafisi is an academic and Iran expert living in Virginia.

Where Is the Islamic Republic of Iran Heading?

insideiran — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 16:58:07 +0000

Rasool Nafisi

WASHINGTON–The rushed support of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei for President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in the disputed June election, and the announcement of his reelection the day after polls closed, has damaged the credibility of the velayat faghih (the rule of qualified jurist) beyond repair. The legitimacy of the regime, already in question by modern urbanites, now has become the target of daily attacks by the people who once were its ardent supporters.

The most dramatic fissure over Khamenei’s actions took place within the ranks of the Iranian clergy. The June presidential elections and its aftermath divided the clergy into three camps: those who kept their distance with the events; a few clergy who supported the election results, albeit indirectly; and those who openly rejected it as rigged elections.

Opposition to the election results has turned into a full- fledged rejection of Khamenei’s role as the qualified jurist. Ayatollah Ali Hussein Montazeri, one of Iran’s most influential clerics who help found the Islamic Republic in 1979, took the lead. In a series of fatwas, he denounced Khamenei without mentioning his name. Responding to a written question from another notable clergy, Mohsen Kadivar, Montazeri called the Iranian leaders “usurpers and transgressors” because of the way they treated the demonstrators.

These terms have deep meanings in Shi’ite jurisprudence. Such rulers are automatically disqualified to rule the community of Shiite Muslim believers. Describing the regime after what happened in June, Montazeri wrote: “This regime is neither Islamic nor a republic; it is a mere dictatorship.” Then he concluded: “This is no longer the ‘rule of the qualified jurist.’ Rather, it is the ‘rule of the generals.’”

Finally, in an open letter to the clerical body in Qom, Montazeri called unequivocally for them to take action against the present regime that has tarnished the name of Islam and discredited the clergy. He warned that the Shiite clergy has been on the side of the people throughout history, and it should not abandon them now, when they are in turmoil. Such inaction will destroy the historical reputation of the clergy as the people’s advocate.

Notably, he repented for his role in establishing such a regime and asked God for forgiveness. Montazeri, however, stopped short of rejecting the whole notion of the rule of qualified jurist, which is the founding theory of the Islamic republic. He was the main theorist of regime, and was assigned by the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini to write the theological justification for velayat faghih, which he did in earnest, and published a book in four volumes on the subject. He seems to still believe that such an idea can be implemented if the right jurist (faghih) were found.

Stinging criticism of Khamenei also came from Abdolkarim Soroush, one of the main intellectuals assigned by the late Ayatollah Khomeini to Islamize the culture. A British-educated pharmacist turned philosopher, Soroush wrote a series of books advocating a less rigid and more intellectual interpretation of the jurisprudence. He shortly became dubbed the “Luther of Islam” because of his innovative ideas in adopting modernity. Soroush, who presently lives in the United States, wrote one of the most poignant letters directly to Khamenei after the June election.

Soroush expressed joy in the demise of the religious state. Repenting like Ayatollah Montazeri for “whatever assistance that I might have given to the tyrants” and describing the Islamic Republic in the harshest terms, he said the people’s revolt against the regime was the result of over two decades of enlightening works against it. He said to hear from the mouth of Khamenei that those demonstrations have “discredited” the regime filled him with joy.

It is quite significant that two important figures from the Islamic regime—one in charge of theorizing and justifying the velayat faghih, and the other in charge of reinventing Iranian culture in Islamic ways—should repudiate the regime so brazenly. They represent a whole host of other clerics, such as Ayatollah Yousef Sanei and a number of so called “Islamic intellectuals,” most of whom are languishing in jail.

The events of June also forced even some pro-regime clerics to show their disapproval. Fearful of losing all of their credibility, even hard-line Ayatollah Nasser Makarem-Shirazi preferred to distance himself from the government. The memorable statement by Ayatollah Ali-Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani, the quintessential deal-maker and the king-maker who brought Khamenei to power is: “Today no clear conscience can accept what is going on in the country.”

Iran is among the very few nations in modern times that have experimented with religious revivalism at the state level, and succeeded in implementing an enduring form of militarized theocracy. While the nations of the world in general have been trying to adjust their traditions with modernity, Iranian clerical rulers have tried the opposite through an effort to adjust modernity to long-forgotten forms of religious ritualism.

In gradual steps, the insurgent clerical hierarchy tried and mostly managed to reject most achievements in socio-cultural modernity of the twentieth century. On the other hand, those outside the clerical establishment who aided and abetted the clergy, hoping for a form government closer to their ideals—democratic or proletarian—ended up in disbelief and dismay. Ever since, the tensions between these two contradictory forces that once managed in unity to topple the Shah’s modernizing state in 1979 have remained in conflict.

However, the recent events have added another dimension to that conflict: an inner conflict within the clerical establishment that may lead to the complete demise of the velayat faghih. The clergy has been divided from the very early days of the republic. The late Ayatollah Mohammed Kazem Shariatmadari was the first victim of opposition to the newly rising Islamic regime. But as the years passed, majority of the clergy was co-opted, or was silenced. Ayatollah Hossein-Ali Montazeri, the deposed heir apparent of the late Ayatollah Khomeini, was under house arrest for five years for calling his successor, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, unfit for the job.

The schism among clerics and the clear separation of the Islamic intellectuals from the regime are significant in terms of what is in store for the future of the Islamic Republic. The legitimacy of the state is now doubted and even repudiated by many of its founders and ideologues. Ideas like those of Mohammad-Taghi Mesbah-Yazdi who supports the use of sheer terror to rule the society are now firmly in place.

The regime seems to make no more pretense of using its theocratic legitimacy to glue the different factions together and justify its existence in the eyes of the people. Instead of the clerical veneer, it is the omnipresent members of the Islamic Republic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the basij who are the guarantors of the regime’s survival. In fact, it was the late Ayatollah Khomeini who advocated the use of brute force, when people are not convinced by the “logic.” By “logic” he meant the vision offered by the Islamic Republic. Ayatollah Khamenei also claims that Imam Ali, the most veneered Shi’ite Imam, dealt pitilessly with the members of the Islamic ummah whenever they went astray. Adhering to sheer force to rule is becoming more and more acceptable to the regime as the remainders of its fledgling legitimacy vanishes.

Rasool Nafisi is an academic and Iran expert living in Virginia.

Rasool Nafisi

WASHINGTON–The rushed support of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei for President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in the disputed June election, and the announcement of his reelection the day after polls closed, has damaged the credibility of the velayat faghih (the rule of qualified jurist) beyond repair. The legitimacy of the regime, already in question by modern urbanites, now has become the target of daily attacks by the people who once were its ardent supporters.

The most dramatic fissure over Khamenei’s actions took place within the ranks of the Iranian clergy. The June presidential elections and its aftermath divided the clergy into three camps: those who kept their distance with the events; a few clergy who supported the election results, albeit indirectly; and those who openly rejected it as rigged elections.

Opposition to the election results has turned into a full- fledged rejection of Khamenei’s role as the qualified jurist. Ayatollah Ali Hussein Montazeri, one of Iran’s most influential clerics who help found the Islamic Republic in 1979, took the lead. In a series of fatwas, he denounced Khamenei without mentioning his name. Responding to a written question from another notable clergy, Mohsen Kadivar, Montazeri called the Iranian leaders “usurpers and transgressors” because of the way they treated the demonstrators.

These terms have deep meanings in Shi’ite jurisprudence. Such rulers are automatically disqualified to rule the community of Shiite Muslim believers. Describing the regime after what happened in June, Montazeri wrote: “This regime is neither Islamic nor a republic; it is a mere dictatorship.” Then he concluded: “This is no longer the ‘rule of the qualified jurist.’ Rather, it is the ‘rule of the generals.’”

Finally, in an open letter to the clerical body in Qom, Montazeri called unequivocally for them to take action against the present regime that has tarnished the name of Islam and discredited the clergy. He warned that the Shiite clergy has been on the side of the people throughout history, and it should not abandon them now, when they are in turmoil. Such inaction will destroy the historical reputation of the clergy as the people’s advocate.

Notably, he repented for his role in establishing such a regime and asked God for forgiveness. Montazeri, however, stopped short of rejecting the whole notion of the rule of qualified jurist, which is the founding theory of the Islamic republic. He was the main theorist of regime, and was assigned by the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini to write the theological justification for velayat faghih, which he did in earnest, and published a book in four volumes on the subject. He seems to still believe that such an idea can be implemented if the right jurist (faghih) were found.

Stinging criticism of Khamenei also came from Abdolkarim Soroush, one of the main intellectuals assigned by the late Ayatollah Khomeini to Islamize the culture. A British-educated pharmacist turned philosopher, Soroush wrote a series of books advocating a less rigid and more intellectual interpretation of the jurisprudence. He shortly became dubbed the “Luther of Islam” because of his innovative ideas in adopting modernity. Soroush, who presently lives in the United States, wrote one of the most poignant letters directly to Khamenei after the June election.

Soroush expressed joy in the demise of the religious state. Repenting like Ayatollah Montazeri for “whatever assistance that I might have given to the tyrants” and describing the Islamic Republic in the harshest terms, he said the people’s revolt against the regime was the result of over two decades of enlightening works against it. He said to hear from the mouth of Khamenei that those demonstrations have “discredited” the regime filled him with joy.

It is quite significant that two important figures from the Islamic regime—one in charge of theorizing and justifying the velayat faghih, and the other in charge of reinventing Iranian culture in Islamic ways—should repudiate the regime so brazenly. They represent a whole host of other clerics, such as Ayatollah Yousef Sanei and a number of so called “Islamic intellectuals,” most of whom are languishing in jail.

The events of June also forced even some pro-regime clerics to show their disapproval. Fearful of losing all of their credibility, even hard-line Ayatollah Nasser Makarem-Shirazi preferred to distance himself from the government. The memorable statement by Ayatollah Ali-Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani, the quintessential deal-maker and the king-maker who brought Khamenei to power is: “Today no clear conscience can accept what is going on in the country.”

Iran is among the very few nations in modern times that have experimented with religious revivalism at the state level, and succeeded in implementing an enduring form of militarized theocracy. While the nations of the world in general have been trying to adjust their traditions with modernity, Iranian clerical rulers have tried the opposite through an effort to adjust modernity to long-forgotten forms of religious ritualism.

In gradual steps, the insurgent clerical hierarchy tried and mostly managed to reject most achievements in socio-cultural modernity of the twentieth century. On the other hand, those outside the clerical establishment who aided and abetted the clergy, hoping for a form government closer to their ideals—democratic or proletarian—ended up in disbelief and dismay. Ever since, the tensions between these two contradictory forces that once managed in unity to topple the Shah’s modernizing state in 1979 have remained in conflict.

However, the recent events have added another dimension to that conflict: an inner conflict within the clerical establishment that may lead to the complete demise of the velayat faghih. The clergy has been divided from the very early days of the republic. The late Ayatollah Mohammed Kazem Shariatmadari was the first victim of opposition to the newly rising Islamic regime. But as the years passed, majority of the clergy was co-opted, or was silenced. Ayatollah Hossein-Ali Montazeri, the deposed heir apparent of the late Ayatollah Khomeini, was under house arrest for five years for calling his successor, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, unfit for the job.

The schism among clerics and the clear separation of the Islamic intellectuals from the regime are significant in terms of what is in store for the future of the Islamic Republic. The legitimacy of the state is now doubted and even repudiated by many of its founders and ideologues. Ideas like those of Mohammad-Taghi Mesbah-Yazdi who supports the use of sheer terror to rule the society are now firmly in place.

The regime seems to make no more pretense of using its theocratic legitimacy to glue the different factions together and justify its existence in the eyes of the people. Instead of the clerical veneer, it is the omnipresent members of the Islamic Republic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the basij who are the guarantors of the regime’s survival. In fact, it was the late Ayatollah Khomeini who advocated the use of brute force, when people are not convinced by the “logic.” By “logic” he meant the vision offered by the Islamic Republic. Ayatollah Khamenei also claims that Imam Ali, the most veneered Shi’ite Imam, dealt pitilessly with the members of the Islamic ummah whenever they went astray. Adhering to sheer force to rule is becoming more and more acceptable to the regime as the remainders of its fledgling legitimacy vanishes.

The Clerical Divide

admin — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 18:47:55 +0000

Clerics Supporting Ahmadinejad

1. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic)
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is Iran’s Supreme Leader and highest authority. He was president for two successive terms (1981–1989). In 1989, he succeeded the original Supreme Leader and founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Ayatollah Khomeini.

In 1963, Khamenei was involved in the massive student protests against the Shah’s Western-oriented reforms. Khamenei continued his defiance of the United States during the 1990s. In 2002, he launched a drive to make the universities more Islamic, and to increase censorship of newspapers, books, and film. He often accuses Washington of interfering in the affairs of Iran.

In the June 12, 2009, presidential election, Khamenei allegedly supported Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The cleric denied the opposition’s accusations that the results of the election were rigged, praising the officially declared landslide of his protégé Ahmadinejad as an “epic moment that became a historic moment.”

In the aftermath of the massive demonstrations, Khamenei faces the greatest challenge to his authority since he became the Supreme Leader in 1989. Some moderate clerics have publicly criticized his endorsement of the election results. Street demonstrators shout he is a dictator—behavior that was unprecedented in Iran. If the political dynamic shifts and the opposition movement becomes more powerful, Khamenei and his followers will be left in a vulnerable position.

2. Ayatollah Mohammad-Taghi Mesbah-Yazdi
Ayatollah Mohammad Taghi Mesbah Yazdi is a hard-line Iranian Shiite cleric who is widely seen as Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s spiritual mentor. Mesbah-Yazdi has been described as “a theoretician of the radicals” in Iran, with extremely hostile viewpoints toward the West. He is considered the first senior figure in Iran to have publicly endorsed a military nuclear program. Mesbah-Yazdi supports a return to what he sees as the values of the 1979 Iranian Revolution and is also a firm opponent of the opposition Green movement in Iran, which he believes an Islamic government must combat.

3. Ayatollah Ali Jannati (Secretary of the Guardian Council)
Ayatollah Ali Jannati is an Iranian politician, fundamentalist cleric, and a founding member of Haghani school, a seminary school in the holy city of Qom responsible for training many hard-line clerics close to Ayatollah Mesbah-Yazdi, with close ties with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Mesbah-Yazdi. Jannati is considered close to the Iranian Islamic conservative establishment, and is heavily criticized by the reformists for his active role in not approving reformist candidates to run in various elections. Jannati wields considerable influence because he simultaneously holds seats in the most powerful governmental bodies—the Guardian Council, Expediency Council, and Assembly of Experts.

Jannati’s support of Ahmadinejad during and after the June 12 election faced harsh criticism inside Iran. He condemned the protests following the election and has asked the judiciary to punish those involved in the protests.

4. Ayatollah Hossein Nouri-Hamedani (Source of Emulation)
Ayatollah Hossein Nouri-Hamedani is an Iranian Shiite source of emulation. Nouri-Hamedani has been called a hard-line cleric for supporting Khamenei and the administration of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Nouri-Hamedani famously has said, “Crazy ideas such as secularism, liberalism, and humanism are part of our enemies’ plans to sow disunity.” He was the only major source of emulation in Qom, the holy Shiite city, to congratulate Ahmadinejad after the June 12 election.

5. Ayatollah Mohammad Yazdi (Vice Chairman of the Assembly of Experts)
Ayatollah Mohammad Yazdi is a hard-line Iranian cleric who served as the head of Judiciary System of Iran between 1989 and 1999. He is currently the vice chairman of the Assembly of Experts, which is headed by Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. Yazdi has close ties to Ali Khamenei and is believed to have his eyes set on Rafsanjani’s seat as head of the Assembly of Experts. Following the protests in the aftermath of the June 12 election, Yazdi began a campaign in the Assembly of Experts to collect signatures condemning the protestors and criticizing Rafsanjani for not supporting Khamenei.

6. Hojjatol-Eslam Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ezhei
Ezhei became a household name when he presided over the trial of Tehran’s mayor, Gholam-Hossein Karbaschi, in 1997. (Karbaschi supported then-president Seyed Mohammmad Khatami.) He has served in many capacities in the Judiciary and the Ministry of Intelligence, including as prosecutor for the Special Clerical Court and minister of intelligence. He currently is Iran’s chief prosecutor. Ezhei served as Ahmadinejad’s minster of intelligence until he was dismissed by Ahmadinejad for not handling the June 12 election crisis well. He has appeared on national television condemning presidential contender Mehdi Karroubi for accusing the regime of torture and sexual abuse in Iran’s prisons.

Clerics Opposing Ahmadinejad

1. Ayatollah Ali-Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani (Chairman of the Expediency Council and the Assembly of Experts)
Ayatollah Ali-Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani is an influential Iranian politician and former speaker of the parliament and president (1989–1997). Currently, he holds the position of chairman of the Assembly of Experts, which is responsible for appointing or removing the Supreme Leader.

Rafsanjani has been described as a centrist and a “pragmatic conservative.” He supports a free market domestically and seeks to avoid conflict with the United States and the West. In his view, the main solution to the nuclear issue would be to gain the trust of Europe and America and reassure the world hat the Iranian nuclear industry will never be converted for military use.

For the most part, Rafsanjani was silent about the controversial June 12 election and its aftermath. He wrote a letter to Supreme Leader Khamenei complaining about Ahmadinejad prior to the election. In his first Friday as the prayer leader, Rafsanjani criticized the actions taken by the regime to crush the protests and called for unity.

2. Hojjatol-Eslam Mehdi Karroubi (Presidential Candidate)
Hojjatol-Eslam Mehdi Karroubi is an Iranian reformist politician, cleric, and chairman of the National Trust Party. He was chairman of the parliament (1989-92 and 2000–04), and a presidential candidate in the 2005 and 2009 presidential elections. Karroubi, who was parliamentary speaker (1989–92 and 2000–04), resigned from his post in June 2005.

Karroubi is a critic of the Guardian Council and Iran’s judicial system. He considers himself a pragmatic reformist and supports the idea of a dialogue with the United States aiming at resolving long standing conflicts. He is probably the most outspoken critic of Ahmadinejad.

3. Hojjatol-Eslam Mohammad Khatami
Hojjatol-Eslam Mohammad Khatami served as the fifth president of Iran (1997–2005). During his presidency, he advocated freedom of expression, tolerance, civil society, constructive diplomatic relations with other states including those in the European Union and Asia, and an economic policy that supported a free market and foreign investment. Khatami is known for his proposal of a “Dialogue Among Civilizations.”

Although he initially was a candidate in the 2009 Iranian presidential election, he dropped out of the race early in order to endorse another reformist candidate, Mir-Hossein Moussavi, who Khatami claimed would stand a better chance against Iran’s conservative establishment to offer true change and reform.

4. Grand Ayatollah Hossein-Ali Montazeri
Grand Ayatollah Hossein-Ali Montazeri is an Iranian scholar, theologian, writer, and a major Shiite source of emulation. He is known as one of the leaders of the Iranian Revolution in 1979. He is best known as the one-time designated successor to the revolution’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khomeini. Montazeri was swiftly replaced as successor to Ayatollah Khomeini by the current Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Montazeri criticizes President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for his nuclear and economic policies. Concerning the 2009 presidential election, Montazeri stated that “no one in their right mind can believe the results were fairly counted.”

5. Grand Ayatollah Yousef Saanei
Grand Ayatollah Yousef Saanei is an Iranian scholar, renowned theologian, and Islamic philosopher. He is known as a senior reformist cleric. Concerning Iran’s nuclear program, he stated that “it is self-evident in Islam that it is prohibited to have nuclear bombs. It is eternal law, because the basic function of these weapons is to kill innocent people. This cannot be reversed.”

During the 2009 Iranian election protests, rumors arose that he had issued a religious edict proclaiming that Ahmadinejad was “not the president and that it is forbidden to cooperate with his government.”

6. Grand Ayatollah Assadollah Bayat-Zanjani
Before the 1979 Iranian Revolution, Zanjani was a pro-democracy activist. In 1972, he was arrested and spent a year in prison. After the revolution, he was involved in the launching of the Islamic Republican Party. Zanjani was also a member of a committee tasked with reassessing the Iranian constitution and he was elected three times to the Iranian parliament.

In an interview with the German newspaper Financial Times Deutschland, Bayat-Zanjani said: “Ahmadinejad no longer adheres to the will of the population.” Saying this was a “great danger,” he accused Ahmadinejad of breaching the law, grave infringement on established freedoms, and illegal empowerment of the Islamic Revolution Guards. Bayat-Zanjani questioned the legitimacy of Ahmadinejad’s government, saying: “If people don’t trust the government, it automatically loses its legitimacy.” Later, Bayat-Zanjani’s office denied that he had made such statements.

7. Hojjatol-Eslam Mohsen Kadivar
Hojjatol-Eslam Mohsen Kadivar is a progressive cleric who was sentenced by the Special Court for the Clergy (Dadgah-e Vizhe-ye Ruhaniyat) on April 21, 1999. The charges brought against him reportedly included “propaganda against the sacred system of the Islamic Republic,” “publishing lies,” and “confusing public opinion.” These charges are believed to relate his questioning the role of the clergy in the government of Iran.

“I believe in a religious democratic state,” he said. “I believe that democracy and Islam are compatible. But a religious state is possible only when it is elected and governed by the people. And the governing of the country should not be necessarily in the hands of the clergy. So what I support is the healthy state the reformers are promoting as an Islamic Republic, not what exists now.”

He was released in July 2004 but is still banned from teaching in his former position as university professor. He is now a professor at Duke University.