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.