The Islamic Republic of Iran puts the law of the state, represented by the Iranian government, above canonical Islamic law, usually referred to as the Sharia. Khomeini established this system to overcome a particular handicap within Shiism that had created several splits historically and to empower the state.
In Shiism, the principle of authority is hereditary. It descends from Ali—the cousin and son-in-law of the Prophet Muhammad—through a family line of Imams. It could be argued that this family lineage was consolidated as a doctrine in response to the Umayyads consolidating hereditary power, although for Shias, this is a fundamental theological principle.
Shias are divided into several branches, mainly Fivers (Zaydis), Seveners (Ismailis), and Twelvers, the latter being the largest group and the one on which the Iranian Republic is based. There are other, smaller denominations. The main reason for the successive splits was disagreement over the identity of the next Imam or leader.
Shias believe that after the Prophet, God chose members of his family to lead the community, starting with his companion Ali and then his grandsons Hasan and Husayn. But after the death of the fourth Imam, Ali ibn al-Husayn, the first split occurred. Those who are known as Zaydis maintain that his son, Zayd ibn Ali (who was killed in a revolt against the Umayyads), was the fifth Imam and that the line ended there.
The Ismailis and the Twelvers, however, believe that the lineage continued not with him, but with his brother, Muhammad al-Baqir. The next split arose from a disagreement about who was the next Imam after the death of the sixth Imam, Jafar ibn Muhammad. Ismailis believe that the seventh and last living Imam was his son, Ismail ibn Jafar, and originally believed that it was the end of the line (while current Ismailis, mostly related to the Aga Khan, hold a different belief).
The Twelvers, however, maintain the seventh Imam was Musa ibn Jafar and that the line continues until the twelfth Imam, Muhammad al-Mahdi, who was not killed, but went into occultation in the year 874 and is due to return at the end of time to establish justice on earth.
The issue of power inheritance, both spiritual and worldly, was the significant factor splitting the Shia community. And although the major splits ended with the “occultation” of the twelfth Imam, the issue of who would rule in his absence came to dominate the Shia political agenda. For a period known as the “Lesser Occultation” that lasted roughly 70 years, it was believed that the Imam kept in contact with four deputies. But after the death of the fourth deputy without a designated successor, the period of the “Greater Occultation” began, which continues to this day.
From that point until the arrival of Khomeini, Shiism was not a unified political force. Power was divided between the scholars and the kings. The scholars, who came to be known as Ayatollahs, were the legitimate representatives of religion, while the kings, like the Safavids or the Qajars, were seen as divinely illegitimate but necessary to maintain order. This division created a certain quietism, which was justified by the belief that there could be no true justice until the hidden Imam, the Mahdi, returned.
This context is important for understanding the magnitude of the change brought about by Ruhollah Khomeini. The main theological concept with political repercussions that he introduced was the doctrine of the Wilayat al-Faqih. According to this, the leadership of the Ummah (though of course this applied only to Shias) during the occultation of the Imam devolves to a just and pious jurist, or faqih. This is enshrined in Article 5 of the Iranian Constitution.
Practically, what he achieved was the unification of worldly and spiritual power in a religious figure, the Supreme Leader. Western history is not unfamiliar with this dichotomy.
The “Two Swords” doctrine was formalized by Pope Gelasius I in the 5th century as the Duo Sunt (“There are two”): The Sacerdotium and the Regnum. The Church argued that while the King ruled the body and the land, the Church ruled the soul. This created a “checks and balances” system that was often violent, such as the Investiture Controversy, where Popes and Holy Roman Emperors fought over the right to appoint bishops.
The source of auctoritas and legitimacy to rule became one of the main sources of political conflict and political theory, culminating in the emergence of the nation-state. Carl Schmitt famously argued that “all significant concepts of the modern theory of the state are secularized theological concepts.” The absolute monarch took the place of the omnipotent God. When the West moved toward the nation-state, the “state of exception” moved from God/Church to the executive branch (the President or Sovereign), thus making the state absolute. That is, endowed with the auctoritas and legitimacy to legislate and execute legislation according to its own logic.
Khomeini tried to performe a “reverse secularization.” After the Iranian Revolution and in the midst of a wave of rising Arab nationalism, he took the absolute sovereignty that modern nation-states claim and handed it back to the jurist. By doing so, he ended the duality.
However, he also introduced another doctrinal change. He declared that law is a tool of justice and that justice is above law. Traditionally, in both Sunni and Shia traditions, human law is subordinate to the Sharia; any human government is accountable to it. Khomeini’s approach places the Islamic government above the Sharia. There is no law higher than the state’s law.
This is Wael Hallaq’s argument in The Impossible State: an “Islamic nation-state” is impossible because the ultimate authority is inverted. In Khomeini’s formulation, the ultimate authority is the Republic and the state law. The Sharia is an inspiration, to be interpreted by the Supreme Leader in order to guide the state while the last Imam is in “occultation”, but not necessarily the law of the state.
Khomeini effectively created the necessary conditions for the emergence of a Shia nation-state. By giving sovereignty—which, according to Hallaq, is the capacity to legislate—to the state, he subverted the traditional order of “government under Sharia” to “government above Sharia.” In order for this not to become a purely secular state, he placed the just faqih, the Supreme Leader, as guardian of the state.
However, as might be argued during this time of conflict, is the Supreme Leader really governing or is it the machine of the state, as represented in its different factions? In which case, one might question to what extent the state form of the Iranian Republic is more prevalent than the Islamic one? Carl Schmitt would argue that sovereignty lies with whomever can dictate the state of exception.
This same argument could be made, although with different flavors, regarding most nation-states that claim to be Islamic.
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The Supreme Leader is best viewed as the head of the judicial branch, and Iran is unique in being the only country in the world where the judicial branch is supreme over the legislative and executive. Well, there is also the Vatican, I suppose, depending on which branch you feel fits the Pope, though I’d argue he combines the three branches in one person.
That said the Supreme Leader is not even the most senior Shia cleric in Iran as Khomeini was, those are the Marja (“source of emulation”) in Qom, who at most would have a primus inter pares, and even then only in Iran. Many Twelver Shia in the West observe taqlid (roughly, agreeing to follow a specific marja as their authoritative source of jurisprudence) to Syed Ali Sistani in Najaf, Iraq.
It’s important to note Sistani explicitly rejects Vilayat-e-Faqih and advocates for democratic government. It was quite amusing during the US occupation of Iraq, allegeldy to bring democracy after Saddam’s regime, that the US was trying to model the country on weird not-quite-democratic systems like the Iowa Caucuses, whereas Grand Ayatollah Sistani would hear nothing of it and demanded (and got) straightforward one-man-one-vote democracy (Iraqi democracy is of course deeply troubled and corrupt, but that’s not because of its electoral system).
Thank you for this explainer (as brief as it must be).
Recently at an Arabic restaurant they had on offer an English translation of the Quran, (free! so I took one).
I look forward to studying it, as I do with the other books on my impossibly long list (and stack) of ones I mean to read.
Being an inveterate empiricist, or is that a skeptic? I disavow any faith of a divine. But that’s just me and I look for an understanding of humanity as it is.
Thank you again.
The other dimension, often lost to Westerns, is that Iran is a historical land of many religions and the Iranians are keenly aware and deeply proud of that fact (in contrast to the Protestant, I mean Sunni, Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan.) Intolerant of other religions, especially those deeply rooted in historical Persia, Iranians are not.
Tell that to the Bahai’is. Oh wait, you cannot because the Islamic Republic has mostly executed those that remained in Iran.
As Hume showed, being an inveterate empiricist involves a lot of faith. Well, he calls it “habit.”
I’ve run into a few Westerners who have become curious about Islam, and who decided to pick up a copy of the Quran to learn more about it.
I wonder, however. That seems a rather Protestant thing to do—assume the religion proceeds out of its sacred text, and go on to focus on the text. But if, say, someone from a Muslim cultural background were to become curious about Christianity, should they study the Bible? If they would do so, they would learn very little about Catholic or Orthodox Christianities, since they would miss an immense amount of context. Would they even learn much about American-style, Bible-thumping evangelicalism? Again, they would miss an awful lot of context hidden by the pretense of relying on the Bible. I’d argue that US Christianity is shaped at least as much by capitalism as by echoes of ancient West Asian supernatural beliefs.
Well, reading the Quran to understand Islam seems similarly strange to me. If nothing else, because like every religion, Islam is a very human thing—Islam is what Muslims do, and that varies a lot, even if some of the pious like to claim that it all proceeds from the text. In practice, the Quran is in many parts a very opaque text, where much of the historical context to understand what it first might have meant is permanently lost. Muslims have to rely on a vast secondary literature of competing and conflicting traditions to interpret the Quran. Even that is filtered through layers of tertiary commentaries and competing local historical practices. On top of it all, there is the ever-present creativity of religious people: Muslim equivalents of televangelists, gurus and whatnot make shit up all the time, and if they manage to persuade a large number of followers, well, that’s your local version of modern Islam for you.
So read the Quran, sure, if trying to make sense of ancient religious literature is attractive to you. (Why not? I share some of the fascination with these texts as puzzles.) But I doubt you’ll get much out of it that tells you about how Muslims behave or understand the world.
while it is true that truly understanding Christianity in its various forms is an immense task, someone studying the Bible absolutely would learn a lot about Catholic, Orthodox, and Evangelical Christianities. They have the same basic beliefs, such as, Jesus was son of God and He died to redeem to the world. That is true even for Jehovah’s Witnesses and Gnosticism.
Great info Curro – thanks much.
Thanks for this survey and informative commentary! Does anybody have suggestions for further reading?
On Iran and the revolution, Roy Mottahedeh’s The Mantle of the Prophet is a classic. It’s from 1985, so it’s not up to the minute, but it’s a fantastic book.
After visiting Iran I learned some things about the government and its structure. It is pretty complex, and I have only disentangled parts of it.
One interesting aspect of the Iranian version of Islam is that it is the Supreme Leader who has religious and moral authority but also presides over foreign and military policy. In particular the IRGC, Iran’s most effective military force, reports to the Supreme Leader.
To complicate matters Iran has an Executive branch presided over by the President, who is elected and is responsible for domestic affairs. Iran also has an elected parliament. Certain military functions, such as logistics, report to the President.
I got the impression that the Supreme Leader has considerable freedom in the conduct of foreign affairs and military policy, not unlike the President of the United States. Domestic policy making is left to the President in deliberation with the elected parliament. Domestic policy administration is done by Ministers who report to the President.
In terms of elections, I got the impression that candidates must be found to acceptable to the religious authorities. Although that initially sounds undemocratic, it must be understood that virtually all candidates in the United States are effectively vetted by political elites (via partisan campaign committees) and by wealthy donors. That strikes me as being just as undemocratic as Iran’s candidate selection process.
I encourage any corrections and additional input.
Just adding, or expanding, that the “religious authorities” that accepts candidates in local, parliamentary, Assembly of Experts and presidential elections is called the Guardian Council.
It has 12 members, 6 clerics nominated by the Supreme Leader and 6 jurists nominated by the Parliament (from candidates presented by the Chief Justice of Iran).
All the clerics tend to also be members of the Assembly of Experts, so they get to participate in choosing the Supreme Leader.
It also acts as a Constitutional Court, being able to veto any law passed by the Parliament that violates the constitution of Iran.
The term is 6 years, half of the council changing every three years. So, while it’s task is to guard the continuity of the Islamic revolution, a slow change is possible with a changing political landscape. Slow, but faster than transforming the US SC.
Thank you the info Currio- nice article.
Does anyone know of a book that focuses on Iran over the past 150 years? Many books like to speak of Iran’s ancient Persian culture, but my thesis is that it is last 120-150 years that are more important to understand Iran ‘as it is’, then as it was 2500 years ago.
I have a thesis; I believe that any particular cruelty or contradiction or hypocrisy of any present culture, is much more the function of near events than far, often shaped by generations that preceded. Hence the cruelty of the Bolsheviks, was shaped by the repressive regime of the Tsars, and his secret police, and the brutal exploitation of the peasants and workers by the landowner/capitalist class (although I am also sure that there were a notable few of those who did not do so..). Conversely, any unique functionality or strength of the nation can also be partially explained by what has happened over the past 150 years… I am not discounting the actions of Great man, nor of exterior events (natural disaster, war, or peace treaty and successful national cooperation) … but I believe that understanding the sociology and culture of the various groups in thr society (and their wealth class, and political enfranchisement) is also very important.
This is a very good read – The Silk Roads: A New History of the World. Iran is not the focus of the entire book, but the narrative does go through a couple millennia pretty quickly and then spends quite a bit of time on the last 150 years or so, with Persia/Iran being a major focus of the later part. It doesn’t get into the culture so much and concentrates more on geopolitical intrigues.
Thank you for the suggestion.
I will look for a seperate book on sociology and economy of that region.
People’s understanding of the world is based on intergenerationally transmitted beliefs, without which the present cannot be understood at all, except on a purely animal level.
latest CHRIS HEDGES, with Behrooz Ghamari
The Revolutionary Spirit of Iran (w/ Behrooz Ghamari) | The Chris Hedges Report
Throughout its long war on Iran, every tactic used by the United States has backfired. Professor Behrooz Ghamari-Tabrizi explains why Iran’s revolutionary spirit remains strong.
50 min.
https://chrishedges.substack.com/p/the-revolutionary-spirit-of-iran
Thank you very much for this explainer. When reading how the Shias split again and again over the question of hereditary lineages, I was reminded of something similar with the Church of Scotland-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_Scotland#/media/File:Reformed_Scots_Church_Denominations.svg
Sounds like Khomeini managed somehow to square the circle of the State versus Religion and Iran’s present resiliency is the result.
Thank you Curro for at least a start on piercing the veil of Orientalism and letting some light into previously impenetrable mysteries.
Although you did not cover it much, the Sunni/Shia differences deserve wider understanding in the West.
Your introduction of terms like “fivers”, “seveners”, “twelvers” and “Occulation” certainly don’t add much to widespread understanding.
As much as I am rooting for the heroic Islamic Republic in the war against the Empire these, what seem to me, sectarian niceties remind me of nothing more than the Judean Popular Front vs the Popular Front of Judaea.
Ignorant of the niceties I know, but human desire for ideological purity seems like something that started with arguments around the campfire back in the Bronze Age. Of course, when power is at stake everyone needs to be sanctified by tradition somehow.
Bah!
Your introduction of terms like “fivers”, “seveners”, “twelvers” and “Occulation” certainly don’t add much to widespread understanding.
As much as I am rooting for the heroic Islamic Republic in the war against the Empire these, what seem to me, sectarian niceties remind me of nothing more than the Judean Popular Front vs the Popular Front of Judaea.
These religious sectarian disputes are about who is in possession of legitimate authority. From the outside, it is not interesting whether Leader A has legitimate authority in the view of the community versus Leader B, and it may not be interesting to understand the ideological arguments in support of Leader A or Leader B. But it is actually extremely important to the politics that A is viewed as the real leader, and B an upstart or a false prophet. If you want to understand Iran or the Islamic Revolution, which bases its legitimacy in part in Twelver Shi’ism, it seems like it would be crucial to understanding.
If you wanted to understand the Thirty Years War, would you seriously argue that the dispute between Luther and Catholicism was just “sectarian niceties”? Or alternatively, are these disputes only “sectarian niceties” in the context on Non-European peoples?
From a distant enough perspective, fascism vs. liberalism vs. communism looks like a dispute about sectarian niceties.
As the West wanes, Western models will become less dominant, and this goes for the nation-state.
Where does a Universal Declaration of Human Rights of the Enlightment line of thought queue in all this?
With my very limited understanding I would still argue that this new era of Islamic power was preceded by a progressive, secular Socialist nationalism (vis a vis colonial powers) / Socialist Pan-Arabism (vis a vis other colonies in the region). Since this movement was an open threat to imperial rule it was undermined.
Which is not to stay there is no authentic agency by the Arab countries in creating this new political era. But if on national level supreme power yields downward from who can proclaim emergency that would be true for supranational level too. And there the colonial states were superior.
Another idea I am wondering: Would a major potential rise of wealth and power of Iran and eventual explosion of standard of living of the entire population including minorities eventually lead to a more liberal free order re: personal and private rights especially with women? Revolution through the backdoor of economic affluence.
It´s what happened in Europe. Or I am falling for a false interpretation of historic materialism provenance?
The Universal Human Rights of the Enlightment line of thought is the West’s main imperial ideology, and has been for a couple of hundred years, so it is not very popular among anybody who is not in the West.
To understand how intolerant Khomeini was and rabidly anti jew ( as the Nazi) read his published essays on Islamic government. He is , in my view, intolerant , anti european and imperialist par excellence . Those whose greatest strategy is anti-the other, in my view, are bankrupt and depraved from the start.
Take your abject hasbarist fabrications elsewhere. You provide no information to substantiate your claim because it does not hold up to scrutiny.
https://crescent.icit-digital.org/articles/islamic-iran-and-the-jewish-people