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Iran Faces Down Its Grand Ayatollahs

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Supreme Leaders of Iran - Ayatollahs Ali Khamenei and Ruhollah Khomeini

By Massoud Shafaee

For the past seven months, countless parallels have been drawn between the current uprising gripping Iran and the events that ultimately led to the demise of the Pahlavi monarchy some 30 years ago. Whether or not the comparisons are accurate, one irony that cannot be escaped is that the regime is facing increasingly vocal dissent from the very clerical class that brought it to power. In fact, as the Islamic Republic deviates more and more from its theocratic roots and transforms into a military dictatorship, it risks alienating the very marjas who have given it legitimacy since its inception.

Most of the criticism directed at the regime by Iran's clerics has thus far been relatively measured. But the death of Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri has prompted several prominent clerics to speak out more forcefully in support of the Green movement, if only to distance Shiite Islam from an increasingly repressive and desperate government.

In Shiraz, Grand Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Mohammad Datsgheib has been especially vocal. Datsgheib first provoked the regime's ire back in September, when he criticized the 86-member Assembly of Experts (of which he is a member) for staying silent throughout the post-election crisis, and even questioned the validity of the office of supreme leader itself. In a later sermon, the prominent cleric went so far as to call Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei a "traitor" and urged him to repent in order to "escape hell" after death.

That prompted a small number of clerics close to Khamenei to circulate a petition calling for Datsgheib's expulsion from the body. But since the opposition regained its momentum with large protests on the holy day of Ashura, during which at least 10 protesters were killed, the regime's response has become more aggressive.

Ghoba Mosque, where Datsgheib leads his sermons, was first attacked and eventually closed off by plainclothes Basij militia, the first time in the Islamic Republic's 30 years that a mosque has been closed. As important, Ghoba Mosque was one of the clerics' main spiritual bastions during both the 1979 Islamic revolution and the Iran-Iraq war. Regime forces have also attacked Datsgheib's home and prevented him from leaving the southern city of Shiraz to travel to Tehran.

Then there is Grand Ayatollah Yousef Sanei, widely expected to inherit the opposition mantle from Montazeri. Close to the Islamic Republic's founding father, Ruhollah Khomeini, Sanei served in the Guardian Council, the Assembly of Experts, and the Judiciary throughout the 1980s. Shortly after Montazeri's death, Sanei declared that he would strive to continue the late cleric's work and honor his legacy. Not surprisingly, his office in Qom was attacked by Basij agents during Montazeri's funeral procession in late-December, and chants of "Death to Sanei" have become increasingly common at regime-organized rallies.

But the offensive against the revered cleric was taken to a new level by the recent declaration of the Qom Seminary Teachers Society that Sanei "does not have the required criteria to be a Shiite marja." The hollowness of the association's statement -- signed by just one cleric, Mohammad Yazdi* -- lies in the fact that the group does not have the authority to void Sanei's standing as a source of emulation. In fact, no official body grants such status. As Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, one of Iran's most powerful clerical politicians who has cautiously aligned himself with the opposition noted, a marja has never been installed or removed by a single authority. Unsurprisingly, condemnation of Yazdi's move came swiftly, from both conservative and moderate religious scholars alike. (Yazdi has since backpedaled from his signed statement.)

Yet ironically, the regime may face its greatest threat not from within, but from outside the country. Ever since June's contested election, observers have been keeping a close watch on Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani (who hails from Iran but resides in the holy city of Najaf, Iraq), considered the highest living authority in all of Shiite Islam. Sistani comes from the "quietist" tradition of Shiite theology, one that, unlike the Islamic Republic's ruling doctrine of velayat-eh faqih, holds that clerics should abstain from becoming directly involved in politics. So far, he has refrained from condemning the regime's actions. But his clout is so strong in the Shiite world that, were this to change, the Islamic Republic would arguably no longer face just a political crisis within Iran, but also a crisis of religious confidence among all Shiites.

For now, the influential cleric has shown no signs of weighing in on the unrest. As Ashura came and went, Sistani issued a statement only inviting followers to attend memorial services for the "martyrs" who died in recent terrorist attacks in Karbala and Kazemein, Iraq. Yet there is little doubt that Sistani is watching events unfold in his native land. In November, he met with Ali Larijani, the speaker of Iran's Parliament, and more recently, he defended Sanei in the aftermath of Yazdi's attack.

While numerous protesters had been killed in previous demonstrations, the deaths on Ashura may prove to be particularly harmful to the regime. Violence is strictly prohibited on the holy day, and as Karoubi bluntly pointed out, "Even the Shah respected Ashura."

If the bloodshed continues -- and in Islam's name, for that matter -- Sistani may feel compelled to finally speak out against the regime. For that would ultimately not constitute his abandonment of a "quiet" philosophy, but rather, a response to an Islamic government that has itself abandoned the very Islamic principles on which it was founded.

Massoud Shafaee is a freelance writer and analyst based in Washington, D.C. He holds a Juris Doctor from American University's Washington College of Law and a Master of Arts in international affairs from the School of International Service. In addition to World Politics Review, he has written for the American Jurist and the Washington Prism, an English-Farsi publication of the World Security Institute. He also maintains The Newest Deal, a blog which actively covers post-election developments coming out of Iran.Petroleumworld not necessarily share these views.

Editor's note: This article was originally published by World Politics Review, on Jan 12, 2010. Petroleumworld reprint this article in the interest of our readers.

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Petroleumworld News 01/17/10

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