Within Islam, Shi’ism has always been among the most dominant intellectual forces. The tradition of following only living sources of emulation sparked constant scholarly evolution. Because reinterpretation of Islamic jurisprudence is constant, Shi’ite societies are historically far more tolerant, flexible, and able to adjust to new situations and technologies than their Sunni counterparts.
Sunnis may object to such an assessment, but with the closing of the “gates of ijtihad” in the tenth century CE, essentially placing new interpretations over certain key tenets off-limits, Sunni doctrine ossified. Shi’ite scholars never put any equivalent straitjacket on their own exegesis.
The concept of clerical rule that Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini imposed first on Iran, and then by proxy on Lebanon’s Shi’ite community, is an anomaly.
The last half-century of geopolitics, of course, overshadowed this in the American mind. The concept of clerical rule that Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini imposed first on Iran, and then by proxy on Lebanon’s Shi’ite community, is an anomaly. Khomeini did not create the concept of Guardianship of the Jurist (Velayat-e Faqih), but he did revive it from obscurity. Within the broader clerical establishment, especially in Najaf, it remains a minority concept. In theory, Shi’ite pay khums, a one-fifth tithe after clearing all other legitimate expenditures, to their source of emulation to support charity, mosques, and the broader Shi’ite establishment. It is an individual choice. Most Iraqis pay their khums to the Office of Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, rather than Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who styles himself the supreme leader of Iran.
The attempt by the Islamic Republic to overshadow and redefine Shi’ism was always an irritant to most adherents, but they now face a crisis that makes the Iranian regime’s earlier ambitions seem quaint.
Today, Shi’ism face a three-part crisis.
First, word leaking from Iran suggests that Khamenei’s regime is using brute force to crush the current protest movement. If initial reports of 20,000 dead are true, with hundreds if not thousands of executions to follow, all done in the name of Shi’ism by a Shi’ite ayatollah, the impact on the view of Iran’s youth toward the clerical establishment—and possibly Shi’ism itself—will be huge. The damage Khamenei’s selfish and corrupt desire to kill those who disagree with him will do to Shi’ism easily makes him more akin to the caliphs Yazid and Muawiyah than to the Imams Ali and Hussein. In practical terms, the Iranian youth have been turning against organized religion for some time. The sheer brutality of Khamenei’s choices make it unlikely that they or their children, should they survive, will ever return.
The re-emergence of Nouri al-Maliki in Iraq as interim prime minister will further sour attitudes toward Shi’ism among Iraq’s youth.
Second, the re-emergence of Nouri al-Maliki in Iraq as interim prime minister will further sour attitudes toward Shi’ism among Iraq’s youth. Whereas Shi’ites tolerated, if not celebrated, Maliki when he first became prime minister two decades ago, Maliki squandered his opportunity with wholesale corruption. Maybe Iraqis at the time could overlook that, but Iraq 2026 is not Iraq 2006. More than 70 percent of Iraqis were born after Saddam Hussein’s ouster. They know Shi’ite politicians not as resistance to a hated dictator but, rather, as mafia bosses who drape themselves cynically in the symbolism of religious justice and values. By doing so, they sully Shi’ism. Maliki simply compounds the disaster and will lead Iraqi youth, like their Iranian co-religionists, to turn away.
The third element is Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani. While the most prominent and respected source of emulation today, he is 95 years old and, reportedly, comatose. His son handles most of his business, but he is merely a placeholder who acts in his father’s name but lacks his father’s religious credential. In earlier times, Sistani would pass oblique word via a sermon to condemn Khamenei’s massacres and Maliki’s corruption but today, health and old age lead to silence when a strong voice is most needed.
Change will come to Iran, Iraq and, for that matter, Lebanon as well. It will be not only political, but also sociological. Every bullet Khamenei orders fired, and every dollar Maliki diverts, however, will be a shot at the reputation of Shi’ism that will both undermine it from within and give fodder to those inside Islam and outside who seek to slander it.
