Shi’ite religious leaders have three crises on their hands, which together create perhaps as great a trial for Shi’ism as Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s 1979 seizure of power in Iran. Traditionally, Shi’ite clergy eschew political roles in government. Theologically, most Shi’ites—with the exception of the Zaydis (Houthis) in Yemen and the Ismailis in Pakistan and Central Asia—believe in the Hidden Imam. According to “Twelver” Shi’i belief, Muhammad al-Mahdi (b. 869) in Samarra, Iraq, did not die but instead went into a minor occultation five years later, where he disappeared but communicated through agents. When the fourth agent died without appointing a successor, Mahdi entered the so-called “major occultation.”
Twelver Shi’ites believe Mahdi will return to usher in a period of just, incorrupt, and Islamic rule on earth. In practice, Shi’i clergy interpreted this to mean that until the Mahdi returned, the world was by nature unjust, corrupt, and, by definition, un-Islamic. In practice, this led to a separation of mosque and state in Shi’ite societies. Ayatollahs might act as an informal supreme court denouncing what they deemed un-Islamic—one prominent example of this was the response to the 1890 Tobacco Regie in Persia—but they would not take a direct role in government.
Simplistically, Khomeini argued the Prophet Muhammad did not separate mosque and state, so neither should those most schooled in religion.
Theologically, Khomeini turned this on its head when he revived the centuries-old but moribund concept of velayat-e faqih (Guardianship of the Jurist), which argued that clergy should have political control. Simplistically, Khomeini argued the Prophet Muhammad did not separate mosque and state, so neither should those most schooled in religion. Rather, society should consider them the most qualified. In effect, Khomeini argued he was not the Mahdi, but rather his deputy on earth.
Nevertheless, that concept of velayat-e faqih was always a minority view among Shi’ites, imposed by the force of gun upon the population by Khomeini and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s regime in Iran and by their proxy Hezbollah in Lebanon. Most Shi’ites instead turned to Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani in Najaf, among other sources of emulation, for more traditional religious interpretation and guidance.
The schism between velayat-e faqih and traditional “Quietist” Shi’ism created a legitimacy crisis inside Iran. Even something as mundane as when Ramadan might start could pose a legitimacy crisis for Iran’s supreme leader if ayatollahs based in Najaf or elsewhere chose a different day. After all, how could Khomeini or Khamenei consider himself a supreme leader and the deputy of the Mahdi on earth and have another cleric contradict him?
The events surrounding the ongoing Iran war create three near simultaneous crises for Shi’ism. The first is the brutality of Ali Khamenei. While it is natural to circle the wagons in the face of an external threat, doing so risks ignoring, if not justifying, the slaughter of 40,000 Shi’ites over the course of two days by a regime purporting to derive its legitimacy wholly from Shi’ism itself. Indeed, many young Iranians have turned from Shi’ism in recent years out of disgust with Iran’s clerical hierarchy. Some now revert to pre-Islamic Zoroastrian practice; anecdotally, conversions to Christianity among Iranians are at an all-time high. Many others have simply become atheists. While clerical leaders can lament this turn, they must grapple with a very real problem: Young Iranians look at ayatollahs the same way abused altar boys approach the Catholic Church.
The second crisis is Mojtaba Khamenei’s purported ascendency. There has always been a class dynamic within the Shi’ite hierarchy. Scholarship matters, but so does the pedigree—Shirazi, al-Sadr, al-Hakim, Tabatabaei, Ashtiani, and al-Khoei, among others. Nevertheless, there is a limit to the privilege aspiring students and clergy from these families can expect. The Khameneis, however, now shatter this meritocracy. After sidelining Grand Ayatollah Hussein-Ali Montazeri over doubts about his commitment to velayat-e faqih, Khomeini appointed Ali Khamenei as his successor, despite Khamenei’s lack of top religious credentials.
Simply put, Khamenei was a theological lightweight who, among his peers, was the equivalent of the salutatorian of the summer school class. Mojtaba, his son, was not even an ayatollah; on the day the regime appointed him to succeed his father, Iranian press still referred to him as a hojjat al-Islam, a learned rank but one that falls short of ayatollah. To allow his succession to move forward is a direct assault on the traditional hierarchy and the learning incumbent at each level. In effect, Mojtaba represents not the supreme leadership of Iran but instead personifies the degradation of religious scholarship and its subordination to family and politics.
On March 8, 2026, Sistani reportedly issued a fatwa decreeing a “collective religious obligation” to defend Shi’ism under attack in Iran.
The final crisis involves Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani. At 95 years old, he is the marja’ at-taqlid (source of emulation) who has the most followers, from Mashhad to Michigan. Sistani opposes the current war against Iran, which is fine: He has a long record of advocating for international law and eschewing violence. On March 8, 2026, Sistani reportedly issued a fatwa decreeing a “collective religious obligation” to defend Shi’ism under attack in Iran; this was his first time making such a call since his 2014 fatwa urging all Muslims to counter the blasphemy that the Islamic State represented.
The problem is, however, that Sistani is reportedly comatose, being kept alive by life support. The question then becomes: Who is issuing statements in his name? In all likelihood, it is Muhammad Ridha al-Sistani, his son. This is problematic: There is a huge difference between an ayatollah’s son managing his office (as Mojtaba did with Ali Khamenei) and even issuing statements on behalf of his father while his father is alive and cognizant, and another using his father’s mantle to originate statements on his own when the son does not have his father’s rank or respect. In effect, Sistani’s office, which was once the buffer against Khamenei’s corruption of Shi’ism, now risks becoming part of it as Muhammad-Ridha places his own anger at Israel and the United States above Shi’ism itself.
The question for the next generation is whether, after the Islamic Republic’s wing of Shi’ism associated a creed with political corruption, corruption, and nepotism, and Sistani’s son also subordinated traditional religious procedure and process to politics, how long it will take traditional Shi’ism to recover—if, indeed, it can, or if the ongoing Iran crisis marks a real inflection point into corrosive populism.
