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The State and Khomeini's Islamic Order

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Said Amir Arjomand
Said Amir Arjomand*
Affiliation:
The State University of New York, Stony Brook; St. Antony's College, Oxford
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Extract

The Iraqi invasion of southwestern Iran on September 22, 1980, appears to have halted, though not reversed, one of the most intriguing experiments in modern history: Khomeini's attempt to create a Shi'ite theocracy in which the state is totally subordinated to the clergy and its powers are drastically circumscribed. What follows is an analysis of the theoretical foundations of this attempt, and of the way it has been carried out in practice.

In the chapter of Economy and Society devoted to the analysis of the church-state problem, Weber states:

Whenever hierocratic charisma is stronger than political authority it seeks to degrade it, if it does not appropriate it outright. Since political power claims a competing charisma of its own, it may be made to appear as the work of Satan.

The precondition for the strength of hierocratic charisma is its autonomy, an autonomy which the world religions of salvation grant in principle but which does not always find adequate institutional translation.

Type
Research Article
Information
Iranian Studies , Volume 13 , Issue 1-4: Iranian Revolution in Perspective , 1980 , pp. 147 - 164
Copyright
Copyright © Association For Iranian Studies, Inc 1980

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References

Notes

1. Weber, Max, Economy and Society (New York, 1968), p. 1163.Google Scholar

2. Tellenbach, G., Church, state and Christian Society at the Time of the Investiture Contest (London, 1959 [Leipzig, 1963]; emphasis added), p. 153.Google Scholar

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4. Arjomand, S. A., “The Shi'ite Hierocracy and the State in Pre-Modern Iran: 1785-1890,” European Journal of Sociology XXII, No. 1 (1981), pp. 40–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

5. Arjomand, S. A., “The ‘Ulama's Traditionalist Opposition to Parliamentarianism 1907-1909,” Middle Eastern Studies XVII, No. 2 (1981), pp. 174–190.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6. Mohammad Kazem al-Akhund al-Khorasani, Hashiya Ketab al-Makaseb, n.p. 1901/1319Q, pp. 50-55.

7. H. Enayat, “The Religio-political Thought in Iran during the Constitutional Revolution,” presented at the conference on State, Society and Economy in Nineteenth-Century Iran and the Ottoman Empire, June 17-22, 1978, Babolsar, Iran.

8. Na'ini, Mohammad Hosayn, Tanbih al-'Umma va Tanzih al-Milla, Taleqani, M., ed. (Tehran, 1955/1334).Google Scholar

9. Hairi, A. H., Shi'ism and Constitutionalism in Iran (Leiden, 1977), pp. 193–4.Google Scholar

10. Ibid., pp. 192-3.

11. Ibid., esp. p. 170.

12. Ibid., p. 158. It is true that the Tanbih al-Umma was revived some 45 years later by a staunch opponent of the present regime, Mahmud Taleqani. But the book's revival was entirely due to its vehement attack on tyranny—indirectly identified with the shah's regime. What was totally obscured were the chief intentions of its author: the propagation of constitutionalism, and the legitimation of parliamentary democracy as the means for bringing modern government under the normative governance of the Shi'ite political ethic. Since its revival, the book has remained the object of the keen attention of the religious opposition while the chief concerns of its author have receded even further into obscurity.

13. Weber, op. cit., p. 1195.

14. Blaustein, A. P. and Flanz, G. H., eds., Constitutions of the Countries of the World: Iran, trans. Vafai, Changiz (New York: Oceana Publications, 1980),p. 2.Google Scholar

15. Ibid., p. 4.

16. Naraqi, Mullah Ahmad, ‘Awayid al-Ayyam, (?) Tehran, 1903/1321Q, pp. 185–205.Google Scholar

17. Akhavi, S., Religion and Politics in Contemporary Iran. Clergy-State Relations in the Pahlavi Period (New York, 1980), p. 164.Google Scholar

18. Khomeini, R., Hukumat-e Islami (Najaf, 1971), p. 64.Google Scholar

19. This last step, the jump from the vicegerency of the body of religious jurists to that of the jurist, is the most dubious from the viewpoint of Shi'ite jurisprudence. It was not called for in Khomeini's book, and since the ratification of the Constitution, it has been found objectionable by some of the highest ranking Grand Ayatollahs. It is interesting to note that Shaykh Ali Tehrani who, in Madina-ye Fazila dar Islam (1975-6/1354), had put forward an interpretation of “general vicegerency” virtually identical with Khomeini's, has condemned the restriction of this collective office to an individual as a most reprehensible bed'at (innovation). (Sorush, no. 82, 13 Day 1359, esp. p. 55.)

20. See the appendix (Khatema) to the Persian text in Constitutions of the World: Iran.

21. Le Monde, February 19, 1980.

22. Le Monde, July 3, 1980.

23. Ettela'at, 26 Mordad, 1359.

24. By the beginning of July, after less than ten days of purges, over 1,000 functionaries had been discharged. (Le Monde, July 1, 1980.) The purges continued throughout the month of July all around the country. On the last two days alone of major purges, some 450 functionaries were discharged. (Ettela'at, Mordad 5 and 6, 1359.)

25. Weber, E., “Romania,” in Rogger, H. and Weber, E., The European Right. A Historical Profile (University of California Press, 1966), pp. 525, 532.Google Scholar

26. I. Deák, “Hungary,” in Rogger and Weber, op. cit., pp. 394, 402.

27. See the back pages of Mojahed, Day and Bahman, 1359.

28. Le Monde, January 2, 1981.