The Pillars of the Mullahs' Rule
The vali-e-faqih is empowered to abrogate the religious commitments he has undertaken with the people should he find them contrary to the interests of the nation and Islam. Governing is one dimension of the absolute authority of the velayat-e-faqih and takes precedence over all secondary commandments, even prayer, fasting, and the hajj.
-Khomeini's open letter to Ali Khamenei, January 7,19881
The government of Khomeini and his successors is based on a theory of government called velayat-e-faqih, literally meaning the guardianship of the religious jurist. The essence of the theory, developed and applied by Khomeini, is that one man with a thorough knowledge of Islamic law is designated as vali-e-faqih, heir to the Prophet Muhammad and the Imams (Leaders). He also acts as vice regent to the Mahdi, the messianic Twelfth Imam of Shi'ite Islam. The vali wields absolute authority and sovereignty over the affairs of the entire Muslim nation. No public or private matter concerning a Muslim or anyone living in the Islamic world is beyond the vali's jurisdiction.
Velayat-e-faqih is in fact the essence of the Iranian mullahs' Islamic Republic. Incorporated into the constitution after the shah's overthrow, the immense powers bestowed on the vali-e-faqih have been expanded since Khomeini's death. An understanding of exactly what the doctrine of velayat-e-faqih is and how it functions is essential to understanding the theocracy in Iran and its drive to export fundamentalism.
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The abolition in 1924 of the Ottoman Caliphate by Turkey's Great National Assembly was a turning point in contemporary Islamic history. For centuries, the Ottoman sultans had proclaimed themselves to be caliphs, the absolute civil and religious leaders of Muslims. Although the Ottomans governed only part of the Islamic world and their authority was challenged even within their empire, the abolition of the caliphate generated profound debate among a wide spectrum of Islamic political thinkers. Various theories and hypotheses emerged on the role of religion in the Islamic community. In Egypt, for example, a group of Sunni fundamentalists put forth the thesis of the "Islamic state."
Nearly half a century later, Khomeini published his absolutist views on the Islamic state in Najaf, site of one of Shi'ite Islam's two major theological schools. He had taken up residence there after being exiled to Iraq by the shah. At the time, Khomeini could not have foreseen that he would one day be able to put his theory into practice. His book, entitled Velayat-e-faqih, is essentially limited to a general discourse on the necessity of the Muslim ummah's (nation's) being ruled by "just theologians."
Without elaborating on the economic, political, or social outline of his proposed system of government, Khomeini stressed that "there are no real boundaries between Islamic countries." He wrote: "If a competent person possessing these characteristics [those of a faqih] arises and forms a government, his authority to administer the society's affairs is the same as that Prophet Muhammad enjoyed. Everyone must obey him. The idea that the Prophet had more authority as a ruler than His Holiness Imam Ali [the first Shi'ite Imam], or that the latter's authority exceeded that of the vali is incorrect."2
Most of the Shi'ite clergy strongly opposed Khomeini's doctrine, saying it contradicted the principles of Islam. As a gesture of protest against his views, many of the students and instructors boycotted Khomeini's classes in Najaf seminary, a rare act in Muslim theological schools. Other religious authorities viewed Khomeini's ideas as the scholastic dissertations of a mullah in a seminary. Once in power, however, Khomeini demonstrated that the book was the blueprint of his rule, a blueprint on which he later elaborated, granting himself far greater authority than that which even the Prophet had assumed. When, in January 1988, the incumbent president and future vali-e-faqih, Ali Khamenei, said in a Friday prayer sermon that "governmental authority is contained within the bounds of divine edicts,"3 Khomeini lambasted his protege in an open letter:
The statements of your Friday prayer sermon indicate that you disagree with the premise that governance, in the sense of the absolute guardianship bestowed upon the Prophet of God, which constitutes the most imperative divine decree, should take precedence over all secondary commandments. Such an interpretation of my words - that the government's authority is limited by divine edicts - totally contradicts my statements. If the government's authority were bound by secondary commandments, I would have to say that the divine rule and absolute authority conferred upon the Prophet would be devoid of meaning and content. . . . I should point out that governing is one dimension of the absolute authority of the Prophet's velayat-e-faqih. It is one of Islam's primary decrees, and takes precedence over all secondary commandments, even prayer, fasting, and the hajj. . . . The vali-e-faqih is empowered to unilaterally abrogate the religious commitments he has undertaken with the people should he find them contrary to the interests of the nation and Islam. He can ban any religious or non-religious matter contrary to the interests of Islam. . . . The statements made, or being made, derive from a lack of knowledge of divinely ordained absolute rule.4
Khomeini likened the vali's authority over the people to that of a guardian over a minor or mentally incompetent adult. "The velayat-e-faqih is like appointing a guardian for a minor. In terms of his responsibility and status, the guardian of a nation is no different from the guardian of a minor."5 This dismissal of the notion of popular will characterized Khomeini's rule, during which he repeatedly declared that if the entire population advocated something to which he was opposed, he would nevertheless do as he saw fit.
Interestingly, as he rose to power prior to the shah's fall, Khomeini made no mention of the velayat-e-faqih theory in his many interviews in France. Asserting that he intended to withdraw from politics, Khomeini claimed that neither his desires and inclinations, nor his age and position would permit him to personally play a role in the post-shah government.6 When asked if he sought to serve as the head of an Islamic state and if he intended to involve himself in the daily affairs of government, Khomeini reiterated his previous answer, adding that the people's elected representatives would choose the government.7
Khomeini's dissembling helped him ride on the wave of popular religious sentiments and hijack the leadership of the 1979 revolution. He exploited the Iranian people's abhorrence of the shah's open antagonism toward Islam and Islamic traditions. Moreover, two generations of the Pahlavi dictatorship had kept the general public largely unaware of political realities and complexities. The shah's secret police, SAVAK, had brutally suppressed in the 1960s and '70s all active opposition groups, notably the People's Mojahedin. When the shah reluctantly eased the repression and restricted the powers of SAVAK in the mid 1970s, the Khomeini-led clerical network was the only entity outside the government capable of acting as a cohesive political alternative.
Two Pillars of Khomeini's Rule
lthough Khomeini usurped the leadership of the 1979 revolution, he was incapable of directing a nation of sixty million toward freedom, economic prosperity, and social progress in the final decades of the twentieth century. As his velayat-e-faqih doctrine dictates, he chose a two-pronged policy to stay in power: repression at home and export of revolution abroad. As the first ruler in Iranian as well as Shi'ite history with supreme religious and political authority, he was able to advance both policies, particularly the brutal enforcement of oppression.
In the first weeks after the shah's ouster, the mullahs laid the foundations for suppression, mobilizing terror squads to intimidate all opposition to their rule. Within two and a half years, they had formed such repressive organizations as the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (the Pasdaran), Islamic Revolutionary Courts, Islamic Revolutionary Committees (the Komitehs), Guards Corps Mobilization (the Bassij), and others in government offices, schools, universities, the armed forces, and the bazaar. This sprawling apparatus made possible a reign of terror to support the velayat-e-faqih.
The early years of the clerical rule also saw a return to censorship, closure of non-government newspapers, and more extensive attacks on political rallies and gatherings than during the shah's time. Election rigging and fraud prevented the election to parliament or high office of any opposition candidate. When Massoud Rajavi, the popular leader of the People's Mojahedin and candidate of the democratic opposition, ran for president in 1980, Khomeini issued a decree formally declaring him ineligible to run for the office, because the Mojahedin had boycotted the referendum on the new constitution.8
By June 1981, several thousand political prisoners had been tortured and nearly 100 supporters of the People's Mojahedin Organization murdered. Finally, on June 20, 1981, Khomeini ordered the Guards to open fire on 500,000 Tehran residents who participated in a peaceful demonstration held by the Mojahedin to protest the return to despotism. That date marked the beginning of mass executions, sweeping arrests, and general suppression.9 The mullahs' most outrageous crimes, such as sending pregnant women before firing squads, were all sanctioned by religious fatwas (decrees) issued by Khomeini or by religious judges.
But as Khomeini had repeatedly emphasized, the duties of the vali-e-faqih were not limited to political or governmental issues. The vali supervised and ruled over all of the relations and affairs of every individual member of the society, whether ideological, intellectual, private, or public. The mullahs' network acted as "absolute guardian" over the people, in much the same manner as the Catholic Church had ruled during the medieval Inquisition. Khomeini even declared it a religious duty for family members to spy on one another.
But suppression was not, by itself, a sufficient safeguard for the new regime. The antimonarchic revolution had released the energy of Iran's youth, which, as in most developing countries, represented a sizeable force. The enormous changes within the society raised the younger generations' expectations that the new regime would resolve the country's economic and social problems. Prior to the outbreak of the Iran-Iraq War in September 1980, an increasing number of young people, disillusioned by the mullahs' betrayal of their pre-revolutionary promises, joined the growing ranks of the opposition. Within two years, the Mojahedin had emerged, according to independent polls, as the largest political party and best organized force in the country, outranking the ruling Islamic Republic Party.1O
The Saudi weekly, Al Majalla (4 December 1991), quoted a member of the post-shah editorial board of a major Iranian newspaper, Kayhan, as saying:
In the early months of the Islamic Republic in Iran in 1979, one of the more popular dailies conducted a poll on the popularity of parties, political organizations and personalities directly involved in the victory of Iran's revolution. Under the circumstances at the time, the daily's editors were obviously frightened, and thus declared Khomeini as the most popular personality, although he had come in fourth. Next was Massoud Rajavi, the leader of the Mojahedin Organization, who was favored by 90% of the readers. Rajavi was first among 80 political parties and organizations.
To consolidate his rule and contain the desertion of his followers to the ranks of the opposition, Khomeini stepped up the suppression of dissidents. But he also began to rely on the second pillar of the velayat-e-faqih, the export of revolution and fundamentalism. Only nine months after the shah's downfall, the Khomeini regime occupied the American Embassy in Tehran, the first essential step in focusing public attention on foreign targets. Using "anti-imperialist" slogans, Khomeini first purged internal rivals. Within days, he disposed of Mehdi Bazargan's cabinet, which he had the previous year proclaimed the "government of the Mahdi (Messiah)," and granted greater authority to the clergy to run the country's affairs.11
Next, he tried to use what he claimed were threats from abroad to combat the Mojahedin's demand for political freedoms. On the pretext of an anti, imperialist struggle, he accused the democratic opposition forces, and particularly the Mojahedin, of "liberalism" and of close ties with the United States. Khomeini thus set the stage for a final crackdown.
As the newspapers' headlines of that period show, Rajavi had in an earlier meeting with Khomeini reminded him that freedom and democracy were the spirit of the revolution and essence of true Islam. By his "anti-imperialist" motto, Khomeini was trying to make it appear that any demands for democracy and freedom were petty and diversionary. In his efforts, Khomeini enjoyed the support of a dozen Marxist-Leninist parties, especially the Tudeh Party, which cooperated with Khomeini in the Mojahedin's suppression.
Concurrent with the hostage crisis, the clerics pursued a policy of aggression, encroaching on neighboring Muslim countries, especially Iraq. Khomeini referred to the devastating eight-year war that followed as a "divine blessing," exploiting it to divert millions of Iranians awakened by the 1979 revolution. Under such pretexts as "defending the Islamic nation" or "liberating Qods [Jerusalem] through Karbala," the mullahs issued "keys to heaven" to children sent over the mine fields, and made maximum use of the conflict to justify the domestic repression. The twin pillars of the velayat-e-faqih - repression at home and export of revolution - kept the Khomeini regime in power despite all odds.
Velayat-e-faqih in the Constitution
Before the shah's overthrow, Khomeini had promised in Paris that the constitution of the future regime would be determined by a popularly elected constituent assembly. Well aware, however, that such an assembly would never support his absolutist doctrine, Khomeini, once in Tehran, replaced the promised constituent assembly with a smaller body called the Assembly of Experts, chiefly composed of mullahs close to his line of thinking. That assembly drafted a constitution that incorporated the principle of velayat-e-faqih.
The preamble to the constitution ratified by the Assembly of Experts notes: "Based on the principle of the Guardianship of the Islamic State and the leadership of the Muslim Nation, the Constitution provides a basis for the leadership of a fully qualified faqih whom the people consider as leader, to ensure that no institution deviates from its Islamic mandate."12 Principle 4 elaborates on the mechanism by which the vali-e-faqih has universal jurisdiction, providing quasi, legal justification to the supremacy of the vali's will over the law. "All civil, penal, monetary, cultural, military, and political laws must be based on the Islamic principles."13 Naturally, the interpretation of what is or is not an "Islamic principle" falls within the authority of the vali-e-faqih and the Council of Guardians, another body of mullahs appointed by the vali. Despite the superficial separation of the three branches of government, the constitution delegates their control entirely to the vali-e-faqih. Principle 57 says: "The legislative, executive, and judicial branches in the Islamic Republic of Iran are under the supervision of the vali-e-faqih and the Imam of the Islamic ummah." Since supreme religious and political authority rests in the hands of one person, the Imam's power far exceeds that of any contemporary head of state. Principle 110 of the constitution lists the vali-e-faqih's powers as follows:
A. Appointing members of the Council of Guardians;
B. Appointing Head of the Judiciary;
C. Supreme Command of the Armed Forces as the following:
1 Appointing and dismissing the Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces
2 Appointing and dismissing Commander in Chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps
3 Forming the Supreme National Defense Council of the following seven members:
• President
• Prime Minister
• Minister of Defense
• Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces
• Commander in Chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps. Two advisors designated by the Leader
4 Appointing the supreme commanders of the three forces upon the suggestions made by the Supreme Defense Council;
5 Declaring war, peace, and troop mobilizations upon the suggestion of the Supreme Defense Council;
D. Signing the decree naming the President after popular elections. The competence of presidential candidates, as per the conditions stipulated by the Constitution, must be approved prior to the elections by the Council of Guardians and confirmed by the Imam during the first electoral round;
E. Impeaching the President for reasons of national interest pursuant to a verdict by the Supreme Court confirming his violation of his legal duties or a vote of no confidence by the Islamic Consultative Assembly, as per Principle 89;
F. Pardoning convicts or commuting their sentences.
Accordingly, no civil or military affair falls beyond the vali-e-faqih's jurisdiction. Khomeini and his aides added two other prerogatives to further consolidate the vali's position:
1 The formation of numerous institutions comprised of mullahs personally appointed by the vali-e-faqih to control other governmental organs. These institutions include the Council for the Determination of Exigencies of the State, the Council for Constitutional Revision, and the Council of Guardians.
2 The establishment of representative offices of the vali-e-faqih in all ministries, administrative offices, military and security organizations, universities, judicial organs, and so on. These representatives, all of them mullahs, act as ideological commissars. The bitter rivalries between the bureaucratic and clerical hierarchies breed tension and crisis in the governmental apparatus.
The various powers invested by the constitution in the vali-e-faqih, however, were still fewer than those envisioned by Khomeini, who in the previously cited open letter to Khamenei, introduced the notion of velayat-e-motlaqeh-faqih (absolute rule of the jurist). On Khomeini's instructions, Ahmad Azari-Qomi, a senior conservative cleric, defined the theoretical basis of such absolute rule in a series of newspaper editorials:
The velayat-e-faqih means absolute religious and legal guardianship of the people by the faqih. This guardianship applies to the entire world and all that exists in it, whether earthbound or flying creatures, inanimate objects, plants, animals, and anything in any way related to collective or individual human life, all human affairs, belongings, or assets. It also applies to God's religion, whether the primary and secondary commandments, worship, politics, social or family affairs and obligations, or what Islam recommends, tolerates or prohibits. 14
Discussing the "meaning of velayat," Azari-Qomi wrote: "During his rule, God's representative [the vali-e-faqih] may temporarily ban prayer, fasting, the hajj, and the promotion of virtue and prohibition of vice as he sees fit. In these circumstances, he may order the home of a Muslim demolished, or order him to divorce his wife."15 In another editorial, Azari-Qomi wrote: "Islam prohibits the marriage of a virgin girl without the permission of her father and her own consent. Both of them must agree. But the vali-e-faqih is authorized to overrule the father or the girl and to order them to act contrary to their shared view."16
Azari-Qomi further noted: "All members of the Iranian nation, including all Muslims, religious minorities, and opponents of the revolution, must legally recognize, accept, and obey the rule of velayat-e-faqih as stipulated in the Constitution of the Islamic Republic and obey its eminent leader. The verdict of the Islamic ruler is incumbent upon, and mandatory for, all individuals, even for an Islamic jurisprudent or expert who does not accept the principle of the velayat-e-faqih, or those who accept the principle but do not accept its absoluteness."17.
