home > by publication type > backgrounder > Religion and Politics in Iran
Email
| Author: | Greg Bruno, Staff Writer |
|---|
June 19, 2008
In 2005, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran closed a speech at the United Nations with a call for the "mighty Lord" to "hasten the emergence" of Imam Mahdi, a direct descendent of the Prophet Muhammad. Shia Islam holds that the Mahdi, as the redeemer of Islam, will return from hiding to rid the world of injustice. This belief made Ahmadinejad's plea more than a pious invocation: Some analysts speculate the president was seeking to sow chaos by using religion to further his political goals. The debate reached a boil in May 2008. During a nationally broadcast speech Ahmadinejad suggested that Imam Mahdi supported the day-to-day operations of his government, a claim that brought condemnation from Iran's powerful clerical elite. The president also indirectly accused senior clerics of economic corruption, further upsetting the Iranian clergy and shining a rare spotlight on the increasingly tenuous relationship between politics and faith in post-revolution Iran.
While some would date the birth of political Islam to the life of the prophet, political and religious disagreements that have arisen since the Islamic Revolution of 1979 have their roots in the evolution of the contemporary Iranian state. In 1925, a young military officer, Reza Khan, led a coup that deposed the 131-year-old Qajar dynasty and founded the Pahlavi dynasty. After being named shah, Reza Khan pursued relations with Germany, angering Britain and Russia, and prompting those powers to invade. British and Soviet troops left in 1946, but foreign influence only intensified with the advent of the Cold War. Nationalists, led by Mohammad Mossadeq, rose to power in 1951. But the CIA and British intelligence colluded to topple him two years later, restoring the exiled Pahlavi dynasty to power in the form of Reza Khan's son, Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi. The shah repressed Iran's Islamists, however, and his restoration fostered anger among the general population. By 1979, this discontent boiled over into outright revolution, forcing the shah to flee. On February 1, 1979, Ayatollah Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini returned to Iran from exile in France—though most of his fourteen year absence was spent in the Shia holy city of Najaf, Iraq. He then proceeded to muscle aside the Communists and secular parties that had worked with the Islamists to overthrow the shah, and assumed the levers of power, ending Iran's monarchy.
Under Khomeini the Iranian religious and political landscapes were dramatically transformed, making Shia Islam an inseparable element of the country's political structure. Khomeini ushered in a new form of government anchored by the concept of velayat-e faqih, or rule of the Islamic jurist. In his 1970 book, Hokumat-e Islami: Velayat-e faqih, Khomeini argued that government should be run in accordance to sharia, or Islamic law. For that to happen, an Islamic jurist—or faqih—must oversee the country's political structure. Constitutional changes following the revolution established a system of government based on three pillars of power—the executive, judicial, and legislative branches. But sitting atop the Islamic Republic's power structure was Khomeini.
The stated aim of the Iranian Revolution was to upend the reign of the shah and restore Islamic ideology to Iranian society. "Khomeini used the emotional power of Shia lore and imagery not only to help him seize control of Iran but to lay claim to Shiism's very soul," CFR Adjunct Senior Fellow Vali R. Nasr writes in his 2006 book, The Shia Revival. But more than a reshuffle to the religious hierarchy, Khomeini dramatically altered the state's political landscape. Iran's new leader, Nasr writes, "made Islamic fundamentalism a political force that would change Muslim politics from Morocco to Malaysia."
He did this by turning Shia Islam on its head. In a series of lectures delivered from exile in the early 1970s, Khomeini began arguing that in the absence of the Imam Mahdi—also known as the Hidden Imam or the twelfth imam of the Shia faith—that governments should be run by those with a higher rank among clergies. It was a revolutionary concept in Shia clerical thought, says Afshin Molavi, a Middle East expert at the New America Foundation. As such, "It was rejected by the majority of senior ayatollahs in Iran." But the concept found an audience among young revolutionaries in Qom, Iran's religious center, and formed the theoretical backbone of the movement that would later demand the overthrow of the Pahlavi regime. By the end of the decade Khomeini had succeeded in instituting his ideas, Molavi says, "by the sheer force of his will" as an "uncompromising revolutionary."
Today, Khomeini's teachings and precedents have evolved into a system of government that combines elements of Islamic theocracy with bits of democracy.
Unlike the U.S. system of governance, church and state are inexorably linked in modern-day Iran, and religious precepts form the backbone of Iran's political structure. In theory, the Iranian power structure appears akin to Western frameworks, with clear demarcations of power. But in practice the Iranian system is dominated by a small cadre of religious clerics and revolutionary forefathers. While Iran's massive clerical establishment may hold religious sway, their political influence is contained to a few. According to statistics attributed to German scholar Wilfried Buchta, of the five thousand ayatollahs in Iran in 2000, only eighty participate in government. Gregory F. Giles, an American scholar who has studied the Iranian system of government, writes that an informal "four rings of power" (PDF) permeate the formal government structure. Most of those in the center are revolutionaries close to the supreme leader.
Molavi describes this concept as a system of insiders (khodee) and outsiders (gheyreh khodee) that govern the Iranian establishment. Only insiders—or supporters of the revolution—are granted a wide degree of latitude in criticizing the regime or shaping its future. By contrast, outsiders face harsh repercussion if they speak out of turn. "Few outsiders—secular nationalists or liberal democrats or opponents of the Islamic Republic—have a public voice in the debate," he writes. This top-down autocratic formulation translates into a complex mix of elected and non-elected institutions (BBC) that, in practice, are less democratic than they appear:
Debate over Islam's place in the Iranian political structure is as old as the revolution itself; religion's influence on politics has oscillated over time. During the presidential tenure of Mohammad Khatami, for instance, political and diplomatic reforms weakened the role of religion in policymaking, thereby reducing the clergy's influence over society. Among the influential critics of the theocratic regime during the Khatami era was Abdulkarim Soroush, whose political magazine, Kiyan, long served as a monthly forum for religious intellectualism in the 1990s until it was shut down in 2001. Much of Soroush's criticism was directed at Khatami; he accused the president of failing to make good on his promises. The sentiment gained traction among the electorate, and reformists were upended in the 2005 presidential election by the conservative Ahmadinejad.
Those who continue to advocate for the separation of church and state say they face increasing hostility in the Ahmadinejad era. In late 2006, dissident cleric Seyyed Hossein Kazemeyni Boroujerdi accused Iranian authorities of targeting his supporters and waging a campaign to discredit his movement. The ayatollah told U.S.-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty that "real Islam is free of political ornaments," and that the Iranian public was losing faith in God because of the government's lackluster economic policies. In September 2006, Amnesty International reported that more than three dozen Boroujerdi followers were arrested and detained at Tehran's Evin Prison (PDF).
Dissent is also widespread among the Iranian populace. While social unrest reached a peak during the so-called Tehran Spring of the late 1990s and early 2000s, thirst for reform continues today. "There is a rising tide of anti-clericalism among ordinary Iranians as a result of the failures of the Iranian Republic," Molavi says. Staggering inflation, unemployment, and stagnant wages have prompted a popular, if subdued, ideological backlash against the clerical elite. "Everyone will tell you the anecdotes of clerics having trouble getting taxis to stop for them on the street. This was not the case before the revolution." But Sadjadpour says Iran's leaders have cracked down on open criticism of the regime in recent years. "That type of discussion …has really essentially died down."
Ahmadinejad has upset clerical insiders for an entirely different reason: his advocacy of a cozier marriage of Islam and politics. In a speech to theology students in April 2008, released a month later, Ahmadinejad went further than ever in expressing his belief that Imam Mahdi—also known as the Hidden Imam—steers the country's political engine. The assertion deeply angered the country's ruling clerics. The claim "undermines the cleric's fatwas and their role in government," writes Mehdi Khalaji of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. If the imam were behind all government action, Khalaji says, Ahmadinejad would theoretically bear no responsibility for failure. Ayatollah Mohammad Reza Mahdavi Kani, head of the Combatant Clergy Association, made the same point in May 2008. "If Imam Mahdi is managing the world's affairs, couldn't he do something about the economic mafia? Is the [expensive price of] rice a result of his management also?"
There is another, arguably more esoteric reason for the unrest. According to the doctrine of velayat-e faqih, Iran will be governed by a supreme leader until the appearance of the Hidden Imam (Economist). By claiming the Hidden Imam guides his moves, Ahmadinejad is seen by some as seeking to usurp the authority of the supreme leader. A recent speech (Rooz) by one of Ahmadinejad's closest allies accusing the country's most powerful senior clerics of corruption was interpreted an another sign the president seeks to weaken his rivals. Gary Sick, an Iran expert at Columbia University, sees recent events as clear indications of the president's political goals. "Those who have written off Ahmadinejad in the coming election have a lot of explaining to do," Sick said in an e-mail message to colleagues in June 2008. "He is a ferocious competitor … and a supremely ambitious politician who is a threat to the entire post-revolutionary establishment."
As Ahmadinejad's foray into Islam suggests, the balance of religious and political power in Iran is fluid. In his 2008 analysis of the supreme leader's politics (PDF), Sadjadpour concludes that the death of Khamenei could usher in an era of critical reflection on the regime's very structure. Khamenei himself is said to have questioned whether any one cleric could replace Khomeini after his death, and before his own appointment predicted a council of three to five clerics would have to rule. Molavi says this format could again come into play following Khamenei's exit. But Sadjadpour says rule by council has one major flaw: it would be at odds with the Iranian constitution, which states that "the leader be an individual."
Weigh in on this issue by emailing CFR.org.
Explore international efforts to curb nuclear proliferation with a new interactive from CFR's program on International Institutions and Global Governance.
To order Task Force reports, Council Special Reports, and Critical Policy Choices, please call, fax, or order online from our distributor, the Brookings Institution Press: phone +1.800.537.5487, fax +1.410.516.6998.
For information on other reports that are not for sale, or for general publications information, please call +1.212.434.9516 or email publications@cfr.org.
In War of Necessity, War of Choice, Richard N. Haass contrasts the decisions that shaped the conduct of two wars between the United States and Iraq involving the two presidents Bush and Saddam Hussein, and writes an authoritative, personal account of how U.S. foreign policy is made, what it should seek, and how it should be pursued.
In Cuba: What Everyone Needs to Know, Julia E. Sweig presents a remarkably accessible portrait of Cuba’s unique place on the world stage over the past fifty years, including its internal politics, its often fraught relationship with the United States, and its shifting relationship with the global community.
As Ray Takeyh shows in Guardians of the Revolution, behind the famous personalities and extremist slogans of Iran is a nation that is far more pragmatic—and complex—than many in the West have been led to believe.
Complete list of CFR Books
This report finds that nuclear weapons will remain a fundamental element of U.S. national security in the near term, and makes recommendations on how to ensure the safety, security, and reliability of the U.S. deterrent nuclear force, prevent nuclear terrorism, and strengthen the nuclear nonproliferation regime.
About Independent Task Forces at CFR
Complete list of Task Force reports
The Canadian oil sands present an important challenge to policymakers: they promise energy security benefits but present climate change problems. Michael A. Levi assesses the energy security and climate change effects of the oil sands and makes recommendations for U.S. policymakers within the context of broader bilateral relations with Canada.
This report explores an important element of the maritime policy regime: the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. Author Scott G. Borgerson examines the international negotiations that led to the convention, the history of debates in the United States over whether to join it, and the strategic importance of the oceans for U.S. foreign policy today.
Complete list of Council Special Reports
To request permission to reprint or reuse CFR material, please fill out this permissions request form (PDF), referring to the instructions on page 1.
Copyright 2009 by the Council on Foreign Relations. All Rights Reserved.