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202 Appendix
of Ali and of his descendents, and even through martyrdom, to defend the
community of believers against the evil power.
Consequently, it is a matter of organization. Among the Shi'ite clergy, re­
ligious authority is not determined by a hierarchy. One follows only the one
to whom one wants to listen. The Grand Ayatollahs of the moment, those
who, in facing down the king, his police, and the army, have just caused an
entire people to come out into the streets, were not enthroned by anybody.
They were listened to. This is true even in the smallest communities, where
neighborhood and village mullahs gather around themselves those attracted
by their words. From these volunteers comes their subsistence, from them
comes what is necessary to support the disciples they train, and from them
comes their influence. But from them also comes the unrelenting plea to de­
nounce injustice, to criticize the government, to rise up against unacceptable
measures, and to mete out blame and to prescribe. These men of religion are
like so many photographic plates on which the anger and the aspirations of
the community are marked. If they wanted to go against the current, they
would lose this power, which essentially resides in the interplay of speaking
and listening.
Let us not embellish things. The Shi'ite clergy is not a revolutionary force.
Since the seventeenth century, it has administered the official religion. The
mosques and the tombs of the saints have received valuable donations. Con­
siderable goods have been accumulated in its hands, leading to conflicts as
well as complicities with the people in power. This has also led to many
oscillations, even if it is true that the mullahs, especially the most humble
ones, have been most often on the side of the rebels. For example, Ayatollah
Kashani was at the peak of his popularity during the time that he supported
Mossadeq. After he changed sides, he was fo rgotten. 42
The mullahs are not at all "revolutionary, " even in the populist sense of
the term. But this does not mean that the weight of inertia is the only thing
that the Shi'ite religion can put forth in opposition to the government and
to the detested modernization. This does not mean that it constitutes an ideology
that is so widespread among ·the people that true revolutionaries are
forced for a time to join it. It is much more than a simple vocabulary through
which aspirations, unable to find other words, must pass. It is today what
it was several times in the past, the form that the political struggle takes as
soon as it mobilizes the common people. It transforms thousands of forms
of discontent, hatred, misery, and despairs into a force. It transforms them
into a force because it is a form of expression, a mode of social relations, a
supple and widely accepted elemental organization, a way of being together,
a way of speaking and listening, something that allows one to be listened to