Islam: A Guide for Jews and Christians - Electric Scotland

THE UMMA t 153
believers” (muminun) and the Sunni caliphate of “submitters”
(muslimun), as separate institutions. Tactically they might practice
“dissembling” (taqiyya) toward the latter, but in what concerned
their religious practices, their instructors were the ulama, Shiism’s
lawyers. The Shiite ulama were, however, neither as numerous nor
as well trained as their Sunni counterparts until the sixteenth century.
While the Sunni ulama were being formally trained in the
expanding madrasa system—itself possibly a derivative of an earlier
Ismaili Shiite experiment in Cairo—the Shiite lawyer-clergy
received their instruction somewhat haphazardly in an apprentice
arrangement, novice by master, with little certifiable competence
on the part of either. Under Shah Abbas, however, the madrasa
system was introduced into what was by then a Shiite Iran and
thereafter the Shiite ulama, often known as mullahs, grew rapidly
in skill, power, and prestige.
From about 1600, then, the Shiite ulama, who claimed for themselves
the “general representation” of the Hidden Imam, had the
option of cooperating with the government, resisting, or simply
disregarding it. In most cases they have done the latter, which is
obviously the most prudent course in Sunni-dominated lands and
even when the regime is “secular,” as in most of the modern states
that constitute what was once the Abode of Islam. In Safavid Iran,
in contrast, the newly invigorated ulama often dominated the government.
Under their more secular successors, the Qajars and the
Pahlavis (1925–1979), and particularly with the triumph of the
“interpretationist” over the “transmissionist” wing among the ulama,
Iranian mullahs forcefully intervened in politics, particularly
from Iraq, where they were beyond government control, against
the king and for constitutional reform in 1906, for example. The
constitution that was finally adopted on that occasion recognized
Twelver Shiism as the official religion of the Iranian state and appointed
a board of five mujtahids, or “interpreters,” to screen all
new legislation for its agreement with the sharia, an arrangement
that was never put into effect. In more recent times, the Shiite
mullahs were the single most potent force in unseating the shah of
Iran in 1979 and establishing an Islamic republic.