Islam in World Cultures: Comparative Perspectives - Islamic Books ...

9 0Islam i n World Cult u r e s“fundamentalist” return to premodern modes of government, nor did it rejectmodern technology and secular institutions. On the contrary, according toone observ e r, his political actions were similar to those of the secular leftist revolutionarieswho led the modern populist revolts of recent South Americanh i s t o ry (Abrahamian 1993, 26–32). Khomeini, especially after writing Ve l a y a t - eF a q i h , openly exploited class antagonisms in order to mobilize the poor andthe oppressed to revolt against the oppressors, which came to include theshah, his supporters, and all foreign—especially Western—powers. Khomeinialso made remarkable use of such modern technology as tape recorders tospread his message from exile to the people of Iran. His revolution was not tobring about total dissolution of class difference, as liberal Marxists hoped, orto install premodern institutions of rule and technologies, as some peoplemight define a religious “fundamentalist” program. Rather, after the Revolution,he upheld class differences, utilized modern technology, and implementedeven greater state control by expanding the secular institutions of governmentand economy created by the shah. Just as the leaders of certainsuccessful, popularly supported revolts in South America ended up keepingthe status quo as new dictators, so also Khomeini, after the departure ofMuhammad Reza, became the latest despot, over a police state even more brutalthan the shah’s. Ostensibly, what made Khomeini’s revolution Islamic wasthe modernized religious ideology that backed it, the installation of clergy inpositions of power, and the enforcement of an extremist form of Islamic law,all of which were and continue to be contested by many Iranian intellectuals asmeasures that contradict the spirit and form of Muslim teachings.It took a few years for Khomeini to eliminate the opposition and accomplishthese tasks. During the first year of the Revolution, politically diverse partieshotly debated the role of Islamic teachings and the Shi’ite clergy in thenew government. In 1979, a multiparty interim government composed of bothlay and clerical members began the task of writing a constitution for the newlyestablished Islamic Republic of Iran. The first draft of this document wasbased on European constitutions, which organized the government into legislative,executive, and juridical branches as checks and balances to power andprovided for a democratically elected term president and parliament. Manypeople in the interim government, such as Bani Sadr and Prime MinisterBazargan, wanted a secular Iranian state based upon those of European nations,keeping clergy and most of the government separate (Sick 2001, 193).H o w e v e r, before the constitution was completely ratified, the clergy, withK h o m e i n i ’s tacit approval, revised and added to the constitution articles107–112 (Algar 1980, 66–69), giving the clergy enormous power based uponK h o m e i n i ’s interpretation of velayat-e faqih. To the dismay of moderate clergyand secularists, two positions of authority were created: a supreme leader anda Guardian Council. The supreme leader is to be a cleric of the highest reli-