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

Shi’ite Islam in Contemporary Iran 9 1gious knowledge and impeccable character, a marja-e taqlid; he oversees thewhole governmental process for life. His word is assumed to represent the willof the Hidden Imam and thus possesses potentially unlimited political and religiousauthority. The Guardian Council is also composed of clerics, whosemain duty is to make sure that all branches of government follow their versionof Islamic law. The juridical branch is also composed of clerics appointed bythe supreme leader. This version of the constitution enables the clergy to controlall three branches of the government, keeping the president and parliamentsubservient to clerical wishes. Hence, the government is both an absolutisttheocracy and a democratic republic, with the former holding sway overthe latter.Khomeini combined the totalitarian nature of the modern nation-state withan extreme interpretation of the Shi’ite imamate. Many m u j t a h i ds, such as thewell-loved and respected marja-e taqlid Ayatollah Khoie (1899–1992), citedK h o m e i n i ’s system as anti-Shi’ite (Sachedina 2001, 128). Opposition was ruthlesslypersecuted into silence. During Khomeini’s reign, tens of thousands ofmen and women, young and old, were imprisoned and executed, and manywere tortured into giving public recantations of their beliefs, which werebroadcast on radio and television (Abrahamian 1999). The regime’s brutalitywas considered greater than that of the shah’s government (Abrahamian 1999,124–138, 167).Khomeini was made supreme leader, and he ruled until his death in 1989.His word was broadcast as reflecting the will of the Hidden Imam. Indeed, hewas referred to as “Imam”—an epithet only previously used for the Tw e l v eImams of early Shi’ite history. Observers now agree that the position ofsupreme leader as originally conceived was tailored for Khomeini, who was theonly person with enough charisma to bring together the roles of marja-e taqlidand supreme executive leader of a modern state (Sachedina 2001, 142). Oncethe state was equated with religious authority, any person who argued againstthe government’s interpretation of Islam—a process of debate that has beennatural and endemic to Islam since its inception—was now considered an enemyof Islam and of God, and he or she could be imprisoned and killed withreligious legitimation.K h o m e i n i ’s vision turned Iran into a police state run by conservative clergyand backed by a less educated and poorer class of people. The government enteredinto the private and personal lives of Iranians, destroying “all independentforms and institutions of social and cultural life” (Yaghmaian 2002, 143).Radio, television, and newspapers were directly controlled by the government.Iranians were forced to pray, dress, and act a certain way in public. For example,women were compelled to veil their hair and cover their bodies to theirankles and wrists with dark scarves and an overcoat. Men were allowed to wearloose fitting, dark-colored Western-style clothes that reached the ankles and