Sistani and Khamenei: The Kid Glove and the Iron Fist

Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei speaks at the Hussayniyeh of Imam Khomeini in Tehran, Iran, August 13, 2018. Official Khamenei website/Handout via REUTERS
Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei speaks at the Hussayniyeh of Imam Khomeini in Tehran, Iran, August 13, 2018. Official Khamenei website/Handout via REUTERS
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Sistani and Khamenei: The Kid Glove and the Iron Fist

Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei speaks at the Hussayniyeh of Imam Khomeini in Tehran, Iran, August 13, 2018. Official Khamenei website/Handout via REUTERS
Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei speaks at the Hussayniyeh of Imam Khomeini in Tehran, Iran, August 13, 2018. Official Khamenei website/Handout via REUTERS

With the latest nationwide protests in Iran -the second in less than a year- dominating the headlines, other significant developments there may not attract the attention they deserve.

One such development concerns the Shiite clergy facing what could be the biggest challenge it has faced since its formation in the 16th century.

Because many members of the ruling elite in the Islamic Republic wear clerical clothes, complete with black or white turbans, and sport mandatory beards, outside observers often assume that the Shiite clergy as an institution rules Iran. A closer look, however, may show that such a view is more due to an optic illusion than to reality.

According to best estimates, Iran, India, and Iraq, which together account for almost 80 percent of all Shiites, are home to some 400,000 clerics, most of them Iranians or boasting some Iranian background. And, yet, only a fraction is involved with the Islamic Republic in Tehran.

The Islamic Republic employs an estimated 25,000 clerics in Iran and finances a further 10,000 clerics in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, Afghanistan, India, Pakistan, and several other African and Asian countries. In Iran, the largest corps of mullahs on government payroll is made of the 3600 Friday Prayer Leaders’ network, all appointed by “Supreme Guide” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Also appointed and financed by Khamenei is a nine-ayatollah “Council of Fatwa” in Qom that includes such prominent figures as Ayatollah Nasser Makarem Shirazi. The Islamic Republic also controls and finances the “Howzeh Elmieh “ (Scientific Circle) in Qom, head by Ayatollah Muhammad Yazdi.

And, yet, the bulk of the clergy in Iran has managed to maintain much of its traditional independence from political power.

According to estimates by Hassan Khalkhali, a prominent researcher of clerical issues, as far as the number of followers (muqalledin) is concerned state-appointed clerics represent no more than 10 percent of the “flock”.

More than 90 percent of Iranians who still pay “khoms” and “sahm e Imam”, that is to say, informal taxes to clerics, direct their money at mullahs as far away from the state as possible in Iran’s present circumstances.

According to sources in Qom, Grand Ayatollah Ali Muhammad Sistani, a prominent Iranian cleric living in Najaf, Iraq, and acknowledged as the current “Marja’a Taqlid” (Source of Emulation) receives more than half of all “donations” made in Iran, in turn re-cycling them through over 150 business enterprises and charities.

All this means that the late Ayatollah Ruhallah Khomeini dream of a fusion of religion and state in Iran has not been achieved. The Islamic Republic he found has quickly reverted to the original Safavid model in which the Shiite clergy played a prominent role while ultimate political power rested with the ruler.

Under Khomeini and Khamenei, the role of the ruler is played by a cleric who, nevertheless, is unable to claim supremacy in religious matters.

Being one of the top 20 ayatollahs then in circulation in his time, Khomeini was “Marja’a taqlid” for many believers in parts of Iran but never achieved the supremacy that grand ayatollahs such as Abol-Hassan Isfahani or Muhammad Hussein Borujerdi had reached in their respective eras.

Today, Khamenei’s status as a pretender to “marjaiyah” is even more dubious.

According to Kazem Assar, a leading authority on Shiite clerical matters, the “Marj’a” should fulfill five conditions.

The first is that he should be a descendant of Fatimah, daughter of the Prophet. The second is that he should be of Iranian background and nationality. The third is that he should be fluent in both Persian and Arabic. Fourth, the would-be “Marja’a” should have published a “risalah” (dissertation) attesting to his scholarship. Finally, he should be recognized, at least implicitly, by a number of grand ayatollahs as primus inter pares (first among equals).

Khamenei fulfills the first three conditions, but is nowhere near achieving the last two.

His entourage spread rumors that he has put final touches to his “risalah’ which will be out soon. People close to Khamenei’s circle say his “risalah” is ready, but afraid of possible criticism, he keeps postponing full publication. The same fear has prevented him from publishing collections of his poems composed over more than half a century but known only to a handful of confidants.

He also receives flattering messages from ayatollahs he pays in Qom and elsewhere but is never acknowledged as “first among equals.” This last point has caused him some problems.

For example, he cannot travel to Najaf, Iraq, the “holiest” city of Shi’ism because if he goes there he cannot do without seeing Sistani and the two or three other grand ayatollahs resident there. However, it is unlikely that Sistani and possibly the other grand ayatollahs would agree to go to wherever Khamenei is staying in Najaf because that would mean acknowledging him as their superior.

In contrast, if Khamenei goes to Sistani’s house, for example, it would mean relinquishing his claim of being the leader of Shi’ism or, as the Constitution of his republic claims, of the “Islamic Ummah” as a whole.

Similar considerations have prevented Sistani from traveling to Iran.

Before Khomeini seized power in 1979, Sistani used to travel to Iran every year for pilgrimages to Qom and his own native city of Mashhad. He had to end that tradition because if he went to Iran he would have to call on Khomeini or Khamenei, thus acknowledging them as superiors. At the same time if he ignored them, and they did not come to call on him, that could signal a major clerical schism.

Meanwhile, a new generation of clerics is emerging in Qom and Najaf that, provided religion remains a key factor in society, are likely to put as much blue water between themselves and Khomeini’s world vision as possible. For example, Grand Ayatollah Muhammad Jawad Alavi Borujerdi who, while maintaining polite relations with Khamenei, is slowly tracing a completely different path for the community.

The top four grand ayatollahs in Najaf and the nine officially sanctioned ones in Qom are in their 80s. And Khamenei himself is knocking on the door of his ninth decade. All of which means the current Shiite clerical hierarchy cannot be regarded as a long-term structure.

The creation of the Islamic Republic was an “innovation” (bed’ah) bound to be rejected by Shiite religious tradition. It was an attempt at the fusion of political and religious powers, something anathema to the original Safavid model. In the past four decades, it has divided Shiism into two realities: one religious, the other political, trying to co-exist but not without difficulty.

As a political reality, Shiism is today headed by Khamenei controls a major country and, despite current cash-flow problems, significant financial and economic resources. That reality can buy political support in many centers while also financing parallel armies and mercenary parties in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, Gaza and elsewhere. Yet, it cannot win authority on religious grounds. Even in Lebanon where the Islamic Republic has spent over $ 20 billion in the past decades, the overwhelming majority of Shiites look to Najaf and Qom, not Tehran, for religious guidance.

The way Sistani and Khamenei have reacted to the current political turmoil in Iraq and Iran highlights the politico-theological schizophrenia hat inflicts Shiism today. Sistani takes the side of the protesters, counseling kid-gloves treatment by the authorities, because he aims to maintain links with the community. Khamenei counsels the iron fist method because he wants to prolong the political status quo.



War-weary Syrians and Lebanese Watch from the Sidelines as Missiles Fly in Israel-Iran Conflict 

A Syrian man takes pictures with his mobile phone of Iranian missiles on their way toward Israel, as they pass over Damascus airspace, Syria, Friday, June 13, 2025. (AP)
A Syrian man takes pictures with his mobile phone of Iranian missiles on their way toward Israel, as they pass over Damascus airspace, Syria, Friday, June 13, 2025. (AP)
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War-weary Syrians and Lebanese Watch from the Sidelines as Missiles Fly in Israel-Iran Conflict 

A Syrian man takes pictures with his mobile phone of Iranian missiles on their way toward Israel, as they pass over Damascus airspace, Syria, Friday, June 13, 2025. (AP)
A Syrian man takes pictures with his mobile phone of Iranian missiles on their way toward Israel, as they pass over Damascus airspace, Syria, Friday, June 13, 2025. (AP)

In a park overlooking Damascus, 25-year-old Khaldoun Hallak has spent the past few evenings with his friends, drinking yerba mate, snacking on nuts, smoking hookah pipes and watching the sky for missiles streaking overhead.

“We’ve been through 14 years of war, and this is the first time Syria has nothing to do with it and we’re just spectators,” Hallak said.

Since Israel launched a barrage of strikes on Iran last week and Iran retaliated with missile and drone attacks against Israel, neighboring countries have been in the flight path.

Outside the scope

Downed missiles and drones have fallen in Syria, Lebanon and Iraq, damaging houses, causing fires and reportedly killing one woman in Syria. But those countries have so far not been dragged directly into the conflict, which had killed at least 224 people in Iran and 24 in Israel as of Tuesday, and many in their war-weary populations are hoping it stays that way.

In Lebanon, which is still reeling from last year’s war between Israel and the Hezbollah party, videos making the rounds on social media have shown revelers dancing on rooftops while projectiles flash across the sky in the background.

Firas Maksad, managing director for the Middle East and North Africa at the Eurasia Group, a New York-based risk consultancy organization, happened to be visiting Lebanon when the conflict broke out and was attending a wedding when a parade of missiles began lighting up the sky as the DJ played ABBA’s disco hit “Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight)”. He posted a video of the scene that went viral.

“Certainly most in Lebanon and also Syria are very satisfied to be outside the scope of this,” Maksad said.

No longer in the spotlight, a sense of relief

For some in the region, there is also measure of schadenfreude in watching the two sides exchange blows.

There’s a Syrian expression that literally translates as, “The fang of a dog in the hide of a pig.” It means that two people perceived as despicable are fighting with each other. The phrase has surfaced frequently on social media as Syrians express their feelings about the Israel-Iran conflict.

Watching from a park

Many Syrians resented Iran’s heavy-handed intervention in support of former President Bashar al-Assad during the country’s civil war, but are also angered by Israel’s incursions and airstrikes in Syria since Assad’s fall. The Syrian population also widely sympathizes with the Palestinians, particularly with civilians killed and displaced by the ongoing war in Gaza.

“May God set the oppressors against each other,” said Ahmad al-Hussein, 18, in Damascus, who was sitting in a park with friends waiting to see missiles pass overhead Monday night. “I hope it continues. We’ve been harmed by both of them.”

Hallak echoed the sentiment.

“Every time we see a missile going up, we say, may God pour gasoline on this conflict,” he said. “If one side is hit, we will be happy, and if the other side is hit, we will also be happy. We will only be upset if there is a reconciliation between them.”

In Lebanon, where last year’s Israel-Hezbollah war killed more than 4,000 people, including hundreds of civilians, and left destruction in wide swathes of the country’s south and east and in Beirut’s southern suburbs, some see retribution in the footage of destroyed buildings in Tel Aviv.

Hezbollah remains largely quiet

A US-brokered ceasefire deal brought an end to the latest Israel-Hezbollah war in November. The group, which lost much of its senior leadership and arsenal in the conflict, has remained largely quiet since then and has given no indication that it intends to join the fray between Israel and Iran.

Israeli forces have continued to occupy several border points in southern Lebanon and to carry out regular airstrikes on what Israel says are Hezbollah facilities since the ceasefire.

“Of course I am against the Israeli occupation, and Iran is an Islamic country standing up to it,” said Hussein al-Walid, 34, a welder in the southern coastal city of Sidon.

Iran's axis

Despite the dramatic scenes of buildings reduced to rubble in Israel, Tehran and other Iranian cities have taken a worse pounding and other regional countries, including Lebanon, could still be pulled into the conflict.

Caroline Rose, a director at the Washington-based New Lines Institute think tank said that while it seems “clear that Iran-backed proxies across the region, particularly Hezbollah, just do not have the capacity” to enter the fray, Israel could decide to expand the scope of its offensive beyond Iran.

One of the goals announced by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was to eliminate Iran’s “axis of terrorism” - the coalition of Tehran-backed armed groups across the region known as the “Axis of Resistance.”

That goal “is ambiguous and offers Israel the operational space to expand this war to countries it deems are hosting Iran-backed proxies, no matter how weak they may be,” Rose said.

Al-Walid shrugged off the possibility of a new war in Lebanon.

“The war is already present in Lebanon,” he said. “Israel isn’t abiding by the agreement and is striking every day.”

Hassan Shreif, a 26-year-old student from the city of Baalbek in eastern Lebanon, where Hezbollah has a strong base of support, said that after last year’s war in Lebanon and the heavy losses suffered by the group, many of its supporters “were clearly anguished and didn’t feel vindicated.”

“So, anything, even a window breaking in Tel Aviv, is (now) a victory for them,” he said. Every time Iranian missiles pass overhead, he said, people in the area break out in shouts of jubilation.

At the same time, Shreif said, “there’s always a silent group hugging the wall as we say in Arabic, treading carefully and praying we stay out of it.”