I watched and listened to an Iranian academic, Hossein Royvaran, speaking from inside Iran on Al Arabiya with the colleague Naif Al-Ahmari. He made a remarkable claim.
This pro-government academic, speaking from Tehran, offered an interpretation that would make the Supreme Leader and head of the regime a hereditary post passed from father to son in a system whose own discourse has long mocked Arab monarchies, and which rose in the first place against a monarchy!
He argued that such succession is constitutional, since the Assembly of Experts is tasked with selecting the Supreme Leader, and that this body is elected by the free, democratic, and untainted will of the Iranian people.
Let us set aside this broad claim and turn instead to his religious and moral argument, given that he speaks for a system that presents itself as a moral, revolutionary, Islamic order.
From Tehran, Dr. Hossein cited a verse from Surat An-Naml recounting the story of the Prophet Solomon: “And Solomon inherited David.” The problem is that this line of reasoning runs directly against the principle laid down by Khomeini, who saw no alternative to the system of Wilayat al-Faqih. For details, one can consult his book Islamic Government.
This strained interpretation by the Iranian academic, this selective borrowing from religious texts, and the clear contradiction with the founder’s explicit rejection of hereditary succession reveal a system of rule intent on protecting the interests of a narrow network, layered over time with ideological justifications.
Putting that aside and highlighting another contradiction, this time with the very text of Iran’s “Islamic” constitution itself, as understood through Ja‘fari jurisprudence and Khomeini’s interpretation. Article 109 of the constitution sets out the qualifications for the position of Supreme Leader, foremost among them: jurisprudential competence, justice, and political insight.
Let us assume that the son of Khamenei, Mojtaba Khamenei, possesses justice and political insight in full. What, then, of jurisprudential competence, by which he would stand alongside, or even rival, leading clerics?
In short, if Iran’s ruling elite were to select Mojtaba Khamenei, it would amount to the act of a closed power structure that has distanced itself from the purported purity of a revolutionary Islamic ideal.
One is left to ask the guest from Iran: if Mojtaba inherited as Solomon inherited David, why has he not appeared publicly, speaking with clarity, when Solomon, peace be upon him, is said to have addressed even the ants?
