An engaging new biography of Ayatollah Hossein-Ali Montazeri, who passed away in 2009 aged 87, highlights the earthly pragmatism at the heart of the Islamic Republic. If theocracy is a system of government where God is sovereign, His will is discerned and carried through by human agents.



Ulrich von Schwerin’s The Dissident Mullah stands on its own merits but its appearance is timely as February’s election approaches for Majles-e Khobregan (Assembly of Experts), the body that chooses and supervises the supreme leader. There is a reasonable chance, given Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s 76 years and prostate problems, that the assembly will during its next eight-year term pick a successor for the most powerful position in Iran.

Reading von Schwerin will not provide answers as to who will emerge victorious from the manoeuvring already under way within and around the assembly, but he does remind that, given what happened last time, our assumptions about Iranian politics should be flexible. From its origins in a series of lectures in Najaf in 1970, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s notion of velayat-e faqih (guardianship of the jurist) evolved in the heat of practice, even after it became the cornerstone of the Islamic Republic.

Montazeri was at the heart of this evolution, first as a principal architect of the constitutional system after the 1979 Revolution, secondly as the planned successor to Khomeini, and thirdly as an opposition figure widely seen as the spiritual guide of the reformists and even the ‘green movement’.

A supporter of the Green Movement mourns the death of Grand Ayatollah Montazeri, the spiritual father of Iran’s reform movement, shown in a poster pasted over a larger one of Ayatollah Khomeini. She covers her face to avoid identification by security, in the city of Qom. Photograph: AP

Born in 1922 to humble parents in Najafabad, near Isfahan, Montazeri was drawn into politics after the death in 1961 of Ayatollah Hossein Borujerdi, the pre-eminent Shia cleric who believed in keeping a distance from politics. As some clerics, especially Khomeini, emerged as leading opponents of the Shah, Montazeri slowly became more involved and spent 12 years in exile or prison. But Von Schwerin argues that despite his support for Khomeini, Montazeri had limited interest in politics.

His thick Isfahani accent, his simple manners and his peasant features were the object of numerous popular jokes. Even many allies regarded him as not quite suited to the tactical game of politics, while his opponents scorned him as naive and simple-minded. With his short build and his high-pitched voice he was indeed neither a very charismatic figure nor a very impressive orator.

Nonetheless, Khomeini’s high regard for Montazeri helped lead after the 1979 Revolution to him chairing the constitutional assembly that would enshrine velayat-e faqih, a concept opposed by most senior clerics. Von Schwerin points out that while “Khomeini’s book Velayat-e Faqih played practically no role” in discussions, there was a general acceptance in the assembly of his notion that a leading Shia cleric should lead the new Republic. Hence it concluded that the leader should be both a marja-ye taqlid (a pre-eminent cleric, literally a source of emulation) and endorsed by an assembly of senior clerics elected by the people, rather as believers chose which of the several marja they would follow.

Interestingly, von Schwerin notes that at least one member of the assembly raised a pertinent question:

....Mohammad Hojati-Kermani objected that Article 107, on the faqih’s mode of designation, was vague and might give rise to abuse. Furthermore, he asked, ‘what is the relationship between the maraj’e-ye taqlid [farsi plural], who may be more learned and command a greater number of followers than the elected supreme leader who may be opposed by those maraj’e. The question, which was to become of central importance after Khomeini’s death, was dismissed by [Ali] Meshkini who said that ‘God willing, in the future the title of marja and the supreme leaders will become one’.

Khomeini delegated not just religious questions to Montazeri but also put him in charge of appointing and training new judges, and of supervising the new system of detention. And when discrete discussions began around 1983 over a succession to Khomeini, who had turned 80, Montazeri slowly emerged as the best fit. While he was not generally recognised at that stage as a marja – as was required for someone to be leader – he was the most senior cleric other than Khomeini who supported velayat-e faqih.

But there were problems soon after Montazeri was announced as successor in 1985 and pictures of him appeared alongside those of Khomeini. Montazeri had privately raised concerns over treatment of prisoners with Khomeini as early as 1981, but his objections became more serious with a wave of executions in 1988 at the end of war with Iraq.

Von Schwerin portrays Montazeri as a principled but uncertain man, committed to Islam as an ethical as well as a judicial system. But his judgement appeared weak in his association with the volatile Mehdi Hashemi: first he appointed him as head of office a man who had already been accused in 1976 of killing Ayatollah Mohammad-Reza Shamsabadi, allegedly a supporter of the Shah; then he backed Hashemi after he apparently undermined attempts by the Islamic Republic during the war with Iraq to import arms from the US in the so-called Iran-Contra’ affair.

Von Schwerin roots Montazeri’s commitment to Hashemi in his principled commitment to spread the Islamic Revolution, especially to Lebanon, which clashed with the pragmatism of Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and Ali Khamenei who thought in increasingly pragmatic terms of Iran’s national interest. Montazeri’s fall from grace appears to have resulted at least as much for his association with Hashemi as from his criticisms of the treatment of political prisoners or from any shift in his perception of the faqih. But his views of the role and standing of the leader were certainly changing.

In 1985, shortly before his election as deputy leader, Montazeri began a lecture series on the theoretical foundations and practical implications of velayat-e faqih ...At time his position remained undecided or even contradictory, and he appeared hesitant to think things through to their logical conclusion... although his political theory appeared in several points somewhat raw, his intention was clear – to increase the people’s control over the government. In a radical departure from his former ideas, he insisted that the faqih is not appointed by God but elected by the people and that his powers should be limited to ensure the respect of the people’s rights.

Montazeri was, as von Schwerin well puts it, “an inconvenient successor” but it took until March 1989 for Khomeini to remove Montazeri as his designated heir, at which point he called together a small group and supposedly declared Khamenei ‘eligible’, even though he was a mid-ranking cleric below the rank of ayatollah and nowhere near the status of a marja, as was still required by the constitution. After Khomeini’s death in June, the Experts Assembly duly chose Khamenei.

A subsequent constitutional change removed the rule that the leader needed “learning and piety as required for the function of marja”. Instead, the leader was required only to have qualifications fit to issue fatwas (religious rulings), meaning he need not even be an ayatollah.

Unlike the president, the faqih in this system was only indirectly legitimised by the vote of the people, and unlike the marja-ye taqlid he did not possess supreme religious authority. Consequently, it was not only possible that his religious decrees could be overruled by one of the maraje but also that the president might gain a stronger popular legitimacy than the faqih. The separation of the function of faqih and marja did not mean the separation of religion from politics, but rather established the supremacy of politics over religion. Henceforth, the State did not receive its legitimacy from the faqih, but the faqih depended on the State for his own legitimacy.

While the Assembly conferred the title of ayatollah on Khamenei, many clerics never recognised this. Montazeri’s supporters soon questioned Khamenei’s religious qualifications.

As a wider reform movement developed in the 1990s, Montazeri became part of a debate over the relationship of Islam to democracy, as Abdolkarim Soroush, Mohammad Mojtahed Shabestari, Hassan Yussefi Eshkevari and Akbar Ganji argued the Islamic Republic was heading in the wrong direction. In a series of lectures, Montazeri argued the powers of the faqih should be more limited and that the people’s participation increased – given his seniority as a cleric, his raising of the possibility of changing the existing system amounted to an endorsement of the reformist movement leading to Mohammad Khatami’s election as president in 1997.

But, as von Schwerin well explains, Montazeri was concerned as much about the independence of religion as about political rights, and he made his clearest challenge to the authorities when in 1993-95 supporters of Khamenei asserted the leader’s right to be regarded as a marja.

Ever since the election of Khamenei as vali-ye faqih, the legitimacy of the system and the authority of the leader were shaken. Velayat-e faqih was based on the idea that the State is ruled by the most qualified jurist in order to guarantee its Islamic character, but, for political reasons, the Expert Council in 1989 had chosen...a mid-ranking cleric...According to the original version of velayat-e faqih, the faqih is first the supreme religious authority and only then the supreme political authority: he only becomes the ruler of the state because he is recognised as the most learned jurist by his peers. This presupposes the independence of the religious from the political field, as well as the dominance of religion over politics.

Khamenei attracted support from close associates, including Ayatollah Mohammad Yazdi and Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, but opposition came not just from traditional clerics opposed to velayat-e faqih but from many clerics active in politics. Given his pre-eminence in religious terms, Montazeri was widely seen as a rival to Khamenei, and a widespread sense of unease led Khamenei to declare he had never sought to be regarded as a marja (although, he said he was happy to be regarded thus by Shia outside Iran).

This was not enough for Montazeri, who in 1997 gave a speech telling the leader; “You are not a marja’-e taqlid and you bear no resemblance to a marja’-e taqlid”. This prompted his house arrest, which lasted until 2003. His funeral in 2009 brought hundreds of thousands into a funeral procession, some wearing green scarves, writes von Schwerin, with prayers at his graves “read by his old friend Ayatollah Mussa Shabairi-Zanjani, a quietist and rather reclusive cleric...”

The leadership’s sensitivity over Montazeri – even in death – reflected the reality that religious standing remains important in Iranian politics. Quite how important will be seen in the succession to Khamenei, as and when it comes.

Ulrich von Schwerin, The Dissident Mullah: Ayatollah Montazeri and the Struggle for Reform in Revolutionary Iran, IB Tauris 2015



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