Nicholas Blanford
Special to The Daily Star

BAGHDAD, Iraq: The Shiite holy cities of Najaf and Karbala are back in business.  The streets surrounding the great golden domes of the shrines of Imam Ali in Najaf and of Imam Hussein and Imam Abbas in Karbala teem with thousands of pilgrims drawn from across the Middle East and Asia.

After decades of persecution and marginalization by Saddam Hussein’s regime, the Shiite reawakening in these two holy cities could mark the resurgence of Najaf’s traditionally “quietist” clergy at the expense of Iran’s all-embracing system of clerical rule known as the Wilayet al-Faqih, or governance of the religious jurist.

The powerful ruling clergy in Iran is under attack from a growing number of Iranians frustrated at the faltering attempts to achieve greater openness and political freedom.  The disqualification of some 2,400 reformist candidates from Friday’s parliamentary elections has almost guaranteed that Iran’s legislature will be dominated by hard-liners.

In Iraq, the Shiite clergy, principally Ayatollah Ali Sistani, the country’s pre-eminent Shiite marja, or senior theological authority, is playing a key role in shaping the timing of Iraq’s first nationwide elections since Hussein’s ouster.  But unlike in Iran, Sistani believes the duty of the Shiite clergy is to guide and advise from the sidelines rather than to assume direct political control.

And that traditional “quietist” approach may have increasing appeal to disaffected Iranians tiring of 25 years of strict clerical rule.

“There is a strong possibility that over time large numbers of lay religious Iranians will switch their allegiance to Sistani, and some of the (Iranian) reformers are said already to have done so,” said Juan Cole, professor of history at the University of Michigan and a specialist in Shiite affairs.

“But the Khamenei establishment is extremely wealthy and offers scholarships, so the seminarians and clerics in Iran would have difficult defecting en masse,” he said.

“Sistani does not have nearly as many monetary resources,” he added.

The Wilayet al-Faqih doctrine was devised in the mid-1970s by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and served as the ideological underpinning of the 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran, which he led.  It grants absolute authority over all matters, religious, social and political to a marja who has earned the title of mujtahid, a blend of judge and theologian.

Although the Wilayat al-Faqih system was successfully introduced into Iran’s homogenous Shiite society, exporting the doctrine elsewhere has proved difficult.  Its most successful adaptation outside Iran is by Lebanon’s Hizbullah which considered Khomeini and then his successor Ayatollah Ali Khameini as the group’s marja.  Establishing an Islamic state in Lebanon on the Iranian model remains one of Hizbullah’s ideological goals, on paper at least.

But Hizbullah long ago accepted that the tiny country’s multi-confessional character mitigates heavily against the creation of an Islamic state.

So too with Iraq.  Iraqi Shiites represent around 60 percent of the population.  The remaining 40 percent is comprised of Sunnis, several Christian sects and a tiny Jewish community.  Furthermore, many Shiites are avowedly secular and have little enthusiasm for an Islamic state, whether governed by Wilayet al-Faqih or a less comprehensive form of Islamic rule.

Even groups such as the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), which was supported by Iran during Saddam Hussein’s regime, has begun to distance itself from Tehran’s clerical rulers to boost its appeal among Iraqi Shiites.

“The Iranians have their own problems and that is not a model for us,”said Sheikh Humum Hammoudi, a senior member of SCIRI’s leadership.  “We want our religious leaders to be advisers not (political) authorities.”

A rare insight into Sistani’s views on the Wilayaet al-Faqih system was posted on the internet last week by an anonymous Sunni tribal leader who met with the reclusive Shiite cleric at his home in Najaf.

“He does not believe in ‘Wilayat al Faqeeh’ as the clergy in Iran do … he repeatedly stressed that religion has to be separated from government,” the letter said.

“He said that he firmly believed the clergy should not interfere with the running of people’s lives, with government or with administration.  He had forbidden his followers from putting their noses into the state’s affairs.  He said that clearly and categorically (several times to stress the point),” it said.

According to Sheikh Jalaleddine as-Saghir, Sistani’s representative in Baghdad, the ayatollah recommends a multi-sectarian government for Iraq.

“He suggests that the government should represent all Iraqis,” he said.  “The Iraqi people should be the marja of the Iraqi government.”

As for the future constitution, Sistani favors one that does not contradict Islamic Sharia law but is not derived from it, Saghir said.

Yet Sistani does not speak for all Shiite clerics.  The Wilayet al-Faqih system is embraced in Iraq by followers of Mohammed Baqr al-Sadr and Mohammed Sadeq al-Sadr, two prominent clerics who were killed in 1980 and 1999 respectively for defying Hussein’s regime.

“Of course, there is much sympathy for the Wilayet al-Faqih among the Shiites because the two Sadr martyrs called for it and both died for their beliefs,” said Sheikh Hamzi al-Tai, who heads the Kerbala office of Muqtada Sadr, a young extremist cleric as well as son of Mohammed Sadeq al-Sadr.

Nonetheless, few believe that the Wilayet al-Faqih system has enduring appeal to Iraqi Shiites.

“Apart from Mohammed Baqr al-Sadr, no one in Najaf agreed with Khomeini’s Wilayet al-Faqih,” said Jaber Habib, a professor of politics at Baghdad University.  “There’s no great challenge from Muqtada Sadr as most Iraqis follow Sistani.  Muqtada has support only because of his father.  He is not a marja and is not advanced in religious studies.  He is a flash in the pan.”

Other than ideological differences, the Sadrists also harbor suspicions of Sistani’s Iranian background ­ he speaks Arabic with a thick Persian accent.  Many senior clerics in Najaf are of Iranian descent, whereas the Sadrs are Arabs of Iraqi-Lebanese origin.

Distrust of Iranian marja appears to have been behind the killing on April 10 last year of Ayatollah Abdel-Majid al-Khoei, son of a noted Iranian scholar who returned to Iraq from exile in England and was stabbed to death in the Imam Ali shrine in Najaf.  Followers of Muqtada Sadr have been blamed for the murder and there are fears that Sistani could be next.

“As a Muslim, Sistani has a right to ask for the rights of Muslims.  But he does not have a right to interfere in the affairs of Iraq,” al-Tai said.

“We won’t cause problems, God willing, but we won’t allow anyone to interfere in Iraqi matters because this is a subject for Iraqis,” he added.

Still, while the resurgence of Najaf may have some impact on Iran, many analysts believe that it will not undermine the ruling clerics’ grip on the country.  Instead, any influence exerted by Iraq over Iran is more likely to stem from the successful introduction of a stable and democratic system of rule in Baghdad rather than from differences in Shiite theology.

“It’s difficult to change the regime (in Iran),” says Habib.  “The Iranians stick to Islam more than Iraqis.  The Iranian clerics have more influence over the people than the clerics in Iraq.”

“But if the situation in Iraq develops and we succeed in democracy and prosperity, it will have a great influence on Iran.  Iraq influences Iran, not the other way around,” he adds.