Ulema and Secularisation: Conflict or Coincidence of Interest?

Abstract

The Iranian revolution of 1979 had considerable similarities to the constitutional revolution of 1906–9. Both reflected, in part, the continuing historical oppositional claims to legitimate ruling authority by the state and the Shia religious establishment, ulema. Devout Muslims agree that Islam provides both a political and an ideological framework. All that rulers can do is understand and implement the laws of Islam, as formulated by the Prophet, and recorded in the Muslims’ holy book, the Quran, or as practised by the Prophet himself, Sunna. Since its inception, after the death of the Prophet of Islam, Shias have contested the right of caliphs and subsequently secular rulers to govern over the Muslim community, umma. The Shias claim that only the Prophet’s cousin and son-in-law, Ali ibn Abu Taleb, and his direct descendent the Shiite imams have had the divine ability to understand Islamic law and implement it. Therefore they alone have had the right to rule over Muslims — a view that is contested by the Sunni majority who accepted the rule of the caliphs who were selected and supported by the consensus, ijma, of the Islamic community. The Shias contested the caliphate, and followed the teaching of the imams. After the occultation of the twelfth imam, in the ninth century, their ulema gradually acquired the mantle of the Prophet.¹ They extended the laws through interpretation and collected taxes, khoms and zakat from the believers. Over the centuries they managed to amass both wealth and authority and came to act as an alternative government, regulating the daily lives of the Shias.