HAS THE STATUS OF IRANIAN CLERICS BEEN ERODED?

Number 24 ● 22 September 2008

 

HAS THE STATUS OF IRANIAN CLERICS BEEN ERODED?

 

Raz Zimmt*

 

In July 2008, a public fury broke out in Iran following the publication of the content of two lectures delivered by Dr. 'Abbas Palizdar, a former advisor to the Iranian Majlis (Parliament). Palizdar, who is considered to be a supporter of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and even run as a candidate within the President’s list of supporters in the 2006 Tehran municipal elections, provided in his lectures at the Hamadan and Shiraz Universities new details regarding the alleged involvement of senior clerics in corruption scandals. He argued that the involvement of those seniors in such affairs made it difficult for the government to successfully cope with widespread corruption.

In his lectures, Palizdar named a list of key figures, including: Ayatollah 'Abbas Vaez-Tabasi, a member at the Assembly of Experts, who is also in charge of the Imam Reza Foundation, which owns billions of dollars worth of properties in the city of Mashhad; Ayatollah Mohammad Emami-Kashani, another member at the Assembly of Experts and Tehran's interim Friday Prayer Leader; Ayatollah Mohammad Yazdi, former head of the judiciary and a member at the Assembly of Experts; Ayatollah Abu-al-Qasim Khaza'eli; 'Ali-Akbar Nateq Nouri, advisor to the Supreme Leader and former speaker of the Majlis; and even Former President, 'Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who presently serves as Chairman of the Assembly of Experts and as Chairman of the Expediency Council. Palizdar accused these leading clerics of illegal take-over of large mines and factories, involvement in questionable real estate deals, receipt of bribes and smuggling goods, among other offenses. A few days after the affair’s exposure, Palizdar was arrested for transgressions such as propagating lies, incitement of public opinion and various financial allegations.

Early in September 2008, just three months after Palizdar’s exposures and arrest, additional accusations were made against Iranian high ranking clerics. This time, they were raised by former journalist and cinema and television director, Mohammad Nourizad. Nourizad, who served in the past as a staff member of the conservative daily “Kayhan” (Tehran), published an article in his personal blog (Gah-e Nevesht) in which he called on Iran’s leading clerics to avoid getting involved in governmental affairs. His demand was raised in response to an appeal made by several clerics to dismiss Ahmadinejad's vice president, Asfandiar Rahim Masha’i, following his flagrant statement regarding the friendly relations between the Iranian nation and the Israeli people. Nourizad wrote that only the government, the judiciary, the Majlis, the Expediency Council, the Assembly of Experts and the Supreme Leader were authorized to decide whether or not to dismiss the Vice President, and that issues such as these are not of the clerics' concern.

Nourizad’s article aroused a wave of protest and criticism, particularly among conservative religious circles. Iranian Prosecutor General, Qorbanali Dorri Najafabadi, even instructed to open legal proceedings against Nourizad, accusing him of demeaning the dignity of senior clerics. This instruction followed a complaint made by the lecturers’ association at the religious seminaries in the city of Qom against Nourizad. Ayatollah Morteza Moqtaza'i, Head of Qom theological center (hawza elmiyeh), called on the judiciary to fight against those that seek to violate the clerics' dignity. It is puzzling, he claimed, that the Islamic Republic should allow for such slander of the clerics who are dedicated to their work and act according to Islamic law.

Tehran's interim Friday Prayer Leader, Ahmad Khatami, also expressed himself against the critics of Iran's senior clerics. Khatami noted that it is the obligation of clerics to share their viewes concerning religious, cultural and political matters whenever needed, and that it is not right to limit their responsibilities only to the realm of religious law. Similar notions were conveyed by Speaker of the Majlis, 'Ali Larijani, who argued that the special status of clerics should be protected and offending them was "an ugly move".

Nourizad’s words aroused severe disapproval among Iranian reformist circles as well. An editorial published on September 6th in the daily “E'temad-e Melli" argued that in the last few years, dubious forces have made several attempts to undermine the clergy. The article further claimed that although clerics might not be free of mistakes, it was wrong to permit the actions of those who seek to weaken their special status and challenge the independence of the religious establishment. This independence, the newspaper maintained, allowed religious leaders to stand up alongside the public against inner repression and foreign imperialism for the past hundred years. The reformist press mentioned that Nourizad, just like Abbas Palizdar, was one of President Ahmadinejad’s closest advisors even though Nourizad himself as well as 'Ali Reza Zaker Esfahani, chairman of the Center for Strategic Research in the President’s Office, have vigourously denied such a connection.

Criticism against Iranian clerics and their involvement in politics is not a new phenomenon. Since the Islamic revolution, and especially since the death of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1989, several intellectuals and reformist religious figures have called for minimizing the involvement of clerics in the management of state affairs, and complained about attempts made by the Islamic regime to force its official interpretation to Islam. Current developments in Iran suggest, however, that this criticism is steadily increasing and that it is no longer limited to narrow circles of intellectuals, clerics and regime dissidents.

This criticism is being raised while a significant decline has been taken place in clerical representation in some of the political elected institutions in the country. Clerics still enjoy significant political centrality in Iran, especially given their control over the institution of the Supreme Leader, the Assembly of Experts, the Guardian Council and the Revolutionary Guards. A significant decline, however, has been marked in recent years in the presence of clerics within political institutions elected by the general public, such as the Majlis. While clerics comprised a majority in the first Majlis, their number decreased to 87 in the third Majlis, 53 in the fifth Majlis and 41 in the seventh. Following the last parliamentary elections in March 2008, their number declined to approximately 30 representatives out of total of 290 MPs, an all-time low since the Islamic revolution.

Since the late 1990s, the presence of technocrats in the political elite has become more noticeable. Many of them are veterans of the armed forces and the Revolutionary Guards, whose political and economic importance grew significantly during the last decade. Their involvement in the economy was manifested through a variety of companies and businesses. In 2006, a 2.5 billion dollars contract was signed between the Oil Ministry and the “Khatem al-Anbiyaa” (the signatory of the prophets) corporation, owned by the Revolutionary Guards and in charge of the development of the South Pars oil field – one of Iran's major energy development projects. In addition, companies owned by the Revolutionary Guards were awarded extensive infrastructure, development and construction projects. The Revolutionary Guards demonstrated their influence in May 2004, when they prevented the opening of the new Imam Khomeini International Airport in Tehran claiming that the involvement of Austro-Turkish Consortium workers in the airport's operation posed a potential security concern.

The Revolutionary Guards comprise a substantional force in Iranian political system as well. Despite Ayatollah Khomeini's political legacy to prevent the armed forces’ involvement in politics, in reality, involvement of this sort is ever-present. Following the student riots of July 1999, senior Revolutionary Guards commanders sent a letter to President Mohammad Khatami, demanding tough actions against the demonstrators. Following the 2005 presidential elections, opponents of President Ahmadinejad claimed that the Revolutionary Guards and the Basij forces were involved in recruiting support for the candidacy of Ahmadinejad. During the last parliamentary elections, as well, the Revolutionary Guards expressed their support for conservative candidates in what seemed to be a blatant involvement in political matters. Since the Presidential election of Ahmadinejad in 2005, the process of integrating former Revolutionary Guards commanders into senior political positions considerately intensified. Revolutionary Guards former seniors were appointed to key positions, such as ministers of Energy, Islamic Guidance, Oil, Defense and Commerce as well as regional governors.

Should this trend of declining clerical political status and increasing political clout of technocrats and veterans of the armed forces continue, it can yield a significant and far-reaching long-term effect on Iranian politics. Many of those technocrats and former commanders tend to represent Iranian younger generation – the Iran-Iraq war generation, raised and educated in Iran and only minimally exposed to Western education and influences. Many of them are identified with the neo-conservative faction, which seeks to return to the values of the Islamic Revolution and believes that during the terms of Presidents Rafsanjani and Khatami, Iran moved away from those values and ideals. They also claim that after years of economic, social and political reforms, free market and privatization, there is a need to return to the social and economic policies based on the values of Islamic justice, which have been abandoned long ago. In foreign policy, they generally take on a nationalist approach that is defiant of the West. This is based on their broader world view that the West is going through a process of decline, and that Iran must re-adopt a more aggressive foreign policy that aims towards regional hegemony and demonstrates its ambitions to become a major international force, following years of pragmatic foreign policy that was based on the desire to minimize tensions, both with Western states as well as with Iran's regional neighbours.

Even if Iranian clerics are expected to overcome any challenge to their current political status in the short term, the continuation of this trend may present a challenge for the concept of the Guardianship of the Islamic Jurists ("velayat-e faqih"), especially in a case of a major crisis, such as the cessation of the present Supreme Leader, Ayatollah 'Ali Khamene'i■

 


*Raz Zimmt is a research fellow of the Center for Iranian Studies at Tel Aviv University and a PhD candidate at the Graduate School of Historical Studies at Tel Aviv University.


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Iran Pulse 24 ● September 22, 2008 © All rights reserved.

 

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