Finally, A Fatwa Worthy Of Respect

One of Iran's most senior clerics, Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, has issued a fatwa which, in essence, declares the current government of Iran to be illegal. The religious finding, a reply to a series of questions posed by Mohsen Kadivar, an intellectual and cleric, was posted on the website maintained by Kadivar. For the Farsi challenged, a translation is available at MEMRI.

While the fatwa does not name Supreme Leader Khamenei in specific, there is no doubt it constitutes a full scale attack on the current regime of Khamenei and his stooge, Ahmedinejad. It denounces the actions of the Iranian government including its clerical component as violating the basic precepts of Islam and the requirements of Islamic jurisprudence.

Being illegal, the government is liable to removal by the people. Montazeri wrote:

As I said, both religious law and common sense [dictate that] position holders who have lost the right to administer social affairs automatically lose their posts, and their rule is no longer legitimate in any way. If they remain in their position by means of force, fraud, or forgery, then the people must express their opinion regarding the illegitimacy and unpopularity [of these position holders], and remove them from their posts in the least harmful way...

That is very strong language! It is nothing less than the authorisation of revolution, a greenlight for the overthrow of the present Iranian regime, clerics not excepted.

Montazeri argues that the clerics carry the greater responsibility for tossing the illegal, non-Islamic rascals out. Consider his wording carefully:

Obviously, this is a duty incumbent upon all [and not only upon specific individuals]... and none may evade it under any pretext. The elite [i.e. the clerics] have a special obligation [to carry out this task], since they are knowledgeable in religious and civil law, and have greater ability than [the rest of the people]. Their statements have greater influence and carry greater force; therefore, they bear a greater responsibility. They must present [the people]... with an alternative [option], while [preserving the people's] unity and ideological harmony, and establishing parties as well as public and private organizations.

Well, bucko, what does that read like to you? To the Geek it comes very close to the tocsin of rebellion.

While the NYT is probably accurate in its assessment that this fatwa will not have any immediate dramatic effect on the internal dynamic in Iran, the longer term impact of this bold, bald denunciation should not be underrated. Previous clerical statements including those by Montazeri have been cautious, ambiguous, and hesitant.

With this fatwa, Montazeri, who is an old Revolutionary and long-standing power in the Revolutionary government, has challenged his one time, more-or-less colleague, Khamenei. The challenge cannot be ignored without great risk to the status quo. Neither can the Montazeri position be overlooked by the clerical establishment generally.

Montazeri was once considered the most probable successor to Ayatollah Khomenei, but parted company with the founder of the revolution ostensibly over the killing of prisoners which was opposed by Montazeri but actually because of Montazeri's opposition to the idea of clerical rule. This opposition has assured the split between Montazeri and Khamenei deepened and widened over the past twenty years.

Montazeri's implacable resistence to the concept of clerical rule, to theocracy per se means that there is no room for compromise with Khamenei. Khamenei is more of a champion of theocracy naked, pure, and simple than was Khomenei. The esposal of theocracy coupled with Khamenei's apparent ambition of seeing his number two son, Mojtaba, succeed him as Supreme Leader provided even more motivation to Montazeri's opposition.

The eighty-seven year old Montazeri has seized the moment, realistically his last moment, to put the division in views of Iran's governmental nature and collective future into the most clear public view. The dynamics of today with no real weakening in either the willingness of the opposition to continue their campaign of dissent being matched by the total refusal of Khamenei to seek any sort of accommodation with the dissidents gives Montazeri his last, best opportunity to push Iran's internal trajectory in a way he finds acceptable to his view of Islam.

It is necessary to watch closely for signs of how the legion of clerics littering the Iranian landscape react to the Montazeri fatwa. The influence of the clerics cannot and must not be undervalued. In a very real and direct sense, the way in which the clerical establishment splits into pro- and anti-Montazeri camps will determine what sort of Iran the rest of the world will have to deal with in the months and years to come.

As Allah wills---