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The Establishment of the Position of Marja'iyyt-i Taqlid in the Twelver-Shi'i Community

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Ahmad Kazemi Moussavi
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Extract

Nineteenth-century Iran witnessed the advent of a new socioreligious institution. While the theory of a divinely appointed Imam (Imām al-Manṣūb) increasingly became eschatological in nature, a highly centralized religious position came into being whose source of power was not to be found in the classical Shi'i doctrine. The position of marjaᶜ-i taqlīd is a product of several religious developments that characterized the nineteenth-century Shi'i community. The prevalence of the Uṣūlī school and the formulation of two important doctrines, i.e., aᶜlamiyyat (more knowledgeability) and vilāyat-i faqīh (the governance of the jurist) are held as three major juridical impetuses underlying the birth of the institution of marjaᶜiyyat-i taqlīd. Therefore, we will first deal with the Uṣūlī process, then the doctrines of aᶜlamiyyat and vilāyat-i faqīh, then with the qualifications of a marjᶜ, and the question of who the first marjaᶜ of the Twelver-Shi'i community was, and finally the place of marjaᶜ-i taqlīd in the political life of Shi'i Iran.

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Articles
Information
Iranian Studies , Volume 18 , Issue 1 , Winter 1985 , pp. 35 - 51
Copyright
Copyright © Association For Iranian Studies, Inc 1985

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References

Notes

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31. Ibid., p. 186.

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39. Ṭabaṭabā'ī Yazdī, al-ᶜUrwat al-Wuthqā, p. 5.

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41. Consult Murtaa Mutahhari, Marjaᶜiyyat va Rūḥāniyyat.

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45. Cases at point are Mīrzā Ḥasan Shīrāzī's (d. 1312/1894) fatva on prohibition of Tobaccos, Mīrzā Muḥammad Taqī Shīrāzī's (d. 1338/1919) jihād proclamation against British mandatory role in Iraq. Consult ᶜAlī Davānī Nihat-i Rūḥāniyyūn-i Iran (Tehran: Bunyād Imām Riā, 1979), Vols. I and II.Google Scholar

46. Cases at point are Akhūnd-i Khurāsānī and Mīrzā-yi Nā'inī's cooperation with Iranian constitutionalist. See Ḥa'iri, shi'ism and Constitutionalism in Iran.

47. For example, look at M. B. Bihbinānī, Risālat al-Akhbār, pp. 6-17; and Narāqī, Manāhij al-Uṣūl (Tehran: Ṭabᶜ-i Maḥallī, 1809), p. 277.Google Scholar

48. The Futuvvat-Nama-yi chitsāzān may symbolize the Sufi and Bazaar interrelationships. See Rasā'il-i Javānmardān, ed. Murtaā Ṣarrāf, intro. Henry Corbin (Tehran: Department d'Iranologie de l'Institut Franco-Iranien, 1973), pp. 226–239.Google Scholar