The focus of the chapter is the overriding assumption in Shia fiqh in general and theories of the velayat-e faqih in particular that society is in need of proactive protection and guidance. The notion of velayat is neither exclusively nor predominantly Shia in origin and development. However, it has played a central role in Shia theology. The logic underlying the notion of velayat-e faqih is that society needs proper guidance and protection, both from the hostile world in which it exists and from itself. Guidance needs to be provided by a specialist of fiqh, a mujtahid who has reached the esteemed position of marja‘iyat and is a “source of emulation,” a marja‘-e taqlid. Protection, or velayat, meanwhile, in its fullest sense is also to be provided by a specialist of fiqh, a faqih, who would be selected to serve in a system based on the velayat-e faqih. In relation to Iran, the clergy have long assumed that Iranian society needs protection from a number of clear and present dangers, be they communism, secular nationalism, unchecked republicanism, modernity, indiscriminate autocracy, or, more recently, the reformist “sedition” (fitna).

At the broadest level, conceptions of the Islamic Republic’s political legitimacy are guided by one of three assumptions. The first assumption is that legitimacy is divinely bestowed, with the velayat-e faqih installed by God as someone who has the wisdom necessary to guide his people. There is no need for popular vote for the system to become legitimate, although there is no harm in it either. This popular vote is valid only when it has the leader’s approval. A second perspective assumes that God has given people the right and the ability to determine their own destiny and their affairs. Therefore, according to the shari‘ah, legitimacy rests with the people. A third outlook bridges these two perspectives, maintaining that while legitimacy is exclusively divine in genesis, it is practically irrelevant without acceptability, which makes the system functional when people participate in it. Legitimacy comes only from God, while it is the people who give the system the acceptance it needs by deciding what is in their interests. Moreover, acceptance has the added benefit of drawing people closer to the political system.

In today’s Iran, state–religion relations exhibit three key features. An obvious feature is the deep basis of the state in innovative interpretations of Shia jurisprudence. The Islamic Republic is based on the system of the velayat-e faqih, generally translated in English as the “guardianship of the jurisconsult.” As a concept, the notion of the velayat-e faqih had existed in Shia thought for some time before Ayatollah Khomeini elaborated on it in his 1970 book by the same name. Khomeini’s contribution lay in his innovative interpretation of the velayat-e faqih as a supreme political leader who oversaw not just religious affairs, as previous theologians had theorized but was in overall charge of all affairs of the entire community, profane and political as well as religious. Today, Khomeini’s conception of velayat-e faqih underlies the institutional and political foundations of the Islamic Republic. The Iranian political system is far more ideologically informed, and hence ideological, than may at first meet the eye.

In addition to ensuring its military and security protection through the IRGC and the Basij, the Islamic Republic employs a number of other institutional means to protect itself from un-Islamic influences, potential opponents in society, and the possibility of systematic problems and internal obstacles. Of these latter group of institutions, three stand out for their compound effects in helping the system maintain itself. They are the Guardian Council, the Expediency Council, and the judiciary. Each institution in its own way contributes significantly to maintaining the system. The Guardian Council performs a pivotal gatekeeping function by ensuring that only the legislation it approves becomes the law of the land, and only the candidates it vets get a chance at holding elected office. When the Guardian Council and the Majles reach a deadlock over legislation, the Expediency Council is meant to determine what is in the ultimate interest of the system so that its overall performance is not undermined. And, the judicial branch protects the system from political opponents and sees to the Islamization of Iranian society. The Islamic Republic system, in short, has devised a number of institutional means to guarantee its long-term resilience.

There is a direct and important relationship between elections, clientelism, and the system’s legitimacy. Urban Iranians may be skeptical toward the efficacy of their vote. But rural Iranians seem to view their electoral rights differently. The fact that participation levels in remote and comparatively underdeveloped provinces has been consistently high shows that at least among the less privileged, the system enjoys continued legitimacy. Local elections help further enhance the system’s legitimacy. This is particularly the case in voting districts outside of the major metropolitan areas, in places where the local elites who get elected to the city council or the Majles serve as critical links between the system, the nezam, and the local population. In the smaller cities and towns, elections tend to be more vigorously contested because the rewards are more immediate. Legitimacy and system effectiveness are different matters altogether. One of the biggest consequences of electing clan and tribal leaders has been the apolitical marginalization of technocrats and other professionals and their diminished chance of getting into elected office.

Elections for the presidency, the Majles, and the city councils perpetuate the politics of hybridity, which in turn has left each of these institutions with conflicting legacies. Hybridity has left them neither democratic nor authoritarian, neither paragons of the people’s political will nor symbols and symptoms of an unresponsive and repressive state. Hybridity perpetuates the politics of ambivalence. It renders presidents and parliamentarians and city councilors ineffective if they cross amorphous, undefined redlines. But it also makes them exciting symbols of the popular will if they speak the people’s language, voice their complaints about prices, and promise to better their lives. Hybridity makes normal a neither-here-nor-there routine of the politics of voting and going along with the system, and, on occasion, breaking into protest out of frustration that rituals like voting matter little. Hybridity and ambivalence go hand in hand, reduce the costs of conformity, increase the price of rebellion, and make possible occasional bouts of protest and violence. Like elections, institutions such as the presidency and the parliament entail risks for the authoritarian core of the state, affording potential wildcards institutional platforms and resources to further their own agendas.

Consistent with the broader institutional makeup of the system, Iran’s deep state is complex and has several components. The velayat-e faqih stands as the central critical core of the Iranian deep state. As such, the leader provides the institutional and doctrinal organizing principles around which the other components of the deep state rally. These include the state’s praetorian guards, namely the IRGC and the Basij, those institutions specifically designed for system maintenance – that is, the Guarding Council, the Expediency Council and the judiciary – and a series of other formal and informal institutions that also ensure the protection of the system’s interests as defined by them, and the continuity of those interests regardless of the changes that may occur through popular elections. These latter set of institutions include the country’s various intelligence agencies, the Qom-centered clerical establishment, the Friday Prayer Imams, the Special Court for the Clergy, and the state radio and television broadcaster – the IRIB. Impervious to outside demands and influences, each of these institutions report only to the velayat-e faqih, operating mostly outside of and independent from the formal institutions and procedures of the state.

The velayat-e faqih has steadily come to occupy the apex of the political system in its day-to-day functions, in the process overwhelming and overshadowing elected institutions such as the presidency and the Majles. The Assembly of Experts, which is meant to select and then supervise the velayat-e faqih, has become a shadow of its constitutional self. Especially after Refsanjani was elbowed out of the institution, it has moved to become more of an auxiliary of the leadership. The presidency and the Majles have also come increasingly under the leader’s overpowering influence. The system continues to remain hybrid. But that hybridity is being steadily chipped away at. Khamenei is the most important element of the deep state, the critical connective tissue that binds all the other institutions together. The other elements of the deep state are its praetorians – the Revolutionary Guards and the Basij – its gatekeepers such as the Expediency and the Guardian Councils, and Khamenei representatives and the Friday Prayers Imams, along with the rest of the Qom theological establishment, the Ministry of Intelligence, the Special Court for the Clergy, and the state radio and television broadcaster, the IRIB.

On the eve of victory in the 1979 revolution, Ruhollah Khomeini and his Islamists followers discussed blueprints for a new system of Islamic government. Integral to these plans was an emphasis on the new institutions of Islamic shura (local councils) to replace the secular anjumans (local associations) that existed in town and cities. The chapter details Khomeini’s call to establish elected local government in early 1979, months before the new constitution delineating the shape of the new state had been ratified, indicating the significance of the shura. I examine the tensions between the competing visions of shura within the theocratic Islamist camp, by contrasting the views of Khomeini and Mahmoud Taleghani. This chapter also discusses the aborted attempt to hold the first local government elections in the fall of 1979, a factor contributing to the new regime’s reluctance to decentralize government for another decade and a half. The chapter details the multiple and conflicting perspectives on shura during the deliberations leading to the first constitution. The ratified constitution subordinated local and national government (shura and the Majles) to the velayat-e faqih and established a settlement that shaped and constrained the future possibilities and limitations of decentralization in the ensuing decades up to the present day.

Chapter 3 provides a complementary discussion of the umma in Shi‘i thought and practice. While religious authority is central, as with the Sunni conception, the Shi‘i conceptualisation of the Imams elevates genealogical descent and theological erudition to essential ingredients of leadership. It follows that their absence from this world created a dilemma with religious and political significance: who would guide the community until the return of the redeeming Imam Mahdi (Guided One)? From the medieval centuries to the modern period, a rough consensus emerged that the clerical class would fill the void of religious guidance. The minority view that they should also have a political role found its full articulation, in the last quarter of the twentieth century, in Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini’s theory of clerical rule and its institutionalisation in the Islamic Republic. The chapter shows that the Khomeinist-revolutionary Iranian appeal to lead the universal umma has, however, been undermined by an assertive sectarian interpretation and geopolitical rivalries.