Guardianship of the Islamic Jurist
The Guardianship of the Islamic Jurist is a concept in Twelver Shia Islamic law which holds that until the reappearance of the "infallible Imam", the religious and social affairs of the Muslim world should be administered by righteous Shi'i jurists.
Wilāyat al-Faqīh is associated in particular with Ruhollah Khomeini and the Islamic Republic of Iran.
In a series of lectures in 1970, Khomeini advanced the idea of guardianship in its "absolute" form as rule of the state and society. This version of guardianship now forms the basis of the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran, which calls for a Guardian Jurist, to serve as the Supreme Leader of that country. Currently, this role is held by Ayatollah Khamenei.
Under the "absolute authority of the jurist" , the jurist/faqih has control over all public matters including governance of states, all religious affairs including the temporary suspension of religious obligations such as the salat prayer or hajj pilgrimage. Obedience to him is more important than performing those religious obligations. Other Shi'i Islamic scholars disagree, with some limiting guardianship to a much narrower scope—things like mediating disputes, and providing guardianship for orphaned children, the mentally incapable, and others lacking someone to protect their interests.
There is minor disagreement over how widely supported Khomeini's doctrine is; that is, whether "the absolute authority and guardianship" of a high-ranking Islamic jurist is "universally accepted amongst all Shi'a theories of governance" and forms "a central pillar of Imami political thought", or whether there is no consensus in favor of the model of the Islamic Republic of Iran, neither among the public in Iran, nor among most religious leaders in the leading centers of Shia thought, such as Qom and Najaf.
Terminology
Arabic and Persian
Arabic language phrases associated with Guardianship of the Jurist, such as Wilāyat al-Faqīh, Wali al-Faqīh, are widely used, Arabic being the original language of Islamic sources such as the Quran, hadith, and much other literature. The Persian language translations, such as Velayat-e Faqih and Vali-e-faqih, are also commonly used in discussion about the concept and practice in Iran, which is both the largest Shi'i majority country, and as the Islamic Republic of Iran, is also the one country in the world where Wilāyat al-Faqīh is part of the structure of government.Definitions
Wilāyat al-Faqīh/''velayat-e faqih is often used to mean Ayatollah Khomeini's vision of velayat-e faqih as essential to Islamic government, giving no further qualification, with those supporting limited non-governmental guardianship of faqih, being described as "rejecting" velayat-e faqih. This is common particularly outside of scholarly and religious discussion, and among supporters.In more religious, scholarly, and precise discussion, terminology becomes more involved.
Wilayat conveys several meanings which are involved in Twelver Islamic history.
Morphologically, Wilāyat is derived from the Arabic verbal root "w-l-y", Wilaya, meaning not only "to be in charge", but “to be near or close to someone or something", to be a friend, etc.
Synonyms include rule, supremacy, sovereignty, guardianship, authority, mandate, governance, rulership, governorship and province. In another sense, it means friendship and loyalty..
In Islam, jurists or experts in Islamic jurisprudence are Faqīh,.
For those who support a government based on rule of a faqih, Wilāyat al-Faqīh has been translated as "rule of the jurisconsult," "mandate of the jurist," "governance of the jurist", "the discretionary authority of the jurist". More ambiguous translations are "guardianship of the jurist", "trusteeship of the jurist".
Some definitions of uses of the term “Wilayat” in Islamic jurisprudence terminology are:
History
Early Islam
A foundational belief of Twelver Shi'ism is that the spiritual and political successors of Muhammad are not caliphs, but the "Imams"—a line starting with Muhammad's cousin, son-in-law and companion, Ali, and continuing with his male descendants. Imams were almost never in a position to rule territory, but did have the loyalty of their followers and delegated some of their functions, to "qualified members" of their community, "particularly in the judicial sphere".In the late 9th century the Twelfth Imam, a boy at the time, is reported to have mysteriously disappeared. some Historians believe that Shi'i deputy of the imam announced "occultation", whereby the 12th Imam was still alive but had "been withdrawn by God from the eyes of people" to protect his life until conditions were ripe for his reappearance.
As the centuries have gone by and the wait continues, the Shi'i community, has had to determine who, if anyone, has his authority for what functions during the Imam's absence. The delegation of some functions—for example, the collection and disbursement of religiously mandated tithes — continued during occultation, but others were limited. Shi'i jurists, and especially al-Sharif al-Murtada, forbade "waging of jihad or the holding of Friday prayers", as this power was in abeyance until the return of the Imam.
Al-Murtada also excluded implementing the penal code, leading the community in jihad, and giving allegiance to any leader.
For many centuries, according to at least two historians, Shia jurists have tended to stick to one of three approaches to the state: cooperated with it, trying to influence policies by becoming active in politics, or most commonly, remaining aloof from it.
One firm supporter of governance by jurist – Mohammad-Taqi Mesbah-Yazdi—describes the arrival of rule of jurist in Iran as a "revolution" after fourteen centuries of "lamentable" governance in the Islamic world.
Other supporters insist that the idea that the governance by jurist is "new", is erroneous. Vaezi maintains it is the logical conclusion of arguments made by high-level Shia faqih of medieval times who argued that high-level Shia faqih be given authority, although their use of Taqiya prevents this from being obvious to us.
A significant event in Islamic and especially Shia history was the rise of the Safavid dynasty, which at its height
ruled a vast area including modern day Iran and beyond. The Safavids forcibly converting Iran's population to the state religion of Twelver Shi'ism,. According to Hamid Algar,
, under the Safavids, the general deputyship "occasionally was interpreted to include all the prerogatives of rule that in principle had belonged to the imams, but no special emphasis was placed on this." And in the nineteenth century, velayat-e faqih began "to be discussed as a distinct legal topic".
There are other theories by supporters of absolute Wilāyat al-Faqīh of when the doctrine was first advocated or practiced, or at least early examples of it.
One argument is that was probably first introduced in the fiqh of Ja'far al-Sadiq in the famous textbook Javaher-ol-Kalaam.
The issue was reportedly mentioned by the earliest Shi'i mujtahids such as al-Shaykh Al-Mufid, and enforced for a while by Muhaqqiq Karaki during the era of Tahmasp I.
Iranian cleric Mohammad Mahdee Naraqi, or at least his son Molla Ahmad Naraqi, are said to have argued that "the scope of wilayat al-faqıh extends to political authority", more than a century earlier than Khomeini, and over all aspects of a believer's personal life, but never tried to establish or preach for the establishment of a state based on wilayat al-faqıh al-siyasıyah. Ahmad Naraqi insisted on the absolute guardianship of the jurist over all aspects of a believer's personal life, but he did not claim jurist's authority over public affairs nor present Islam as a modern political or state system. Nor did he pose any challenge to Fath Ali Shah Qajar, obediently declaring jihad against Russia for the Russo-Persian War, which Iran lost. According to Moojan Momen, "the most" that Naraqi or any Shi'i prior to Khomeini "have claimed is that kings and rulers should be guided in their actions and politics by the Shi'i faqih..."
Naraqi's concept was not passed on by his most famous student, the great Shi'ite jurist Ayatullah Shaykh Murtaza Ansari, who argued against absolute authority of the jurist over all affairs of a believer's life.
According to John Esposito in The Oxford Dictionary of Islam, the first Islamic scholar to advance the theory of the Guardianship of the Islamic Jurist came much later -- Morteza Ansari.
Mohamad Bazzi dates "the concept of wilayat al-faqih" as a model "of political rule" from "the early nineteenth century".
A doctrinal change in most of Twelver Shiism in the late 18th century that gave Shi'i ulama the power to use of ijtihad in the creation of new rules of fiqh, exclude hadith they considered unreliable, and declaring it obligatory to for non-faqih Muslims to obey a mujtahid when seeking to determine Islamically correct behavior; was the triumph of the Usuli school of doctrine over the Akhbari school.
But along with this doctrinal power came political, economic and social power—control by the ulama over activities left to the government in modern states — the clergy "directly collected and dispersed" the zakat and khums taxes, had "huge" waqf mortmains as well as personal properties, "controlled most of the dispensing of justice", were "the primary educators, oversaw social welfare, and were frequently courted and even paid by rulers" — but meant that as the nineteenth century progressed "important ulama" and their allies in the bazaar came into conflict with the secular authorities, specifically the shah.