Abbas Kadhim, \nResident Senior Fellow and the Iraq Initiative Director at the\nAtlantic Council and Barbara Slavin, Director for the Future of Iran\nInitiative at the Atlantic Council co-authored a report titled, \u201cAfter Sistani and Khamenei: Looming\nSuccessions Will Shape the Middle East.\u201d Despite the importance of the report,\nI have some criticisms related to some generalizations made by the authors. I\nwill highlight some of them in this brief article. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
With regard to the\nsection in the report concerning the Iraqi Supreme Marjaya led by Ayatollah Sistani, the authors are correct\nwhen they say that he undoubtedly plays a prominent role in the course of\nreligious and political issues in Iraq \u2013 even outside Iraq, particularly when\nit comes to issues that are related to the overall affairs of the Shiite\ncommunity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It seems that the\nIranians are preparing themselves for the post-Sistani era. However, Iran\u2019s\nhandling of the vacuum after Sistani’s\ndeath will be dependent on whether Khamenei is alive or dead. In addition, Iran is keen to fill the vacuum of power in Iraq through the\nuse of hard power tools such as militias loyal to Tehran rather than taking\ncontrol over the Iraqi Supreme Marjaya, i.e., the Najaf Hawza\u2014 even though\nspreading its influence inside the Iraqi Marjaya is still an Iranian goal. It\nis worth mentioning that after the death of Mahmoud Shahroudi, Iran lost a\nstrong bargaining chip that would have helped it compete with the Najaf\nMarjaya.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Iranian strategy in\nIraq is based on two parallel strands. The first is infiltration into Iraq\u2019s\nHawza through the use of soft power tools such as by deploying pro-Iranian clerics\nand indoctrinating Hawza students with the theory of Velayat-e Faqih<\/em>. The\nsecond is penetration by creating armed militias that impose a fait accompli\npolicy. The extent of this policy was evident when the Hezbollah Brigades\nrefused to withdraw from southern Anbar some time ago, despite the Iraqi prime\nminister requesting them to withdraw.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Iran\u2019s hard power\ntools, particularly its deployment of armed militias, undermined Sistani’s authority when they\nrefused to declare their loyalty to the Iraqi state and be fully integrated within\nthe Iraqi Army. Sistani has repeatedly requested that arms should be\nlimited to the state exclusively. He even insisted on this during his meeting\nwith Iranian President Hassan Rouhani in March 2019, however, his demand has\nnot yet been fulfilled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Iranian soft and hard\npower tools have undermined Sistani’s Marjaya by creating fertile ground for\nIran\u2019s ideology and politics in Iraq. However, Iran at the same time has shown\nsome respect to Sistani, but without declaring allegiance to him. Iran has\nrefused to commit to his Marjaya. The militias that make up the Popular\nMobilization Forces (PMF) mostly follow\nKhamenei’s Marjaya. This contradicts what the authors said regarding the PMF\ndrawing its legitimacy from Sistani, who is the only influential figure and\nsupervisor over the PMF\u2019s actions. Their statement is an inaccurate\novergeneralization as a party or entity being close to the Najaf Marjaya is not\nin itself indicative of legitimacy being derived from it. For example, the Sadrists, who are closer to\nthe Iraqi Marjaya in Najaf than any other party in Iraq, including the PMF, do\nnot derive their legitimacy from Sistani, given the historical, political and\njuristic differences between them and Sistani! <\/p>\n\n\n\n Also, we cannot ignore Iran\u2019s role during the Shah\u2019s period in\ntransferring the position of Marjaya after Borujerdi\u2019s\ndeath to Mr. Mohsen Al-Hakim in Najaf, in order to get rid of the\nburden. Prior to this, some clerics were angry at Mirza Alshirazi\u2019s refusal to meet Naseeruddin\nShah. They were concerned about the economic consequences the Najafi jurists might\nface if Naseeruddin Shah was displeased by Alshirazi\u2019s refusal, given the fact\nthat the jurists of the Hawza were in need of Iran\u2019s financial support. The\nLebanese thinker Hani Fahs views Iran\u2019s rapprochement towards Najaf as a means\nof obtaining legitimacy. Iran is in need of local Hawzas generally and the\nNajaf Hawza in particular as it is the largest and primary Shiite Hawza which\nholds a special status in the Shiite tradition and imagination.<\/p>\n\n\n\n With regard to\nchoosing the supreme marja after the death of the current marja in Najaf,\nhistorically there has been no specific criteria, although the two authors like\nto claim that there are two criteria for choosing a successor marja. They wrote, \u201cThere is no\nspecific procedure for succession in the Najaf marja\u2019iya<\/em>, no role for the state to play in selecting a successor,\nnor even a loophole to tip the balance in favor of one contender over the\nothers. There are two criteria for selecting a marja<\/em>: piety and superiority of knowledge in jurisprudence.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The authors could not distinguish between the criteria for\nselecting a marja in general and the criteria for selecting the supreme marja.\nThe highest degree of knowledge and piety are among the criteria of a mujtahid [a\nscholar of lower standing], regardless of his location or position. However,\nthese criteria are subjective and cannot be measured objectively. Thus, to identify and agree upon these criteria\nremains impossible. Also, it cannot be claimed that the criteria mentioned by\nthe authors are conditions for selecting the supreme marja and embodied\nexclusively in one person because the supreme marja is appointed through\nscreening and Al-\u02beIjm\u0101\u02bf [refers to a unanimous agreement among scholars and\nreligious figures] of the religious establishment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In my opinion, the\nMarjaya will operate collectively after the death of Sistani on the basis of\n\u2018commonality\u2019 and \u2018acceptance by the believers\u2019 as well as in accordance with\nthe principles of ijtihad and taqlid. The Marjaya will not be dominated by high\nranking clerics. The current situation in Najaf is similar to the situation\nbefore the death of Abu al-Qasim al-Khoei in 1992 when Abd al-A’la al-Sabziwari\nsucceeded him in 1993. He was elected by a broad spectrum of Shiites in Iraq\nand Iran. However, he died months after\nthe death of al-Khoei. Even after the death of al-Sabziwari, it is not possible\nto say that Sistani took control of the Marjaya exclusively. There was\ncompetition between Sistani and Al-Sadr, Murtaza Borujerdi, and Ali al-Gharawi\nto lead the Najaf Hawza. It was largely a collective Marjaya. The others died\nand Sistani stayed away from the political arena until the fall of Saddam\u2019s\ngovernment. He then took exclusive control of the Marjaya. Sistani\u2019s power is composed of religious, doctrinal,\npolitical, and economic components that cannot be separated from one\nanother. Its outcomes cannot also be\npredicted. We need time to identify and categorize these components. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Therefore, Sistani\nwill likely be succeeded by a group of marjas, headed by al-Fayyad, al-Hakim,\nand Bashir al-Najafi. One of them may\ntake the lead, or perhaps a marja from\noutside this circle will assume the leadership of the Marjaya. The Iraqi Marjaya\u2019s characteristics, its inner\nconflicts, and its position among Shiite communities in Shiite capitals make it\ndifficult to infer who will be the next marja of Najaf. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In all cases, the next\nmarja cannot diverge from the inherited\nNajaf line since he represents it and is part of it. Also, no one can undermine\nthe screening and selection process given the influence of political and\neconomic and juristic lobbying groups. The authors\u2019 point of view that the next marja will shape the political\nfuture of Iraq, or that he will gradually implement a version of the Iranian\njurist guardianship model is illustrated in their statement: <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIdentifying a successor will put the\ncountry in his hands to mold its political future in any way he likes. The new\nmarja\u2019 can choose to continue Sistani\u2019s path of self-restraint and reserve for\nhimself the role of an impartial supporter of the state, with limited\ninterference only in cases of utmost necessity\u2014or he could opt for gradual\nintervention toward some measure of wilayat al-faqih, the Iranian system (also\ncalled Velayet-e Faqih) in which a senior cleric has the last word on all major\ngovernment decisions.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n This inaccurate\nstatement is inconsistent with the political, social, and historical heritage\nof the Iraqi state. In addition, it is inconsistent with the thinking of Iraq\u2019s\nelite marja and demographics, as well as its religious Hawza and fatwa\nheritage, since the time of Mirza Hussein Khalil, Akhund Khorasani, \u201cthe\nelitist marja,\u201d and his follower Mohammad Kazim Yazdi \u201cthe populist marja,\u201d\nuntil today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This screening process\nand method of selection as well as studying its development from past centuries\nup to the present day requires in-depth research. We may work on it later at the International\nInstitute of Iranian Studies (Rasanah).<\/p>\n\n\n\n It can be said that\nthis assumption, which is the transformation of the Najaf Marjaya into a model\nsimilar to the Velayat-e Faqih model, is unacceptable even at the level\nof the Iranian religious elite. There is only one guardian jurist in Tehran who seeks to\nestablish a world government and all Shiites must be loyal to him. His struggle\nwith Najaf is not for Najaf to create its own guardian jurist, but for Najaf to submit to\nthe rule of the guardian jurist in Tehran. There is a big difference between the two\nissues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n No marja, regardless\nof his Shiite hegemony and dominance in Iraq, can shape the political future of\nthe state as he wishes. He is not the guardian jurist. He does not act\nexclusively as there are political constraints and the Hawza and the region would prevent him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The conclusion in my\nopinion: Usually after the death of the marja \nin Najaf, the supreme marja is\nnot determined immediately after him because there are no elections or selection\nprocesses, but it is determined by screening and time. Therefore, it will take a\ncouple of months before the supreme marja is selected. <\/p>\n\n\n\n This\nis in contrast to the Iranian supreme leader, who is chosen directly by the\nstate and not by high ranking clerics, or the public, and he assumes his\nduties immediately upon his selection by the Assembly of Experts, even if he\ndoes not meet the conditions of knowledgeability and jurisprudence as was the\ncase with Khamenei, because the Iranian Marjaya is exclusively in the hands of\nthe state, unlike the Najaf Marjaya. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Opinions in this article reflect the writer\u2019s point of view, not necessarily the view of Rasanah<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Abbas Kadhim, Resident Senior Fellow and the Iraq Initiative Director at the Atlantic Council and Barbara Slavin, Director for the Future of Iran Initiative at the Atlantic Council co-authored a report titled, \u201cAfter Sistani and Khamenei: Looming Successions Will Shape the Middle East.\u201d Despite the importance of the report, I have some criticisms related to some generalizations made by the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":7284,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[3785,351,386,2765,722,3786,2466,2731],"class_list":["post-7283","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles","tag-ayatollah-sistani","tag-iraq","tag-khamenei","tag-khamenei-accountable","tag-middle-east","tag-najaf-marjaya","tag-rasanah","tag-rasanah-issues"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7283","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/32"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7283"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7283\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7285,"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7283\/revisions\/7285"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7284"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7283"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7283"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7283"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}