Word: sharietmadari
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Among the mullahs inside Iran, the most powerful is Ayatullah Sharietmadari, a revered Islamic scholar who condemns violence but strongly opposes the Shah on constitutional and religious grounds (see box). Parliament, claims Sharietmadari, too often violates the precepts of Islamic law to the detriment of Shi'ite sensibilities. Gambling, prostitution and pornography are all viewed as typical manifestations of modernism. The Shah's widespread curtailment of civil liberties, freedom of the press and political assembly are looked upon as only further evidence of his determination to deprive the Shi'ites of their power and to transform the nation into...
...Sharietmadari's headquarters?and thus the heart of Iran's internal Islamic opposition?is Qum, a city of 300,000 that ranks with Najaf in Iraq as one of the world's greatest centers of Shi'ite learning. Located 75 miles south of Tehran, Qum is both a symbol and a model of the Iran that the mullahs yearn to preserve. No television aerials mar the pristine skyline; no public cinemas threaten to seduce the inquisitive; no bars or liquor stores offend the strict life of the observant. All women wear the chador and devote much of their lives...
Turbaned, gray-bearded and bespectacled Ayatullah Sharietmadari, 76, looks like anything but a revolutionary. He has a kindly, gentle manner. A revered scholar, he spends most of his days sitting on the floor of his bone-bare home in Qum, discussing the subtleties of Islamic thought with theological students who come to him from all over the Muslim world. His name is less a symbol of political resistance than that of Ayatullah Khomeini, 80, who has been in exile since 1963 and now lives in Iraq. But among those mullahs still inside Iran, Sharietmadari is the acknowledged leader...
...Shah's new program seemed to satisfy some religious leaders. "We have no intention of implementing the traditional Islamic criminal codes such as cutting off thieves' hands or stoning adulterers to death," said one moderate leader, Ayatullah Sharietmadari. "We don't want to turn Iran into another Saudi Arabia or another Libya. But we shall demand strict adherence to the Islamic precepts of our country's constitution." Many members of the Western-educated elite were predictably appalled at the latest turn of events. "The Shah's concessions will only make the opposition demand more," complained...
...incident inflamed Shi'ite feelings as never before. In an interview last week in his spartan house in Qum, Sharietmadari told TIME Correspondent Wilton Wynn: "In the eyes of the nation, this incident is enough to cause a revolution in Iran. [The authorities] stopped cables being sent to me, but still the people came to me asking for the order to make a revolution. I advised them to remain quiet. But an attack on a Shi'ite leader will never be forgotten by the people." The roots of the recent trouble, charged Sharietmadari, lay in "many illegal actions...