Word: velayat
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...street to confront the occupation, and thereby create pressure on Sistani to adopt stronger positions. While he shares the mainstream Shi'ite goal of ensuring that elections go ahead in January - and indications are that his party plans to participate - Moqtada hews more closely to the Khomeini doctrine of velayat-al-faqih (political rule by clerics), and hopes to eclipse more moderate Shi'ite parties at the polls, and in the streets...
...Shah's reign, Kadivar enrolled in the Shi'ite seminary in the holy city of Qum after Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini came to power, spending 17 years there as a student and teacher. To the dismay of hard-line clerics, his most important work presents a devastating critique of velayat-e faqih, the Shi'ite Muslim doctrine expounded by Khomeini that effectively grants the power of dictatorship to a top Shi'ite cleric. Kadivar argues that because the concept was conceived by clerics rather than by Allah, it cannot be considered sacred or infallible. And if clerics have no God-given...
...Unlike Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, the supreme spiritual leader of Iraq's Shiites, Moqtada has only minor clerical status. But he has political muscle and influence derived from the heroic reputation of his forebears. Also unlike Sistani, Moqtada is a fervent advocate of the Khomeinist doctrine of "velayat al-faqi," or political rule by the clergy. His objective: to make himself the primary player in Iraqi politics...
...huge sums in alms and tithes. Two years later, Saddam placed Sistani under house arrest. In response, Sistani established a base in Qum, in western Iran, and forged relationships with the ruling clergy in Tehran. But Sistani, like many other Shi'ite luminaries, disagrees with the Iranian practice of velayat-e faqih, or rule of the clergy. Aides say he has always discouraged clerics from holding political positions...
...Iraq is not destined to become an Islamic Republic like Iran. Iraq has no charismatic figure like Ayatullah Khomeini. The late Iranian ruler actually rose to fame on the back of a nationalist revolution and then cemented his authoritarian power through a Shiite doctrine called velayat-e fagih, or rule of the Islamic clergy. The doctrine is not widely accepted by Iraqi Shiites, including their most revered leader, Grand Ayatullah Ali Sistani, who favors the traditional "quietist" role of the clergy in politics...