Iraq and Iran: Has Ayatollah Sistani Challenged the Supreme Leader's Authority? (Nafisi)

Days after Iran's Supreme Leader had released, retracted, and then re-released his "I am the Rule of the Prophet" declaration, the leading Shi'a cleric in Iraq, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, issued his own fatwa.



The contrast between the Khamenei and Sistani approaches to velayat-e-faqih (ultimate clerical supremacy) is stark. Now for the political question: was the Sistani pronouncement solely, or at least primarily, fostered by Iraqi developments or is it a response to the Supreme Leader's fatwa?

Rasool Nafisi, who has offered this analysis of Sistani's move, answers, "The fatwa was possibly prompted by the fatwa of Khamenei":

Ayatollah Sistani, in an important fatwa, has clarified his position on velayat faghih. Answering three questions on the function and role of velayat faghih, the ayatollah asserts the general Shiite ulama's
understanding of the function of velayat: it is for "omoor hessbieh" meaning to act as the caretaker of orphans, etc.

But for "omoor aammah" , meaning the general affairs of society including the political sphere, Sistani clearly says that for a vali to rule as such he needs "being accepted and popular (maghbool) by the majority of believers" as one of the main conditions.

In other words, Sistani believes that velayat has no divine origins, and the vali can only act as a ruler if his role is accepted by the majority. This fatwa is in contrast to the new wave of ideological assertions by [Iran's Ayatollah] Mesbah Yazdi and his cohorts who are hard at work to prove the divine origins of vali, and that he is only "discovered" (kashf) by the people, [for] he is already appointed by the Imam in Occultation.

Sistani's fatwa in a way annuls Ayatollah Khamenei's fatwa issued a couple of weeks ago where he clearly said he substitutes [for] the prophet and Imams and people should obey his political statements verbatim. Considering the vast unpopularity of Khamenei, it seems that the condition of "being accepted and popular among the believers" does not quite apply here.

Comments

[Bigdaddypimp]

Lucas, do you ever do your own homework ?

[AMir]

Sistani's Fatwa was on his website long befor Khamenei's was published.

[فتوای آيت‌الله سيستانی «]

[...] نظر رسول نفیسی كه اين حرکت سیستانی را تحليل كرده، «فتوای سيستانی احتمالن در پاسخ به فتوای [...]

[News vom 5. August « Ars]

[...] Ayatollah Sistani unterminiert die Autorität des Revolutionsführers [...]

[Ange-Paris]

Bidadgar ????

[Ange-Paris]

Thank you Ayatollah Sistani, I was waiting for this kind of Fatwa since the beginning of the turmoil in my country; please be with my people and help them to get rid of the people that sully God and Islam.
Regards
Ange