ze'ev maghen: shi'ite eschatology and the iranian nuclear crisis

8/12/2019 Ze'ev Maghen: Shi'ite Eschatology and the Iranian Nuclear Crisis

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Occultation in PerpetuumShi ite Eschatology and the IranianNuclear Crisis

Dr Ze ev Maghen, Bar-Ilan University

.Submitted to :DOD/ONAIslamist Strategies ProjectInstitute for Policy and Strategy, HerzliyaHudson Institute, Washington DCProject Leader: Dr . Shmuel BarMay I, 2007


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ontent

Executive Summary .. ......... . .................................... ................................ ............ 1

Introduction ................. .... .. .................. ...... ............................. .............. .2Coming Soon? .......... . .... ........ ........ ......... . ........ . .................. . 6Worth the Wait ................................... ........ ...... ........................... .............. .................... 9The Dre8ltl DefeiTed . . ... . . . . . . .. . .. . . . . .. . . . . . 15Vox Populi Vox Dei ........................ ......................... ................. ............ ..................... 19The Hidden Hand . .......... .... . .. ... .. ........ . . ...... ....... ........ 25Conclusion . ..... . ...... ........ ................ ....... . ................... ...... 29. .


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xecutive SummaryThis essay examines the assertion, widespread in both media and academia, that theIslamic Republic ofIran - and especially the current government under Ahmadinejad - isactuated y a powerful, S h i i t e ~ b a s e d messianism. Much evidence appears at first glance

to support this assessment: not only the statements and actions of the new, charismaticpresident, many of which reference the imminent return of the Hidden Imam, but also,and more fundamentally, the widespread perception ofShi'ism - the state religion of Iranand spiritual force behind the Islamic Revolution - as an endemically and ferventlyapocalyptic creed. These two factors have combined with the pervasive impressioncreated by many analysts that Iran's rulers live on the brink of the Eschaton, and seek toexpedite its arrival by initiating a worldwide cataclysm.The author rejects this outlook, arguing instead that r ~ l i g i o - h i s t o r i c a ldevelopments in the medieval and modern periods gradually turned Twelver Shi'ism intothe most resolutely anti-messianic movement in Islam, perhaps in the world. As

portrayed y the sources available to us, Shi'ism was from the very outset an affair ofspecifically passive resistance, which was restrained still further y a stronglyconservative and prudent streak. The one and only manifestation of radical rebellionapproved y Twelver historiography is the uprising of I Iusayn (680 CE), and even thisevent was soon metamorphosed into a deliberate Christ-like act of self-sacrifice gearedtoward moral, not political, redemption. From that time forward the strain ofShi'ism thatwould ultimately win out made a point of fiercely condemning and ostracizing allmovements for messianic restoration. Although a formally chiliastic element wasincorporated into ''mainstream" Shi'ism with the "occultation" of the final imam (873CE), the expectation of this shadowy figure's return was pilshed off until the end ofhistory, and began to function as an antidote, not a catalyst, to messianic radicalism.Even before the imams exited the stage, the professional scholars ofShi'ism wereusurping their role and replacing their (already subdued) charisma with the regulatingforce p r excellence: legalism. 1broughout the middle ages the jurists or mujtahidunextended their sway at the expense of any and all "extremist" impulses and became aconsistent focus of antidisestablislunentarianism. By the time Shi'ism was imposed asthe offic.ial state religion of Iran in the sixteenth century, the clerical class had not onlysuperseded the imam(s) as leaders of the community, they had arrogated to themselvespractically all of his (their) authority. The increasing power of the u/ama eventually

paved the way for their accession to power in the Islamic Revolution of 1979, a uniqueachievement in Islamic - and perhaps in world - history facilitated specifically by thecontinuing irrelevance o he Hidden lmiim.

n the final section of this paper the oft-heard claims regarding the supposedlymillenarian I;Iojjatiyyeh Mahdaviyyeh are addressed and debunked. While it isimperative that the U. S. and E. U. spare no efforts to prevent the Islamic Republic fromobtaining nuclear capability, this is not due to any inherent "End of Days" outlookinforming Iranian policy. This alternative view of the subject harbors significantimplications for the West's present and 'future dealings with the Shi'ite world.1


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ntroductionEarly in 2005 the writer of these lines was listening via the Internet to an Iranian radiostation called shabake-ye-fthargaran1, ''The Self-Sacrificers' Network," and specificallyto a daily broadcast entitled barname-ye-payan-e-jahan, ''The End-of-the-World

Program." The speaker on that occasion, a middle-ranking cleric from the city ofKhorramshahr, was propounding a novel interpretation of an ancient Islamic tradition,which read: From 'A'isha, that the Messenger of God, may God speace and blessings be upon him, said: ''The one-eyed

Anti-Christ will be a Jew, and he will emerge from amongthe Jews of Isfahan, travel until he reaches the Land ofSyria, and enter Palestine through the Lydda gate. He willbegin the battle against the Muslims from there, and thenthe original companions of Jesus the son of Mary willdescend and kill him, and utterly eradicate his people."2

To the creative cleric delivering that day s lecture, the intent of this medievaleschatological passage was obvious: it referred to Shaul Mofaz, then defense minister ofthe State of Israel. Mofaz was born in 1948 (like the Zionist Regime ) to a Jewish familyin Isfahan; he emigrated to Palestine as a youth, entering that country through the Lyddaairport; he joined the anny soon after his arrival and e ~ a n battling the Muslims from hisnew base; and he has, as everyone knows, only one eye. How did he come to be namedShaul? After the Saul of old who, by the ruse of changing his name to Paul, infiltratedChristianity and carried out the mission he had been assigned by the Jews: to corrupt andundermine the pure faith that Jesus had brought. For this reason enmity has reignedbetween "Shaul" and Isa from that time until the present. And who are ''the originalcompanions of Jesus the son of Mary" described in the. }ladith? The three Magi, ofcourse; who came to visit the manger, and they - no less than Christ's arch-enemy of

1 Unhappy with more strictly academic methods of transliterating Persian to English, which for the mostpart ignore the needs of proper phonetic pronunciation in favor of alphabetical correspondence, I haveopted in this paper for a system that attempts to navigate between the pitfalls of each. Macrons areemployed to indicate long vowels, but - for instance - kasras are rendered with an "e" (Eslam. zaban-epak because that is how they sound in Persian. Most consonants have been transliterated as from Arabic,but writing Risfli instead of Reza seems counterproductive to me, and so I have chosen the latter alternative.Some well known names, like Khomeini or Ahmadinejad, have been left as they usually appear in theEnglish press.2 an A isha, ra(liya Allahu anha. qalat: qala rasul Allah . al/a Alliihu alayhi wa-sallam: a war m a s ~ hal-dajjiil sawfa yakUnu yahudiyan, wa-sawfa yakhruju min yahudiyyat fsfihiin /rattii ya tial shfrm madinatFilistin bi-bab Lidda. wa-yuqiitilu al-mu min na min huniika wa-yanzulu a,s/liibu lsii b. Maryama alawwalin wa-yaqtuluhu wa-yuhliku qawmahu al-/rarth wa /-nasi (various versions of this a d T t h may befound especially in thefitan sections ofboth the SunnJ and ShT Tcanonical collections; for a partial list ofother recensions see Shihllb 1-DTn AbO Matunod b. TamTm ~ q a d d a s T Muthir a/-Gharam i/o liyorat 0/-Qudswa /-Sham [Beirut: Dar al-MajTd, 1994}, pp. I03-4, Bob Ha/ok al-A war ai-Dajjiil hi I-Sh im wa -Muqatalatuhu al- o ifa a ~ u r a i/a an Yaqtuluhu ai-Masift Aioyhi a/-Sa/tim).3 Wrong defense minister, but why nitpick?

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lsfahanic stock - hail from Iran.4 So it is the Islamic Republic of Iran that is destined,according to this ancient prophetic prognostication, to descend and kill the Israeliwarlord Mofaz and utterly eradicate his people. ''These events, concluded the radiopreacher, are already underway.

I have been asked by those who commissioned this study to address the followingquestion: Can we see a translation of apocalyptic Shi'ite beliefs and fervor into aspecific and distinguishable Iranian strategic idea or even one with operational fallout(i.e. with reference to WMD)? Since my answer to this question is a tentative ''no, Iconsider it my duty to preface what follows with a short list of concisely stated reasonswhy, despite the conclusions of the present paper, it is nevertheless imperative that

America, Europe and Israel spare no effort to prevent the Islamic Republic fromobtaining the capability to manufacture nuclear weapons. These reasons are as follows:1. A vast chasm separates the worldviews and aspirations of Islamist Iran fromthose governing modem Western states and societies, a contrariety so fundamental that itrenders the arrival t a modus vivendi between the two sides nearly impossible and leadseach to envision the other in fiercely diabolical terms. When such a high probability ofconflict exists, the possession by oth parties ofweapons ofmass destruction is a recipefor international cataclysm.5

4 Not for nothing are Iranians, after the revolution no Jess th n before, commonly said to suffer from acultural personality split that pits their religious faith against their national affinity. Here is a Muslimfundamentalist preacher positively referencing - even identifying his own polity and society with - figuresstraight out of he Zoroastrianjahiliyya.' The Iranians admittedly could, and sometimes quietly do, argue that the very opposite is true: that whenthe eruption ofhostilties between two actors seems imminent, it is obviously better for the survival of thespecies as a whole ifneither side can boast a nuclear arsenal, but barring that unrealistic scenario, the nextbest situation is for oth camps to be armed with atomic weapons, thus engendering the much-toutedstalemate known as Mutually Assured Destruction. No nuclear nation has ever directly attacked anothernuclear nation even with conventional weaponry, let alone with WMD, nd therefore a nuclear Iran wouldbe a boon to planetary peace and stability, the argument goes (whereas a non-nuclear Iran essentiallyrepresents the same temptation to the U. S. that Japan did during WWII). To the widely heard Westernparry that the MAD theory is not applicable to lrari because it is a country run on other-worldly, not thisworldly, principles, Supreme Leader Ayatollah K.blmene I b s of late begun to offer an intriguing riposte.The personification of international arrogance (i.e. the U. S.), he says, claims that the Islamic Republicmust be denied access to nuclear technology because its religious fanaticism and consequent irrational

critera for action make it a dangerously unpredictable state, whereas America, the Western-Europeancountries nd Israel - because these and other civilized members of he nuclear club are not governed bymedieval metaphysics and impassioned messianism but by modem science nd secular democracy - maybe trusted to act in a more logical fashion and avoid a scenario ofMutually Assured Destruction.Khamene T asserts that the diametric opposite is the case: the policy options open to the leaders of Iran arerestricted by an immutable, eternally valid and sacred system of aw, to which Shfi te Muslims owe theirabsolute and abiding allegience above all else: i anyone is predictable in the current conflict, it is theIslamic Republic, whose hands are permanently tied by the sharJ'a (which, as the much maligned by rarelyread Qomfa wa clearly established, permits the use of nuclear weapons under certain very lim itedcircumstances - a statement applicable, the Rahbar argues, to the military policies of every nuclear nation

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'2. The methods of striking at American, European, Israeli, Arab, Kurdish and

other targets employed by the Iranians to date have almost invariably involved asmokescreen. They have often managed - by hiring available and eager proxies - tocover their tracks and obscure from clear view the actual source of the attack, therebyrendering it extremely difficult to pin the blame where it belongs and identify the actorthat needs to e punished and neutralized. Given the success rate of this qtethod so far,one should expect the Iranians to continue employing it: though it is unquestionablyharder to conceal the ultimate provenance of a nuclear weapon, it is not impossible. Anatomic Iran could charge a more-or-less independent Islamist entity - Hizbullah, alQaeda, the Chechen Vis Haji, Muqtada al-Sadr's Jaysh al-Mahdi, Islamic Jihad, a radicalcell within Hizb al-Tahrir, even Hamas - with the delivery to the desired address of anuclear payload (including a dirty bomb, which is even harder to trace), in the hopesthat at least some doubt would be sown among the governments of he already fractitiousWest regarding the full responsibility of the Islamic Republic and the consequentmorality of counterlaunching at Tehran. Such a scenario at least partially undermines thedeterrent value ofMutually Assured Destruction.

3. Another element that may weaken the force of MAD in the case of Iran isreligious - but not messianic - in character. I refer to the deeply ingrained Shi'itetradition of martyrdom. The willingness and even eagerness to die, individually or enmasse, for the sake of a given spiritual-military goal is a notion that goes back to theearliest days of Islam, whose adherents are urged by countless dicta emerging from theclassical texts to love death as others love life. Martyrdom is, however, quite distinctfrom messianism in Shi' ite theology and historiography. Among Shi'ites, the quest formartyrdom receives its premier impetus (after the Qur'an) from ''the oppressed andpersecuted imams, noneof whom died naturally according to Shr'ite lore, and especiallyfrom the third of these, I;Iusayn, the sayyid al-shuhadii (prince of martyrs), whosedemise along with his family at the hands of the Umayyads in 680 CE resonatespowerfully among all oftoday's fedayeen (including Sunnis). Shi'ite messianism, on theother h n d ~ has its roots in the only imam of the twelve who wasn t martyred, the fiveyear old M ammad son of I;Iasan who disappeared from human view in 873 CE andwhose second advent is still awaited by believers. Thus, though a willingness to risk thedeaths of millions of members of the Iranian population as a result of a nuclearcounterattack cannot (so this study will argue) be derived from Shi'ite eschatology, itcould still conceivably be sought in Shi'te martyrology.

on earth. The West, on the other hand, places not God 's unchanging law but man 's capricious legislationin the driver's seat: it is Western leaders, unhampered by anything but their own moral and intellectualwhim, who could decide one fme day to annihilate hundreds of housands of innocent human beings withnuclear weapons, including masses of their own citizens who would be killed in the inevitablecounterattack. This Western unpredictability is a direct result of the estek iir (arrogance) inherent in theirsecular philosophical system, which holds at bottom that man is the fin l reference and measure of allthings, as opposed to the humility of the Muslims wh o submit to the judgment of a higher power.Whatever one may think about the validity of such Iranian arguments, awareness of their existence isimportant.4


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4. t cannot be denied that Iran has legitimate security concerns - involvingpotential threats from Russia, India, Sunni Pakistan, the resurgent Taliban, Turkey anunstable Iraq, not to mention the U. S and that these ccincems, together with a desirefor the prestige and leverage afforded by nuclear status, constitute the genuine motivationbehind the Islamic Republic's drive for nuclear capability. Nevertheless, once acquired,the possibility that an Iranian atom bomb will be used not in a defensive but in anoffensive context is palpable, especially given current President Ahrnadinejad's repeateddemand that Israel be completely wiped off the face o the earth (ma rv-e-kiimel-eEsra 7/ az a f h e y e riizegar . The ever-increasing dempnization and dehumanization othe population o the Jewish state is preparing the moral ground in the Muslim world (andeven in some places outside o it) for that population's mass extermination. In theframework o a serious escalation - a phenomenon more common than ever these days inthe Middle East - their own vitriolic rhetoric might easily run away with the leaders othe Islamic Republic, and an Iranian nuclear warhead find its way to Tel-Aviv. Such aneventuality would lead in tum to a regional and probably worldwide nuclear holocaust.

5. Finally, the acquisition by Iran o a nuclear weapon or weapons willunquestionably inaugurate a Middle East arms race, thereby tripling and quadrupling thechances that a nuclear exchange will eventually take place.

For all o these reasons and not a few more, the conclusions that follow regardingthe specific question o the impact o Shi'ite messianism on present-day Iranian strategyshould not in any way be construed as suggesting that a nuclear Iran is not a frighteninglydangerous prospect. As shall become clear, however, I believe that these conclusions doharbor significant implications for other aspects o the American and overall Westernconfrontation with Iran.


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Coming SoonHow influential is the reinvigorated Shr'ite messianic fervor co\lrsing throughsegments of the Iranian populace and government on the policies of the IslamicRepublic? In what ways does the tense expectation of the imminent reappearance of the

Hidden Imam - evoked most palpably and immediately by the speeches and gestures ofMafunud Ahmadinejad - affect the short and long tenn goals of this uniquely theocraticregime? How do apocalyptic notions of mass catastrophe as a prerequisite for thisreappearance impact on the behavior of those who seek to hasten the End? Beforeattempting to answer these questions, we have to examine the premise upon which theyare all based: that post-revolutionary Iranian Shr'ism is messianist. I will argue that thispremise is fundamentally mistaken. I will further assert that even were one to accept thatthe Islamic Republic is currently experiencing some sort of End of Days fever, Shr'iteeschatology as understood in the Islamic Republic (and in the medieval Muslim sources)is diametrically contraindicative to the inauguration ofa nuclear holocaust.

Certainly the notion that Iran since Khomeini has witnessed a revival of interestin, and an eagerness for the return of, the Mahdr (the Rightly Guided One, the Muslimsavior) can find a degree of support, at least at first glance. This is all the more true sinceAhmadinejad's election nearly two years ago. The charismatic president's messianicsounding words and deeds - allocating 1 7 million dollars in government funds to therefurbishment of a mosque in Qom which houses the Well of Jamkaran, whence somebelieve the Twelfth Imam will reappear; having his new government sign a pact withthat same Imam which was then thrown down that same well; pushing for the paving of abroad highway from Ray to Tehran so that his Anticipated Excellency'' will be able totravel the distance in comfort with his whole retinue in train; confident declarations to theeffect that Israel will soon evaporate from the face of the earth together with all ofIslam's enemies; the president's enthusiastic description to Ayatollah Javadi-ye-Amoli ofthe thoroughgoing fascination that greeted his U. N. address, during which - so heclaimed to have been told by one of the Arab-Muslim listeners - his person wasencircled by an aura of heavenly light ; his letter to President Bush, so reminiscent ofthe Prophet Mu}lammad's epistle to the kings of old, in which he suggested in not somany words that America's elected leader convert to Islam; his recent allusions tocommunications he purportedly received from the Hidden Imam and from Allah Himself- all of these examples and others like them have been endlessly bandied about in theWestern press of late, and combine to create . the impression of an impassioned andecstatic, not to say hallucinatory and delusional, executive who (moreover) presides overa cabinet handpicked from among his cronies in the paramilitary Basij, an organizationwhose members were recently praised by Supreme Leader Khamene'i for harboring aspecial connection with the Mahdr'' Basfjfyan ertebqt-e-khii,s.sf ba baqiyat Allahdarand).

6 B a y l n l t - e - M a q m - e - M o ~ R a h b a r T dar Astlne-ye-Salriiz-e-TaskhTr-e-Une-ye-JasiisT va Riiz-eMeliT-yeMobarezeh ba Estekbu, Jomhurl-ye-Eslami, 8.13 .06.6


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nus group o dangerous dreamers is in tum perceived by pundits and even manyserious lran-sheniisan (Iran specialists) to be the tip o a gargantuan chiliastic icebergsubsuming important groups within the government apparatus, large sections o themilitary and even the populace, all o whom are wittingly or unwittingly implementingpolicies inspired by the radical, messianist-oriented wing o he Shi'ite clerical class. Theclandestine l;lojjatiyyeh society, one o whose key figures, Ayatollah Mesbap-e-Yazdi, isalso considered to be Ahmadinejad's personal marja' (Focus o Imitation, i.e. religiousguide), is often specifically referenced in this connection, and is lumped together with amore general trend or tendency whose purveyors are referred to as the ta 'jfliyan or''hasteners [of the End]." Ahmadinejad's self-proclaimed intention to pick up whereKhomeini left off, rekindle the enthusiasm felt during the first years o the revolution andcarry through to fruition the august project that the founder began, all make even moregermane in this connection the direct link established by Khomeini himself between theevents o 1979 and the Muslim messianic advent:

"We place this revolution into the hands o the Mahdi: iGod please, let this revolution be the first step toward theappearance o The One Whom God Has Preserved, and letit pave the way for his arrival "7

In the first months after the revolution K.homeini himself was often associated inpopular imagination with the the Hidden Imam - hence the tenaciousness o his title:"The Imam - and the conscious atavism o Ahmadinejad's administration hassignificantly led to its members being dubbed ''the ambassadors (wukala ', Pers. vokala)o the Imam, a deliberately ambiguous designation that simultaneously evokes both themodern and medieval figure (the occulted Mahdi, as we shall see, was representedsuccessively by four such "ambassadors" during the first stage o his "absence'').

Ahmadinejad's verbal antics over the past two years, combined with theincreasingly tense situation surrounding the nuclear issue, have lead to a seeminglyendless medley o repetitious cliches in the press and, unfortunately, even in academiaregarding the Islamic Republic's "apocalyptic" philosophy and the influence thereof onthe country's short- and long-term strategic objectives. Long-standing and widespreadassumptions about Shrism being the most messianic o Islamic sects - indeed, it hostedthe very inauguration o Muslim messianism - have furnished the basis for a plethora oassertions to the effect that Iran's leaders are living at the juncture between the end ofthisworld and the beginning o the next. As recently as March, 2007, a highly respectedIsraeli army intelligence think-tank put out an information packet entitled HithazkutTo a 'at ha-Meshihiyut be-Iran - "The Burgeoning Phenomenon o Messianism in Iran" a document which cites no internal Iranian or Persian sources and which recycles for theumpteenth time a series o superficial platitudes about the current regime. The reportspeaks knowingly about ''the genuine, heartfelt beliefo Ahmadinejad and his cohorts in

7 "Sokhan-e-Rahbarbeh Monasebat-e-Majles-e-Y dbild-e-Shahid Beheshti," ~ t e l a 'at , 9.23.85: nenqeliib-ra beh dast-e-Mehdi miseporim va in enqelab moqaddame-ye Ohur va zamineh-saz-e-.zohur/Ja(irat-e-Baqiyat-AIIiih lch 'iihad bud en sha a Allah."7


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the imminent reappearance of the Hidden mam , as well as in the outbreak ofa war oog nd Magog with Israel and the West as a necessary prerequisite of the Mahdi'sadvent. 8 Untold articles and even full-length books have been written- none of themadducing a shred of evidence but all of them displaying an unfaltering confidence - basedon the premise that the Islamic Republic is a hot-bed of eschatological excitement.Taken all together, it is not hard to see why, from an untrained bird's eye view, postrevolutionary Iran appears to be in the thralls of a major messianic delirium, and todaymore than ever.

But appearances can be deceiving, and it is necessary to look below the surface ifwe are to understand the genuine currents that run through Iranian society and inform itsreligio-political culture. n what follows I will advance what I would imagine is thecounter-intuitive argument that contrary to conventional (and even a great deal ofscholarly) wisdom, Shi ism in general, and post-revolutionary Iranian Shi'ism inparticular, is not only not messianic or apocalyptic in character, but is in fact the fiercestenemy ofmessianism to be found anywhere in the Muslim world or in Muslim history.

Going below the surface means, first and foremost, going back in time. The revivedrespect among analysts and academicians for the power of faith - in no small part theresult of lessons gleaned from the rise of radical Islam - has engendered an atmosphereconducive to what would only recently have been disparaged as the orientalist'' oressentialist study of classical religious doctrines and paradigms. It is now once againrecognized that unless the past roots ofa phenomenon are probed, its present will foreverremain an enigma. A knowledge of the historical circumstances under which Shr'itemessianism arose is therefore crucial to understanding its role in present day Iran.

1 Hitftazkut Tofa'at ha-Meshijliyut be-Iran, Merkaz ba-Mayda' le-Modiin u-le-Teror, Ha-Merkaz leMoreshet ba-Modi' in, I March, 2007.8


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orth the ait

The notion of the "occultation" (ghayba) and eventual ''return" (raj 'a) of a reveredsacred personage at the time of (what appears to the uninitiated eye to be) his death isalmost as old as the institution of the Shi'i imamate itself.9 The earliest claim of this sortseems to have been put forth in connection with l;lasan and l;lusayn's half-brotherMuftammad b. al-l;lanafiyyah at the time of his passing around the year 700 CE,10 andfrom that point forward during the decades and centuries to come scores of imams fromdozens of different branches of Shi'ism were regularly consigned to "occultation" inplace of death. But the first and most fateful instance of a disappearance long beforedeath was that involving the five year-old son of Imam l;lasan al-'Askari and twelfthdescendent of the Prophet Multammad, who vanished in 873 CE. 11 This holy personage,whose name was also Multammad, spent the first 72 years of his "absenee" in a modeknown as the Lesser Occultation (al-ghayba al-.sughra), during which time he wasconsidered to be in indirect communication with his Shi'ite followers through a series offour "agents" or "ambassadors" (wukala , sufara). The last ofthe5e died in the year 945CE having refused on his deathbed to name a successor, at which point the absent imamreceded still deeper into the murky recesses of the Greater Occultation (al-ghayba alkubrii), a state and an epoch which has lasted from that time until the present and duringwhich the Awaited Savior has lost all contact with his flock.

Why did the Twelver Shi'ites - one ofwhosefundamental nd defining articles ofaith is that the world cannot exist for even a single instant without the hands-on guidanceof a chosen imam12 banish their own imam to the outer reaches and essentiallyexcommunicate him? Why would they allow for the creation of a situation in which ''noone can contact [the imam] or benefit from him in any way" (Ia yablughuhu a/zadun wala yastafidu minhu shay)? 13 Rightly refusing to accept the various assertions of laterSunnr heresiographers and Shi'ite theologians in this regard - to the effect that, forinstance, by the year 945 the hidden imam had far exceeded the average human lifeexpectancy and therefore believers would no longer credit the idea that anyone wasconversing with him - modem scholars have pointed us in a more fruitful direction of

G h a y b a r a j a is, ofcourse, even older than Sbr sm, Christ being only the most famous illustration of hisconcept from the r e ~ Islamic period.1 AbO M u ~ a m m a d al-l;lasan b. O ~ al-NawbakhtT, Kitab Firaq al-Shi'a (Istanbul: Mcttba'at al-Dawla,1931), pp. 25-6: Firqa qa/at inna Muframmad b. a/-1;/anafiyya huwa al-mahdf sammahu 'Alimahdiyyanlam yamut wa-la yamiit .. wa-lakinnahu ghaba wa-/a yudriayna huwa wa-sa-yarja u wa-yamlukuar(l ..wa -hum awwal man qala bi-ghayba r a j ' aAnother well-known and influential instance was the sixth ~ t i m i d caliph al-l;lakim, incarnate deity ofthe Druze, who disappeared into the Egyptian desert sometime around the year 1020 CE, and whosereappearance is still awaited.12 "He who dies without knowing the imAm dies an infidel"; "Even if only two people remained in theworld, one of hem would have to e the im m"; "The world caMot be devoid of a {1ujja for even.a singleinstant"; see Moojan Momen, An Introduction to Shi i Islam : The History and Doctrines ofTwe/ver Shi 'ism(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985), pp. 71, 256 and l04.13 Abu al-Q sim 'AIT b. al-l;lusayn al-MOsawT at-Sharff al-MU{tas) , a/-Risala i l-Ghayba (Najaf: al

~ t b a aJ-HaysJariyya , 138211962) , p. 122 .9


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inquiry. In the year 945 CE, the Buwayhids (or Buyids), a Persian military dynastywhich had declared its allegience first to Zaydr and then to Twelver Shi'ism, wasconsolidating its conquests in the Eastern half of the Abode of Islam. This wasunprecedented: a Shl'ite ruler sat on the throne and told even the 'Abbasid caliph what todo. Certain highly knowledgeable Western students ofShr'ism have argued that in lightof this development, the Baghdad-based controllers of Slu..ite doctrine were forced tofurther distance their already absentee celestial sovereign so as to obviate the spectre of"dual loyalty.

Though I agree that there is a direct connection between the Buwayhid invasionand the final dissolution of the Twelfth Imam I will argue that the issue was slightlydifferent. In order to do so, I must ask the reader to accompany me even further back intime. Shr'ism was born out of a protest against what certain Muslim purists or idealistssaw, at least in retrospect, as the sundering after the Prophet Mu}lammad' s death of theriyasa (political-military authority) from the imiima (spiritual-religious authority), thefonner having gone to Abu Baler and his successors among the Rashidiin, Umayyad and'Abbasid caliphs, while the latter remained in the hands of the ah al-bayt, Mu}lammad'sdirect descendents through Fijtima and 'Air. The historian al-Tabari records an exchangethat took place between 'AbdAllah b. 'Abbas and 'Umar b. h ~ t t a o when the latterwas caliph. 'Umar asked Ibn 'Abbas whether he knew the reason why Quraysh had notsupported the claims of he Banii Hashim - that is, the claims of 'Air - in the contest forsuccession after the Prophet's death. When Ibn 'Abbas confessed ignorance of thematter, 'Umar continued:

I know the reason: because the Quraysh did not like toallow both the prophethood (nubuwwa, a.k.a. the imiima)and the caliphate (khiliifa, a.k.a. the riyasa) to be combinedin your house, for with this you would feel arrogant andrejoice.14

Many are the candid admissions of this sort emerging from proto-Sunnr sources to theeffect that pragmatics, not idealism, dictated the course of events in the postMuJtammadan Islamic polity, and led to a convenient bifurcation of religious and secularauthority. 15 S h . i ~ i s m s seminal raison d etre was, more than anything else, the quest toreunite these two dimensions under the auspices of he Prophet's progeny.

14 Cited inS. Husein M. Jafri, Origins and Early Development ofShi a Islam (London: Longman Librairiedu Liban, 1976), 66 .u Such admissions include the purported correspondence between the Prophet's grandson, l;lasan b. Airand Mu'awiyah b. AbT Sufyan, child ofMullammad's fiercest enemy and founder of he Umayyaddynasty. According to some versions of his correspondence, Mu 'awiyah frankly admitted the "priorityand preferred status" of l;lasan due to his piety and propinquity to the Prophet, but goes on to argue that "Ihave a longer period of reign (as governor ofDamascus) and am more experienced and better at politicsthan you" (cited inS. Husayn M. Jafri, Origins and Development ofShi a Islam (London : Longman, 1976),p. 136.

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But this was soon to change. Having failed miserably to regain the riyiisa withthe catastrophe of I;lusayn at Karbala in 680 CE, those Shi'ites who would eventuallybecome Twelvers (or, at least, to whom the Twelvers would eventually look back upon astheir ideological progenitors) abruptly shifted their focus away from political struggle andtoward cultivating the imama, which became the strong and intricately constructed legupon which Imamr' Shi'ism stood for the next two centuries. Meanwhile the other leg the riyiisa, the aspiration to political-military authority - was utterly neglected and evendisparaged. Weeping for the past replaced fighting for the future as the preeminent Shi'iimperative, and all those from that time forward who nevertheless persisted in drawingthe sword on behalf of Shi'ism s original ideals, attempting to regain the riyiisa for theah/ ~ b a y t by force of arms; all those who would not be tempered and continued to seekMu}lammad's heavenly light in the breasts ofhis linear descendents; and all those of anyshape or form who advanced the claim (and as we noted above, a great many did) thattheir particular "imam" had not really died but was waiting in the wings of "occultation"and would return sometime soon as the savior-mahdi; all of these individuals and groupswere fought tooth and nail by the emerging jurists and theologians of the latent Twelverline, and were violently ejected from the fold as ghu/at, "exaggerators."

The "orthodox" Shi'i campaign against radical mahdism is retrojected in Twelversources as far back as the incumbency of. Ali b. Abi Talib himself. A nebulous figure bythe name of 'Abd Allah b. Saba' (or: b. al-Sawda') al-I;Iimyari is saddled by thatliterature with the responsibilitiy for spreading extremist ideas among the ranks of thefirstimam's supporters, thereby seeking to pervert Shi'ism at its very inception. He isdescribed as having arrived in Medina from Yemen around the year 650 CE during thetroublesome tenure of 'Uthrnan b. 'Aflan, and as having exploited the widespreaddissatisfaction with this ruler's nepotism and ineffectuality in order to bolster the positionof his rival, 'Ali. Ibn Saba s propaganda did not confine itself, however, to contrastingthe merits of the ahl al-bayt with the demerits of the Banii Umayya, but went so far as toattribute to 'Ali - this perhaps later, when he had already become caliph - prophetic andeven semi-divine status, and to argue that the great leader would not die but would rise upinto the clouds and remain there until it was time for him to return and vanquish theenemies of the faith. (When Ibn Saba' was informed of 'Airs murder he responded:"Even if ou had brought us his brains in seventy bags, we would not be convinced ofhisdeath").1 'Ali himself is credited with having declared Ibn Saba' and his followersinfidels and burning them at the stake ("Now we know that you are God," the ignitedenthusiasts reputedly exclaimed, "for only God punishes with fire ") . This legendaryprecursor of the innumerable mahdist movements that would punctuate early Shi'ism isthus portrayed as a dangerous deviation that must be, and that in fact was, eliminated bythe representatives of right religion. In order to add insult to injury, Ibn Saba' is alsodepicted in both Sunni and Shi'i works as black ("Ibn al-Sawda"') and Jewish.7

6 Israel Friedlaender, The Heterodoxies o he Sh 'ites to Ibn /fazm (New York: J.P.S., 1909),Part 1 p. 4517 E.g., al-Tabarf, Abn Ja'far MulJammad b. Jarir, a 'rikh ai-Rusul wa '1-Mu/iik (Ed. M. J. de Goeje eta/,Leiden: E. J. Bril1;1879-1901), vol. 4 p. 340: kana 'AbdAllah b. Saba Yahiidiyyan min ahl Sana'a ';

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The story of 'Abd Allah b. Saba' is most probably a backward projection ofsentiments which, as we intimated earlier, ripened in certain circles in the yearsimmediately following the ill-fated attempt by 'Ali's second son I;Iusayn to unseat theUmayyads in 680 CE. The profound trauma caused by that episode, in which thisgrandson of the Prophet, together with all the male members ofM$amrnad's line (saveone), were mercilessly slaughtered on the plains ofKarbala' by their fellow Muslims, ledto what we might describe as a "loss of heart" amongst many of the members andfollowers of the ahl a/-bayt. The sole surviving heir, I;Iusayn's son 'Ali Zayn al-'Abidin,is thus said to have spent the entire remainder of his life doing nothing but praying andweeping, to such an extent that the callus on his forehead from prostration had to beshaved down once a month and the pool of tears left after his worship sessions required amop. It should be remarked, however, that 'Alid ''moderation" is in evidence evenbefore the fall of I;Iusayn: witness the break between 'Ali and the Khawarij which wasprompted by the caliph's willingness to compromise with the enemy Umayyads, and alsothe accomodationism of 'Airs first born, I;Iasan, ."through whom peace was madebetween two camps ofMuslims" when he abdicated in favor ofMu'awiya). 8

This inward turning of the imamic focus continued apace during the lifetime of'AliZayn al-'Abidin's first-born, M$ammad al-Baqir, and it is to this period to thisparagon that reports are traced to the effect that the primary task of the Shi'ite is t"constantly bear grief for I;Iusayn and remain forever stricken with sorrow for him" and to the effect that the Prince of Martyrs himself refused the assistance of 36,000 jinnagainst the Umayyad army, explaining: I am not at all keen on living in this world; Iwish to meet my Lord. Whoever wishes to help me should merely weep for me." 9The adherents of Zayn al-'Abidrn and Mu}lammad al-Baqir did not, however,represent the only strand of Shi'ism at the time; indeed, they did not even constitute themajority (it is only in historical retrospect - under the influence of the eventual triumph

of the Twelvers - that these particular scions of the ahl al-bayt are seen as part of the"central trunk," while all other contemporary claimants are depicted as deviant). Manypartisans of the Prophet's House inclined after more activist brothers, cousins and otherrelations of these two paradigms of resignation, crowning their sword-drawing leaderswith a halo ofmessianic restoration during their lives and then afterwards, either denyingtheir deaths and awaiting their imminent return (the waqifi position), or transferringallegience onward to the Revered One's offspring (the qqt 7 position). If we are tobelieve the heresiographies (kutub al-mila/ wa '1-nihal) there were literally hundreds of

. .'Abd al-Q hir al-Baghd di, a/-Farq bayna a/-Firaq (Beirut: Dar al-l;likma, 1963), p. 235: inna 'AbdAllah b. a/-Sawda' kana yu ayyin al-saba'iyya 'ala qawliha wa-kana a,slahu min Yahud al-l:fira, ~ h rai-ls/am.8 $ahi/1 Bukhori, Kitab al-Fitan, Bab Qawl a/-Nabi /i'/-l:fasan b. 'Ali, 90: 20 (7109): ")IU allahu bihi baynai tayni min a/-Muslimin. The actions and ideologies of the Khawarij have many points ofsimilarity withthose of he ghulat groups, and their name - which probably means not the commonly accepted "seceders"but rather "those who go out [to battle]" - recalls the ghali approach ofkhuriij as opposed to theconservative attitude ofqu'ud (see below).9 Cited in Hamid Enayat, Modem Islamic Politic lThought (London: MacMillan Press, 1982) (referencenot deftnite).

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_______________such sects at certain points in early Shrite history, the most well-known and influential ofwhich were: the Kaysanivva,who declared their loyalty to a not very eager half-brotherof l;lasan and l;lusayn, Muftammad b. al-Hanafiyya, revolted against the Umayyads in the680s, and proclaimed their unwilling Master to be in temporary ghayba (occultation)upon his death in 700 CE; the Hashimiyya, followers of Mt$ammad b. ai-I;anafiyya'sson, Abu Hashim, whose mystical-militant doctrine and widespread network ofmissionaries were eventually put into the service of the 'Abbasid revolt; the a y d i y y ~supporters of l;lusayn's grandson and Mt$ammad al-Baqir's brother Zayd b. 'Ali, whowas killed by the Umayyads shortly after his uprising in Kufa (740 CE); the Jan3hiyya,participants in the similarly ill-fated Kufan insurrection (747 CE) under 'Abd Allah b.Mu'awiya, fourth generation descendent of 'Air b. Abi Talib's brother, Ja'far al-Tayyiir;the Mughrriyya, who subscribed to the "concealment" and impending reappearance as theMahdi of l;lasan b. Ali s great-grandson, Mujlammad ai-Nafs ai-Zakiyya, whose revoltagainst the 'Abbasids was crushed in 762 CE; the Khattabiyya, followers of Ja'fiir alSadiq s close personal friend Abu ai-Khftttab ai-Asadr who apotheosized the sixth imamand was publicly cursed by him in return; and of course the "Sevener" Isma'niyya and itsinnumerable derivatives, including the Nusayris, Cannations, 'Alawrs, Nizans,Musta'nrs, Fatimids, Druze, Assassins, etc.

While all of these ghulat or "extremist" groups engaged in various forms ofmilitant messianism and speculative apocalypticism,2 the imams and scholars of whatwould ultimately be defined as the duodecimal branch of Shi'ism cultivated a quiescentpassivity and a theological moderation. ''Those who are excessive in their love for us,"cautioned a brother of Multammad ai-Baqir regarding the 'Alids, "are like those who areexcessive in their hatred of us."21 Such sobriety stemmed not just from the despairengendered by the defeat of ijusayn in the past, but from the need to forestall persecutionby the sunnr majority in the present and future. In fact, however, the lrnami s h l ~ i t e swere most concerned by - and saved their fiercest execrations for - not the Sunnis but theoverly enthusiastic factions within their own camp. The most prevalent appelation forproto-Twelvers in medieval sources - rafi(ia or rawafi(i, meaning ''rejectors" - derives,according to the best opinion, from their staunch opposition to the activist mahdistmovements that arose within the 'Alid milieu in the eighth and ninth centuries CE.22 Inother words, Shi'ism as we know it today came into being primarily as a force for antimessianism.

Early Shi' ite history after the martyrdom of he third imam was thus witness to aconstant competition between these two trends - the radical messianic and the

20 Fo; a good survey of he variant theosophies and cosmologies ofghu/iitgroups see Farhad Daftary, Thelsmii ilis: Their History and Doctrines (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), esp. p. 64fT.21 Shaykh ai-Mutld, Kitiib a/-lrshiid (trans. I. K. A. Howard. Horsham: Balagha Books, 1981), p. 403 ."Because of you," Muhammad is supposed to have told his cousin and son-in-law 'AlT, "two parties willcome to ruin: those who hate yo u with a passion and those who love you with a passion" Abu ai-Fat lMuftammad 'Abd al-Karfm ai-Shahrast ni', Kitiib al-Mi/a l wa 1-Ni/ral (Cairo: Mu'assasat al-l;lalabr, 1968),vo l. 1, p. 19. .22 Friedlaender, Heterodox ies, p. 137ff; supplement with W. Montgomery Watt, "The l f i ~ i t s APreliminary Study," Oriens 16 (1963) and Etan Kohlberg, R a f i ~ a Ef

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.

conservative minimalist - for the hearts and minds of believers, with the latter for themost part at a distinct disadvantage. But around the time of the sixth ithna ashari imam,Ja'far al-Sadiq (d. 765 CE), a number of factors - including the savage repression ofmessianic revolts, the failure of any of the occulted imams to resurface, and theundeniable prestige of al-Sadiq himself- led to a slight shift in favor of the ''moderateShi'ite camp, such that when a long-time Kaysani gh lf ( exaggerator ) like Sayyid alI;Iimyari repented of his ways and returned to the proto-lmami fold, he could employ analready common verbal usage and declare: taja jartu I have'Ja'far-ed. '23

This improvement in their fortunes allowed Ja'far al-Sadiq and his legitimistsuccessors to intensify even further their anti-mahdist rhetoric and efforts . In theirdoctrine they pushed off the Advent to the end ofhistory, at which time the Qa'im wouldrise - though not from the dead - and fill the world with justice and fairness to the degreethat it is currently filled with injustice and oppression (yam/a u al-ar{ia q i ~ t n wa- adlankama muli et jawran wa-1ulman). In the meantime, they argued, there was nothing to doto further this distant goal of re-uniting spiritual and temporal power in the hands of theI;Iusaynids; indeed, doing anything at all toward that end was strictly forbidden . If themotto of the messianist revolutionaries was khurilj - going out and fighting for the cause- the watchword of these pacific Shi'ites was qu ud sitting at home and doingnothing.24 The experience of passively waiting and hoping for the Mahdi was madetantamount to the experience of actually receiving him (inti1ar al-faraj min al-fara.J).Indeed, words were put in Ja 'far al-Sadiq's mouth to the effect that the messianic adventwas not a desideratum at all : Why do you wish for the Qa'im to make haste? By God,his clothes are rough, his food is coarse barley and he (offers] nothing but the sword anddeath in the shadow of the sword. 25

23 Heinz Halm, Shi ism (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, I99 I), p. 29 .24 Meir Bar Asher, Scripture and Exegesis in Early Imami Shi ism (Leiden: E. J. Brill, I999), p. 48.25 Cited in David Cook, Studies in Muslim Apocalyptic (Princeton: Darwin Press, 2002), pp. 227 8.4


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;

The ream eferredSo soon after its inception, then, orthodox Shi'ism had already developed animpressive expertise in repressing the messianic aspirations of ts adherents. Practicingthe quietism he preached, Ja'far al-Sadiq is said to have been offered the caliphate - theriyiisa par excellence - on a silver platter by Abii Muslim, the leader of the 'Abbasidrevolution, but to have declined in favor ofhis books.26 {In later years yet another majorghulat faction, the Khurramiyya, venerated and awaited the post-mortem advent of this

same Abii Muslim, and was severely vituperated by the Imamiyya). 7 The cognomen ofai-Sadiq ' s son Miisa - the seventh imam according to the Twelvers - was ai-Ki,rim, ''theone who keeps [his anger] inside. More indicative still of this increasingly introvertedand anti-radical outlook is the story of Ja ' far 's grandson, 'Ali a i i ~ As is well known,the sixth 'Abbasid caliph ai-Ma'miin summoned this eighth Shi 'ite imam to his roamingheadquarters in North-Eastern Iran and revealed to him his plan to designate a i R i ~ ashis successor. What is less well known is that- according to Abii' I-FaraJ ai-Isfahani'sMaqatil a -Talibiy in - the imam vociferously refused the honor and had to be threatenedwith decapitation in order to make him cooperate, and that - according to al-Kulini'sU.sul min al-Kafi - al-Ma'miin had wanted to step down immediately in favor of al-Rista,but the latter had demurred and only accepted the heirship on condition that none of theactual authority and responsibility of the caliphate be bestowed upon him.28 Also notgenerally remarked is the fact that not long after ai-Ripa was purportedly poisoned by alMa miin, the historian al-Ya'qiibi describes the excellent rapport between a delegation ofprominent Shi'a and the same caliph: as if to hint that the demise of the succession plan and the Imam who was willing, however reluctantly, to go along with it - was not anunwelcome denouement in their eyes.29 To such an extent was the acquisition of riyiisaby the ahl al-bayt - Shi'ism's original mission and raison d etre - now anathema to theShi'a , whose scholar-jurists engaged in ever more rarefied pursuits that would not suffercontamination by the trappings ofpower.

This class of scholar-jurists, the ulama , was a natural outgrowth of theincreasing intellectualization and decreasing radicalism of the Shi'ite experience.Shi'ism had been born of a refusal on the part of certain Muslims to succumb after theProphet's death to what Max Weber has called the ''institutionalization of charisma.While the majority of Muslim believers were satisfied to progress from the propheticstage of dynamic leadership and ideological upheaval to the post-prophetic stage ofcodification and maintenance, the backers of 'Ali and Fijtima's line displayed anunwillingness to abandon the immediacy and euphoria of a divine apostle in their midst,and sought, as it were, to make the revolution permanent. Such a level of millenialenergy is, however, impossible to preserve forever; indeed, it tends to consume itself in ashort, incandescent burst of activity. and then disappear. Thus, although the ghulat of

26 M. A Shaban, The Abbasid Revolution (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970), p. 167.7 Wilfred Madelung, Religious Trends in Early Islam ic Iran (Oxford : Bibliotheca Persica, 1988), p. 7721 D. G. Tor, A Historiographical Re-examination of he Appointment and Death of 'All R i ~ l l DerIslam 18 (2001), p 118 .29 Alunad b. AbT Ya'qilb b. Ja'far al-Ya'qilbT Ta rikh ai-Ya qUbi (Beirut: Dar Slldir, 1960), vol 2, p. 469.

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each generation may be said to have harkened back to the original radical impetus byerupting in chiliastic supernovas of resistance, the more stable and consistent ''backbone"of he Shi'a- the ''mainstream" that would someday become the Twelvers- soon founditself"institutionalizing" no less than the Sunnis had.Though the faction of Islam that became the Shi'a continued, after the demise of

M$ammad, to tender their allegience to a potentially volatile personage who waspurported to be in direct contact with the deity- whereas the Sunnis followed not somuch an individual as the legal and literary tradition that had taken his place -nevertheless the Shi'ite imams themselves began to channel their charisma into precepts .enshrined in texts, and by so doing provided a model for the behavior of their own moreintellectually inclined adherents. Mu}lammad al-Baqir received his cognomen not due tohis supernatural qualities, transcendent disposition or even leadership capability, but inrecognition of his talent for "splitting open" (baqara) and penetrating to the heart ofabstruse legal and exegetical problems. His son Ja'far was so widely recognized ascholar that Sunni jurists of the stature of Abu l;lanifa and Malik b. Anas studied underhim, and he significantly became the eponymous founder of the fifth school of Islamiclaw (al-madhhab al-Ja fari).3 His hangers-on and those ofhis successor imams engagedincreasingly in the study o jiqh (jurisprudence) and shari a (positive law), emphaticallyconservative occupations which are in every way diametrically contraindicative to thecultivationofgenuine messianism and apocalypticism.

The new Shi'ite sages soon outshone their own imams in these ever more centralreligio-intellectual pursuits, and the latter often found themselves dependent on theformer, sometimes even for their very position. The imams themselves were more-andmore relegated to the background- ostensibly (and on some occasions in truth) for theirprotection from the 'Abbasids - while the learned lawyers took the helm. By the time ofthe ninth and tenth descendents of the Prophet's line (Mu}lammad al-Taqr and 'Ali aiNaqi), the imams were essentially hidden away from their own devotees - even theiridentity was kept secret, and it became nothing less than a religious obligation to denythem31 -while a select clique of scholar-jurists played the role of ntermediaries betweenthe beclouded shepherd and his scattered flock. It thus represented no great upheavel forthe Shi'ite community but rather a continuation of already extant trends when the'Abbasids brought the tenth imam to their new capital in Samarra and kept him and hisson, the eleventh imam al-l;Iasan al-'Askari, under virtual house arrest. The sacred

3 Dwight M. Donaldson, The Shi ite Religion: A History o slam in ersian and /rak (London: LuzacCo., 1933), p. 132 .31 Already in the time of he sixth imlm we have (probably retrojected) statements which indicate thistrend, such as the following admonition of Ja'far al-Sldiq to Mu 'allah b. Khunays: "Keep our affair secret,and do not divulge it publicly, for whoever keeps it secret and does not reveal it, God will exalt him in thisworld and put ligt between his eyes in the next, leading him to paradise. 0 Mu'allah Whoever divulgesour affair publicly and does not keep it secret, God will disgrace him in this world and will remove the lightfrom between his eyes in the next, and will decree for him darkness that will lead him to the Fire. 0Mu'allah, verily taqiyya (prudent dissimulation) is of my religion and of he religion ofmy father, and onewho does not keep taqiyya has no religion" Abu Ja'far Muhammad b. Ya 'qOb al-Kulayni [Kuliru1, ai-Kafifi Ulum al-Din [Beirut: D r al-l;likma, 1982], vol. 2, p. 488).

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figure-head thereby faded even further from view and the purveyors of scholarlyknowledge gained almost exclusive control.32 The few learned associates granted accessto the imam y the 1Abbasids seem to have already styled themselves his agents(wukala l Viewed from such a perspective, it is hardly surprising that this process ofdimunition was soon advanced one final stage toward its culmination, with the actualdisappearance (ghayba) of the five year-old twelfth imam n 873 CE and the purportedmediation between the Absent One and his adherents through the good offices ofagents belonging to the powerful clerical-juridical class. This was, albeit, the cooptation of a tenet that had up till that point characterized the very ghulat whom theproto-Twelvers had so vociferously opposed, but like certain other gh li notions thateventually insinuated themselves into the wordlview of Shi 'I orthodoxy, the institutionofghayba was tamed y the conservative Imamr scholars, and made to serve the quietismthat had become their hallmark.

Then suddenly in the mid-tenth century CE, the Buwayhids achieved somethingunprecedented (and, we would argue, ultimately unwelcome): they succeeded throughtheir conquests of the mashriq in gaining genuine riyiisa (political-military authority) forthe Twelver Shi'ites, and thereby positioned themselves to become the dominant force inthat faith. These Daylamite condottieri first carved out an empire on the Iranian plateauand then entered Baghdad in 945 CE, leaving the 1Abbasid caliph on his throne but rulingin his name. The ulama were at a disadvantage in the ensuing intra-Shi'ite powerstruggle: the Buwayhid sword was potentially stronger than the clerical pen, and theTwelver scholars now saw the intricate spiritual-legal edifice they had so painstakinglyconstructed over the previous centuries threatened. Thus did the realization of theoriginal Shi'ite dream - the dream of attaining power - represent a nightmare for theShi'ite ulama ', first because a new force was introduced that could undermine or outmuscle their fledgling authority, and second (and more fundamentally) because the veryphenomenon of Shi'ite empowerment was inimical to the ramified learning institutionwhich had become the butter on their bread and the meaning of their lives.

There was, indeed, a significant analogy between the positions of the two campsin this mid-tenth century contest for Shi'ite leadership. The Buwayhids were o ~ toshare their power to at least some symbolic degree with the caliph to whose legitimacythey paid lip service; the ulama ' were forced to share their power to at least somesymbolic degree with the (hidden) imam to whose legitimacy they paid lip service. Bothriyasa and imama were thus divided internally. The u/ama consequently sought tobolster their position in preparation for the up-and-coming struggle with the Buwayhidsby completing their conquest of the imama and making themselves the onJy spiritualreligious game in town: the messianic figure of the Hidden Imam Mahdi whose presencestill overshadowed them and to whom they were forced to turn, through the medium ofhis ambassadors, for every matter of consequence, must be neutralized. He was,therefore, exiled in 945 CE to the furthest parts and declared incommunicado (al-ghaybaa/-kubra, the Greater Occultation): as the Buwayhid horse trotted into Baghdad, the

3 Etan Kohlberg, Imam and Community n the Pre-Gbayba Period, n Said Amir Arjomand (ed.),Authority nd Political Culture in Shi ism (Albany: State University ofNew York Press, 1988 , pp. 38-9.7


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Mahdi s mule plodded out, never to be seen or heard from again. All religious decisionswere from that point forward the sole prerogative o the professional jurists andtheologians, in whose eyes - though they could never admit as much in so many wordseven to themselves - their own legal-doctrinal expertise had become far more valuablethan the eschatalogical charisma o he ethereal m m.

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ox Populi ox Dein the end, the Buyid state disintegrated to be replaced by Sunni Ghaznavids andSeljuks and their Turkic successors, affording the Shi'ite u/ama' another five centuries -before the riyasa was in the hands ofShi'ites again under the Safavids - to shore up theirfortress of conservative l ~ g l i s m and mundane ritualism against the potential radical

inroads of the Hidden lmam-Mahdi. During this time they went themselves one better,and after having earlier neutralized the power of the imam through the expedient ofexileso that he would not undermine or detract from their authority, they now managed tomake his continued existence in limbo the very bulwark of their authority - theirinfallible authority. This they achieved through the notion of niyiiba 'amma or ''thegeneral representation [of the hidden imam]. Whereas when the imam was in the LesserOccultation (873-945 CE) his will was conveyed to the world by individuals (theagents ), now, in the time of the Greater Occultation, his will is conveyed to the world :so this new doctrine held- by the consensus of he ulama '.33 This move made the Shi'iteclerics the undisputed masters of the imama (and paved the way for their acquisition ofmore and more power in the temporal sphere, as well).The concept of niyiiba 'amma evolved hand-in-hand with another important idea:ijtihiid. Among the Sunnis somewhat earlier - not long after after they had lost the lastcharismatic figure in their midst (i.e. Mt$ammad) - questions regarding the legitimatebases of authority and parameters for decision-making in the post-prophetic era led to theformation of two increasingly distinct schools of thought. The first school, generallystyled ah/ alra (the advocates of logical demonstration), held that qualifiedjurisconsults should bring their independent reasoning ( 'aql) and intellectual effort(ijtihiid) to bear on the sources of law (especially the Qur an and exempla) in o r d ~ toflesh out the Muslim legal system. The opposing camp, most often referred to as ahl al-

lradith (the advocates of tradition) asserted that no matter how qualified, scholar-juristsshould not be permitted to employ their own discursive logic in order to derive the lawfrom scripture and prophetic reports. Instead, they must base themselves directly andwithout extrapolation on the latter two sources, merely transmitting their contents toensuing generations (naql) and imitating the precedents they had established (taqlid) .Though the thoroughgoing closure of the gate of intellectual effort (insidiid biib a/-ijtihiid) in the third century after MuJwnmad's death has been placed in doubt by modemscholars, it may still be safely said that in the medieval Sunni world the un-creativetransmission ofand adherence to precedent (taqlid) ultimately won the day.

A similar struggle informed Shi'I scholarship after the final departure of theHidden Imam, but with opposite results. In the tenth and eleventh centuries CE theTwelver ulamii also split into two factions over (their own version of) the question ofijtihiid versus taqlid, with those supporting the former approach assuming the sobriquetu.suliyyun (i.e. those who exploit the principles of urisprudence [ sul al:fiqh] in order

33 Hossein Modaressi Tabataba i, An In troduction to Shi iLaw: A Bibliographical Study (London: IthacaPress, 1984 , pp. 7-9.19


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..to arrive at novel rulings) while those who backed the latter outlook took the nameakhbiiriyyijn (i.e. those who restrict themselves to conveying prophetic and imamicreports [akhbiir] as they are to future generations). The first school emphasized theprimary role of the scholars; the second stressed the centrality of the imams, both pastand present (i.e. absent). Unlike in Sunnism, in Shi'i.fiqh it was the u.suli-ijtihiidischoolthat prevailed.34 This development was both a cause and a consequence of the institutionof niyiiba amma, because the effective exertion of authority in the name of (reallyinstead of) the occulted imam required the agility, maneuverability, flexibility andindependence afforded by the methods of jtihiid. Shi i clerics became mujtahidun (a titlenot used, for the most part, by Sunnis), for whom cerebral discussion and casuistic debatehad become the essence of religion and whose own intellectual ability had entirelysupplanted the sway of the imam(s).3s Qom in central Iran, since the tenth century CEthe world capital ofTwelver orthodoxy, soon saw its shrine to imam Ali al-Ripa's sisterF tima al-Ma'.siima encircled and upstaged by a dozen or more madiiris (study centers).

The emergence of the mujtahids had a further consequence significant for ourpurposes. Only upper echelon Shi I scholars who had mastered the gamut of legalsciences were granted the right to exercise ijtihiid, 36 whereas the remaining, lower levelulamii ', as well as the populace at large, were expected to practice taqlid and emulate(i.e. obey without question the decisions of) the mujtahids. This division of Sbr'itesociety into a vast majority of muqallidun and a tiny minority of mujtahidun placed agreat deal of religious power into the hands of the latter, power that would prepare themto meet the new challenges waiting in the wings.

The most momentous of these challenges (though at the same time anunprecedented opportunity) was the rise of the Safavid dynasty in early 6th century Iran.This Sufi order turned 'Alid army conquered most of modern-day Iran by the year 1510,and forcibly converted the entire populace to Twelver Shi'ism. The Safavids presented aproblem for the orthodox ulamii - many of whom had been imported by the newrulers from Lebanon, Syria, Ba}rrayn and elsewhere to help consolidate the new statereligion- for two essential reasons: (1) because like the Buwayhids, they had regainedthe riyiisa for the Shi'a and thereby set themselves up as a rival locus of authority withinthe Twelver community, and (2) because unlike the Buwayhids, the Safavids were bonafide ghuliit, deviant exaggerators who harbored heretical beliefs about the founder oftheir dynasty, Esma'fl, to wit: that he was in contact with the Hidden Imam, or washimself the imam, or was an incarnation of the deity (so strongly did this king's qizilbashfollowers believe these things that they reputedly went into battle without armour,trusting in their leader's supernatural protection).37 As Mango) Bayat writes:

w Norman Calder, Doubt and Prerogative: The Emergence of an lmami-Shi'I Theory ofljtihad, Studialslamica, 1 (1991).ls Sa id mir Aljomand, The Consolation ofTbeology: Absence of the Imam and Transition fromChiliasm to Law in ShT ' ism, Jou17J l/ ofReligions 16 (1996).36 On occasion masters would issue ijtihiid certificates to their students for one or two areas of law only.37 Roger M. Savory, Some Reflections on Totalitarian Tendencies in the Safavid State, Der Islam 53(1976), p. 231.

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Shah Ismail had come to power at the head of anextremist messianic revolutionary movement that supportedhis claim to divine authority. The historical background ofthe Sufi order he headed, his ability to fuse personalpolitical ambitions with religious ze l to fight a holy war,the nature of his religious ideology - all bear characteristic. features of the militant, basically heretical groups whichmoderate Imamis had until then relentlessly condemned.38

In view of this situation, the orthodox scholars set to work doing what they did best,what they had always done: repressing mahdism. Three or four decades into the Safavidreign and the u/ama had already won: the eschatological enthusiasm was considerablymuted - reduced to the platitudes about a glorious future advent that had served forcenturies to dampen more than excite radical messianism - and the Safavid sovereignswere cut down to size, relinquishing their halo and relegating theological and evenjuridical authority to the learned men of the academies. Those Sufis who persisted intheir mystical-messianic veneration of the Great Guide on the Iranian Throne wererounded up and massacred by those very same objects of adoration at the behest of themujtahids. Yet another millenarian movement had been crushed by the Shi i clericalestablishment.39

Two more consequences or concomittants of the growth of u.sulism are relevantto our inquiry. The first is that by the late medieval period the notion of niyaba ammahad empowered the Shi I scholars to such a degree that practices that had once lain fallowin deference to the authority of the imam and because his indispensible supervision wasnecessary yet lacking - practices such as public prayers in the mosque on Fridays, thecollection of the alms tax (zakat) and the fifth (khums), drawing the sword in jihad, andmore - were now restored at the discretion of the ulama , to whom the reinstated taxeswere all remitted. This in turn built the Shi'ite clerics' spiritual, moral, legal andeconomic power to an immense degree. .

The second development is perhaps of even greater significance. Around the timeof the rise of the Qajars (circa. 1800) - the next major dynasty after the Safavids - theu.sulis under their mujtahid leader Vaped-e-Behbehanr scored a signal victory overAkhban elements that had beenenjoying a brief revival of influence, and exiled thempermanently from Iran. Soon thereafter, however, the u.sulr establishment was sentreeling by three successive waves of ghulat activity which kept it busy from one end ofthe nineteenth century to the other: the Shaykhr, Babi and Baha'I sects, each of whichtook advantage of the Shi'ite millenium to put forward claims relating to the imminent31 Mango Bayat, Mysticism and Dissent: Socio-religious Thought in Qajar Iran (Syracuse: SyracuseUniversity Press, 1982), p. 18 .39 This process, which also involved the increasing marginalization of the dynasty's Turkish qizilbash basein favor of the Persian bureaucratic class, is best elucidated in Roger M. Savory, ran under the Safavids{Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980).40 See Juan R. I. Cole, Shi ' i Clerics in Iraq and Iran, 1722-1780: The Akhbari-Usuli ConflictReconsidered, Iranian Studies 18/1 (1985).

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:.arrival of the imam. The orthodox mujtahids were as resolute as ever in response,employing methods ranging from excommunication to persecution to outright executionto nip these messianic movements in the bud.

Partially as a result of the need to galvanize and organize against these threats, theu.siilis took steps beginning in the 1830s to reinforce and codify the all-importantrelationship between mujtahidun and muqallidun. The notion was propounded andgradually accepted that in an ideal state there would be a lone mujtahid standing at thetop of he clerical hierarchy to whom all others owed allegience. He would e the single,supreme marja al-taqtid, Focus of Emulation, and would enjoy unchallenged authority.This ideal was realized almost completely three times in the nineteenth century, in thepersons of Ayatollahs Najafi, An sari and Shirizi.41 And so we have come full circle:from the niyaba kha.s.sa the individual representation of the absent imam during theLesser Occultation (873-945), to the niyaba lamma, the collective representation of theoccluded imam during the subsequent Greater Occultation (945-_ ), and now in thenineteenth century back to the niyaba kluzy sa, in the form of the concentration of allreligious authority in the hands of a single jurisconsult. The difference between the first

and third stages of this process is essential, however: while the wakll of the twelfth imamin medieval Baghdad was perceived as the mere spokesman of his master, the marja ofmodern Twelver Shr ism - who cannot be the imam s spokesman because the imam doesnot speak to him or to anyone else - has for all intents and purposes usurped the positionnd power of the Hidden Master. The Grand Ayatollah(s) is able to issue commandsbased on the dictates ofhis own autonomous reasoning because the imam is silent.

Whether they knew it or not, this steady stream of theological-legal adjustmentsand reinforcements paved the way for the clerical class of the Twelver Shi a to take onefinal , giant step. Stronger, more confident and better organized than ever before andunchallenged masters of the imama - the spiritual-religious authority - they were nowpoised to reach out and snatch the long coveted (but also long feared) riyasa - thepolitical-military authority - from the Pahlavr successors of the Qajars. Khomeini andhis revolution were the logical conclusion of the multi-stage process ofde-messianizationwe have been tracing. In other words: all of those centuries of impressive Shi ite clericalachievement, now culminating in 1979 in the glorious realization of the primeval Shi itedream of reuniting sacerdotum and imperium in a bona fide Islamic Republic - all of itwas and continues to be based on one essential, indispensible prerequisite: that theMahdl stay far away

Mahdism has thus been for centuries the inveterate enemy of Shi ism, and theTwelvers have proven exceptionally talented at suppressing this enemy. From theburning of medieval ghulat to the shooting of 19th century Babis, no one puts downmessianic movements like orthodox Shi ites. Any time in history that a door has beenopened that purportedly led to the Hidden Imam - or through which the Hidden Imamwas supposed to e able to re-enter our world - the Shi ite ulama have done everything

41 Meir Litvak, Shl i Scholars ofNineteenth Century Iraq (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998,chapter 2.22


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in their power to slam it shut. And practice makes perfect: they are better today atsubduing such motamahdiyiin than every before in their history, having honed theirmethodology down to a science.

It is no coincidence that for over a millenium now the Sunni world, whichadopted the concept of the Mahdr from the Shi'a early on, has had to contend withconsiderably more messianic pretenders than the Twelver Shi'ites . No year betterillustrates this ironic phenomenon than 1979: while the experience of leading Islamichistory's most glorious revolution did not induce Khomeini to declare himself (or anyoneelse of consequence to declare him) the Mahdr, across the gulf in Saudi Arabia a youngSunni zealot named Juhayman -who had a chip on his shoulder but, unlike Khomeini, noachievements to his credit- took over Mecca's sacred precinct with some 250 armedcohorts and declared his brother-in-law Qahtan the Muslim messiah. Shrism contraryto popular belief, is the antithesis and nemesis of messianism. No mahdi will arise inrevolutionary Iran, and neither will any genuinely mahdist movement: the mariiji ' a/-taqlid (focii of imitation, Grand Ayatollahs), to one of whom every Iranian Shi'ite owesallegience, will simply not allow it.

Even the much touted Shi'I apocalyptic, so carelessly referenced (for instance) bythe Israeli army intelligence report we cited at the outset of this paper, does not play aninfluential role here. That report, the reader will recall, cited '' the genuine, heartfelt beliefofAhmadinejad and his cohorts in he outbreak of a war ofGog and Magog with Israeland the West as a necessary prerequisite of the Mahdi's advent. This embarrassinglyunfounded statement, a product of the reliance on cliches rather than research, placesArmageddon's cart before the Mahdfs horse: if anything, the Savior arrives first inShi'ite eschatology, and only then inaugurates the campaign to take over the world. Theonly factor described anywhere in the sources as possibly facilitating or accelerating thereturn of the Hidden Imam is the diffusion of promiscuity, and one does not see theIranians working toward that goal. It is worth noting, as well, that in the rare instances inwhich Shr'ite eschatological scenarios leave the realm of generality and delve into detail,we see that ImamI arms at the climax of history will be turned first and foremost againstthe ghuliit.42 When the Mahdi comes, the messianists had better head for the hills.

Equally important is the fact that Slu I apocalyptic cycles - as David Cook hasamply demonstrated - are largely (and half-heartedly) borrowed from Sunnf tradition,where the subject is far more developed.43 The reader versed in such matters will havenoticed, for instance, that the eschatological Jtadrth report utilized in the radio sermoncited at the beginning of this paper - a report that included no reference to the HiddenImam of the Shi' ites - was transmitted by none other than Muhammad's wife i s ~ a aSunnr heroine whom the Shi'ites detest and excoriate more than any other figure (the

42 E.g. Howard, rshad, 552-3. Jews and Christians are even less important foes than Sunn s in Shr ite~ l y p t i and barely receive mention (see Cook, Studies, pp. 211-213).4 Cook, Studies, p. 189ff: Compared to SunnT Apocalyptic, SbJ 'Teschatological forces are ratherhaphazard groups with no mention of a real army in the usual sense (p. 205); Apparently the wh ole JesusDajjal cycle is a loan from Sunnrapocalyptic, nd so it is hardly developed at all ; etc.

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.. .

End of the World Program was an isolated, short-lived phenomenon in the Iranianmedia, and content of that sort is far more prevalent in Sunni countries). It is alsonoteworthy that unlike their Swmr counterparts, Twelver Shi'ite scholars were quitehostile to any attempts to set times for the appearance of the Mahdi: it was best to leavethe Advent in a distant future fog 44

44 Cook, tu s pp. 18 nd 227 .24


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.. N.The idden and

A few paragraphs must now be devoted to the "I;Iojjatiyyeh" society, another by-wordwhich - together with its cognate "Mahdaviyyeh" - bas been tossed around endlessly bypundits, politicians and even professors ever since the accession of Ahmadinejad.Fonner Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, for instance, regularly makes muchof this organization in speeches and interviews - despite his abject dearth of knowledgeon the subject - comparing it, inter alia, to the Branch Davidian cult ofDavid Koresh:

I was looking for an analogy to try to explain toAmericans what it is that is so dangerous about Iranacquiring nuclear weapons. You remember those crazypeople in Waco, Texas? . the I;Iojattiyyeh is that kind ofcult. It s the cult of the Mahdi, a holy man that disappeareda thousand years ago. And the president of Iran believesthat be's supposed to - that he was put here on Earth tobring this holy man back by inaugurating a great religiouswar between the true Muslim believers and the infidels.And millions will die in this Apocalypse, and the Muslimswill go to heaven Ahmadinejad, the president of Iran, isfirst trying to develop nuclear weapons and then goingabout his mad fantasy ofglobal conflict.4s

There are more fundamental mistakes in this passage than we have time to enumerate,but one of them, at least, should be addressed. Far from being composed of radicalmessianists who seek to usher in theapocalyptic millenium, the Anjoman-e-I;Iojjatiyyeh,founded in the mid-twentieth century by Shaykh Mafunud-e-I;Ialabr, was and remains anultra-conservative association devoted to the suppression of a particular latter-daymessianic movement that claims that the Hidden Imam is already here: the Baha'I. Itadvocates, in perfectly traditional, orthodox Twelver fashion, the pious and passivepractice of"awaiting" the Savior, but specifically discourages nd condemns s hereticalany active effort to hasten his arrival . The organization's name does indeed derive fromone of the many titles of the Hidden Imam - .al-f:lujja, "the Proof - but this title wasdeliberately chosen from among all the others in order to signify the I;Iojjatiyyeh'sstaunch opposition to any involvment in the political affairs of this world ("[theappelation fzujja] emphasizes the religious and spiritual aspects of [the imam's] function,as opposed to [designations like] al-Qa im or Safzib a/- Amr which convey his role as theideal ruler of Islam who will restore Islamic justice to the world").46 Indeed, so apolitical, non-radical and anti-messianic are the ideas of this group that it viewedKhomeini's doctrine of the Guardianship of the Jurist (velayat-e-faqfh), together with therevolution it helped engender, as essentially ghu/uww phenomena, a position which led to

45 CNN , 17 11.2006 (Glenn Beck Program),httn ://transcripts.con.com TRANSCRIPTS/061 7/gb .0 l .html46Abdulaziz Abdulbussein Sachedina, Islam ic Messian ism: The Idea of heMalrdi in Twelver Sh i ism(Albany: State University ofNew Yor Press, 1981), p. 68.25


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their official disbandment in 1984. The reason that the l;lojjatiyyeh are associated withthe slogan mahdi biyii, mahdi biyii (Savior, come, Savior, come ) is because themembers of this organization chanted this slogan immediately after the revolutionspecifically in order to undermine the popular feeling that the lmiim was already presentin the person o Khomeini. It s actual import was: "the Savior has yet to come, the Saviorhas yet to come ',47 Netanyahu and the hundreds of other speakers, journalists andanalysts who facilely bandy about the name l;lojjatiyyeh and exploit it to depict the newIranian government as livinl on the faultline between this world and the next could nothave gotten it more wrong.4

Ayatollah Mesbap-e-Yazdr, the reputed senior figure of the now undergroundl;lojjatiyyeh and supposed marja ' of President Ahmadinejad - the cleric with whomIran's supposed messianic fervor is most commonly associated these days - vociferouslydenies any connection with the clandestine society, and even were his past affiliationsomehow proven, this would, again, show him to be nothing other th n vehemently antimahdist. Mesbap-e-Y azdr's extensive ouevre, at any rate, evinces little evidence of thefanatical messianism so often attributed to him. Here is a passage from his The PoliticalTheory of slam (NQ7ariye-ye-Siyiisf-ye-Esliim):

We believe that during the occultation of the Master ofTime (upon whom be peace), [the imam] did not leave thematter of government unattended, but made arrangementsfor it. These arrangements dovetail with the generalIslamic (i.e; Shr'ite - Z. M.) theory regarding government,that is, investiture by God the Exalted, and thus the "juristwho combines all the necessary conditions" ifaqfh-e-jiime'ol-sharayet) is the individual whom the Absent One andGod the Exalted have appointed to conduct the affairs ofthe believers at this time. This is the self-same theory thatin the political philosophy of Islam (i.e. ofmodem Shr'ism- Z. M.) is called ''The Guardianship of the Jurist."

~ r d i n g to this theory two conditions - both of which wehave outlined so far in this study - are necessary in order todesignate a society as "Islamic": (1) an individual musthold sway who is possessed of the necessary characteristicsaccording to the law of Islam regarding leaders and whoembodies and epitomizes the morals of Islam and the traitsof its founder the Prophet (may God 's peace and blessingsbe upon him and his family); and (2) the laws andordinances of the shari a must constitute the foundation of

47 Yann Richard, Sh i 'ite slam (Oxford: Blackwell, 1995), p. 108.41 t is ttue that an enthusiastic set ofsentiments going by the name "l;lojjatiyyeh" are currently making therounds of some Iraqi ShT T militant organizations, but the situation in Iraq is not the situation in Iran (andnever has been: Iraqi Shr' ism h s always been more prone than its Iranian counterpart to radical'ormessianic tendencies - see Made1ung, Religious Trends, 19 and 84).26


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the regime ...The Master of Time (i.e. the Hidden Imam)has been obscured behind an impenetrable curtain for overa thousand years. We have no way of knowing when hewill return to us, and it is expressly forbidden by the lawsof God - and entirely ineffective besides - to take activesteps to hasten His Advent. Therefore we are duty boundto erect institutions that will provide for the long termIslamic governance of our blessed country, and that is thesignificance of the institution of the Guardianship of theJurist.

Here and throughout his many written works and lectures, Mesba.h-e-Yazdi blows nomessianic trumpet (and while he often ends speeches and classes with a formulaicexpression ofdesire to witness the imminent return ofHis August Excellency, it must beremembered that every good Shi does that, including the likes ofKhatami ). Mesba.he-Yazdi regularly cites and praises Khomeini (the man who disbanded the Hojjatiyeh) -indeed, he heads up the Imam Khomeini Foundation - and he focuses in his teachings onthe construction of an Islamic society and government within the confines ofhistory, notat history's end.

It is significant that the I;Iojatiyyeh found Khomeini's philosophy too extreme.They were not the only ones. Just as Grand Ayatollah Borujerdi refused to support theinsurrection - widely gopuiar among Ills own students - of Navib-e-Safavi and theFedayeen in the 1950s, 9 so a great many high level clerics were hesitant about and evenhostile to Khomeini's radical agenda. Khomeini was, in the eyes of the conservativeShr'ite establishment (and despite his status as a mujtahid in good standing) a ghiili ofsorts, indeed, a Zaydi ghiili. Like the fifth imam Muflammad al-Baqir's brother Zayd,who led an abortive uprising against the Umayyads in Kufa (and in turning away fromwhom the proto-Twelvers acquired the epithet riifi(ia), Khoineini combined a moderateapproach t Sunnism with a fierce resolve to take back the riyiisa by force. His successas opposed to Zayd's failure did make a difference: the unprecedented spectacle of beturbaned howzeh graduates running the government - the pristine and most profoundShi'te dream realized - could not but tempt even the most diehard of conservatives.Khomeini was more than a mere Safavid to the Qom seminarians; he was one of them,and had empowered their kind in an unprecedented fashion. But he had still gone too far(indeed, his pro-active political outlook sometimes spilled over into the theologicalsphere and led him to make statements strongly reminiscent of Weber's "definition ofcharisma," such as : "We [Shi'ites] have always sat in our homes clutching our worrybeads and praying, 'May Allah hasten [the Mahdi's] felicitous advent ' [ ajjal Alliihufa rajah]. Well I say: it is your work which will hasten that advent ").s1 Faced with thislatest, newfangled ghuluww, the Twelver luminaries in the ltowzehs and madrasahs did

9 See l;losayn AlTye-Monlal-erl, Khqteriit (Los Angeles: Ketab Corp., 2001), pp. 60-63.1 See David Menashri,lran be-Mahapekha, esp. chap. I; Shaul Bakhash, The Reign ofthe Ayatollahs: Iranand the Islamic Revolution (London: I. B. Tauris, 1985), pp. 140-142.5 "Khqtbe-ye-Em m dar Masjed-e-Sbaykh Lotf Allah," Nur, 5.11 .80.

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what they had always done on occasions when resistance was not an option: they waitedin the wings until the effervesence died down, and then began the process of reclaimingthe mantle of authority. Twelver anti-messianism had, it is true, gradually created overthe centuries the conditions that allowed for Khomeini s achievement; but the samesentiments and attitudes were destined ultimately to undermine it. Religion is y naturecounter-revolutionary.Messianism is a mushy term and a nebulous phenomenon. Even if the FinalRedeemer and eschatological scenario of a given religion has been effectively defused -

as is the case in Twelver Slu-.ism- there will always be individuals and groups that placea greater emphasis on such aspects than does the mainstream. In Shi ism, if thoseindividuals or groups go too far they have been and will be suppressed . ButAhmadinejad has not gone too far in that sense. His ~ ' m e s s i a n i c acts and statements areas normative as dropping a message for the mahdr down the well of the Jamkaranmosque. Defanged messianism can and does co-exist quite comfortably withconservative religious tradition (the Jamkaran mosque is located in Qom . All piousShi ites pray for the return of the Hidden Imam just as all pious Christians pray for thereturn of Jesus and all pious Jews for the arrival of the mashia/z That does not mean thatthey run their lives or their polities based on this vague and distant wish.52

52 There are exceptions, of course, such as Pentacostals and Dispensationalists in Christianity andLubavitcher Hassidim in Judaism - the ghuliit of their respective faith communities8

ze'ev maghen: shi'ite eschatology and the iranian nuclear crisis

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