ISNETH ZurichInternational relations and security network

Conceptualizing the Sunni-Shi’i EncounterIn the modern period

Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich
Swiss Federal Institute of Technology ZurichInternational relations and security network

Conceptualizing the sunni-shi’i Encounterin the modern period
Dr. Neguin Yavari

Photograph used with permission from Reuters.

Table of ContentS
Church and state in Islam...............................................................................................4
Ayatollah Khomeini on the authority of jurists...........................................................4
Autonomous political authority....................................................................................5
Symbiosis..........................................................................................................................6
Confluence. ......................................................................................................................8
Endnotes......................................................................................................................... 10
Bibliography.................................................................................................................... 11
About the author............................................................................................................13

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Conceptualizing the Sunni-Shi’i Encounterin the Modern Period

CHURCH AND STATE IN ISLAM
The separation of church and state in Islam, or
rather the lack of it, appears as an axiomatic truthin current political discourse. It is part and parcelof the frequently posed question: What is wrong
with Islam? The formulation and the diagnosis
are not just facile, but also disingenuous. Muchof the discourse on the separation of church andstate confuses description with prescription inattempting to account for the political in religious
thought and to find ways to explain it. The notion
itself is not an enlightenment value that, meteorlike, abruptly fell to Earth in Europe in the 18th
century. It has its roots in almost 1,500 years
of Christian political writing. The separation ofchurch and state is also not the only way one canaccount for political thought endemic to religions.
The biblical narrative of Exodus, for instance, has
determined to a very large extent the generalframework of contractual governance in European
political thought from the 17th century onwards. It
would be hard to find a separation of church andstate in that account.
The “separation of church and state,” as indicatedin Ernst Kantorowicz’s seminal study of the 1950s, isa way of telling the history of church-state relationsin the European context. Although this has beena millennium long conversation, the advocates ofseparation, as well as its foes, have shared a common
vocabulary. As the Bible spoke of “Pharaoh vs. God”
and “Caesar vs. Christ,” and the Church conceivedof itself as the “body of Christ on earth,” the dualist
metaphor gained a foothold in Christian political
writing. The separation of the body of Christ fromhis soul, which belonged to God and returned unto
Him, and the ensuing dichotomous metaphors,“City of God” and “City of Earth,” bestowed on
Christian political writers the basic vocabulary forwriting on justice, good governance and temperate
rule. The jurists and other lay scholars, likewise,
wrote of tyranny as “godlessness”, and associatedwith it intemperate rule, disregard for ethical andmoral values, abuse of power, arbitrariness anddisdain for good counsel. Following in the footstepsof the Pharaoh, who according to tradition, turneda deaf ear to God and persisted in the enslavementof the Israelites, the tyrant transgresses the law
and chides his own counselors. Regardless of thebattle between the two camps, however, their
vocabulary and basic theoretical framework sharethe same lineage. In the 17th century, for example,
the rhetoric for prioritizing the secular over theInternational Relations and Security Network (ISN) © 2008 ISN

religious gained additional luster when the phrase“the Divine Right of Kings” gained currency.
Sacred kingship had, of course, a much longer
pedigree. As pointed out by Marc Bloch, it was
only in the mid-18th century that the monarchy in
England and France finally gave up on the claim toroyal healing. But the concept of the divine rightof kings, with its distinct religious overtones, wasprimarily employed to extend the power of theking rather than to fortify his connections withthe church. Clearly couched in religious language,
it served to bolster the ruler’s religious legitimacy
independent of the religious establishment.
Paradoxically therefore, by underlining thereligious source of legitimacy for kingship andelevating it (by linking it directly to the divine), a
completely antithetical historical trend, namely,
the secularization of kingship, was born. Sacral andsecular kingship were fully integrated in order forthe secular to subsume the sacral. This is a process
fundamental to the understanding not only of therole of the church in European society, but also of
the overall role of politics in society in general.
The institution of kingship as a corporate entity,rather than a personal one, too, drew on thepolitical language of Christianity. The two bodies ofChrist, separate and united, created the metaphor
most readily mobilized in the articulation ofkingship, defined against the private body of theking. When in the 16th century, English crowds
greeted the funeral of the king and applauded his
successor in the same breath, chanting “the Kingis dead, long live the King,” they were recallingthe separation of the body of the king from theoffice of kingship, and therein lay the birth of
constitutional rule. The “separation,” therefore, wasinvoked, not to subordinate religious authority, butrather to domesticate it and bolster kingship withthe same brushstroke. It was only by investingheavily in Christian concepts, albeit secularized,that advocates of constitutional rule secured theirpolitical victory: The body of the King was prioritizedover the king himself, and made synonymous withthe body politic.
AYATOLLAH KHOMEINI ON THE AUTHORITY OFJURISTS
Much in the same spirit was Ayatollah Khomeini’s(d. 1989) writing, and later actual execution of theconcept of “vilayat-i faqih,” the custodianship of
the jurist. It strove to enhance the power of jurists,Conceptualizing the Sunni-Shi’i Encounterin the Modern Period

the would-be-ruling class in an Islamic republic,
against centuries of Islamic political thought that
had focused on proper etiquettes of kingship, as
well as myriad contenders for authority, such as
the military. Claiming in full the long-establishedauthority of the imams (descendants of ‘Ali b. Abi
Talib, d. 660), considered the legitimate successors
to prophetic authority in Shi’i creed, Khomeini
succeeded in granting to the clerical establishment
the authority to interpret God’s will, with its radical
implication, that is the authority to disregard
precedence, both actual and theoretical, if it
happened to go against the best interests of thestate. In so doing, he would claim that he was nottransgressing Islamic parameters, for he was merely
employing the traditional concept of maslaha(pragmatism) in the implementation of the shari’a,almost a synonym, at this juncture, for governance.
By transferring, to a hitherto unprecedented extent,
the authority of the impeccable imams as veritablesuccessors of God’s rule on earth to the jurists,
Khomeini, like Bossuet in 17th century France, wrote
to promote a political and ultimately, even secular
agenda. Again, similar to the concept of divineright of kings, Khomeini’s vilayat-i faqih was nota novel one. At least since the 18th century, Shi’ireligious thinkers of various stripes wrote about
jurists as legatees of the 12 imams, and temporary
custodians of their divine authority. Khomeini’s
modest reinterpretation of the doctrine drew on
traditional religious discourse to refashion therelationship between divine and human authority
in an innovative fashion. He pointed out to the“historical” and therefore conventional bent of
his discussion on the governance of jurists, “[a]s I
stated previously, the subject of the governance ofthe faqih is not something new that I have invented;
since the very beginning it has been mentioned
continually.”
Heavily steeped in Shi’i eschatology, and its intrinsic
messianic component, Khomeini simultaneously
made the mahdi’s presence appear seemingly
more tangible, his return all the more imminentand his authority more extensively delegated to his
representatives on earth. A strong, powerful, andrejuvenated mahdi was presented, but his almost
palpable presence meant that he could be distanced
more than ever before. The authority of the jurists,
exemplified by Khomeini himself, to interpret God’s
will, was achieved by uniting it with the authorityof the imams. The “political” legitimacy of thejurists, then, was derived, like the authority of theInternational Relations and Security Network (ISN) © 2008 ISN

European kings, from its unison with, rather than abreak away from the divine. As expressed regularly
in medieval political tracts, implicit in the rhetoricaltwinning of kingship and religion were discursive
mechanisms facilitating the shift in the balance infavor of autonomous political authority.
Khomeini’s conceptualization of vilayat-i faqih is
also expressed in “democratic” language. Leading
jurists owe their political position to a certain
degree on the popular will, as their rise through the
Shi’i clerical hierarchy is dependent on the ability to
attract a substantial following. As political doctrine,
therefore, vilayat-i faqih works to indigenize
political language, to mobilize the Islamic past to
create political change, and to protect the Islamic
public against totalitarian rule, to modernize,that is, the apparatus of governance. As theembodiment of the popular will, the doctrine also
confers upon its authors the discursive apparatus
to set themselves apart from other ideological andpolitical contenders.
AUTONOMOUS POLITICAL AUTHORITY
Political legitimacy and autonomous authority
are also the keys to explicating the by now
notorious speeches of the supposed “hardliner”
president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. In his
speech at the United Nations in September 2006,
Ahmadinejad devoted a good number of minutes
to the return of the Twelfth Imam, later claimed
to have felt his presence in the room, and thenlaunched into a prophecy depicting the downfallof the “Zionist state” and the disgrace of the Great
Satan. By appropriating at once both the symbolicand rhetorical level the upper hand afforded byreligious zeal, Ahmadinejad has, alone among
Iranian presidents of the recent past, publicly
challenged the will of influential religious leaders.
Having anointed himself as the humble servant
and therefore beneficiary of the Messiah’s good
will, Ahmadinejad has defied the ruling clericalestablishment over the nuclear issue and Iranianpolicy vis-à-vis Israel and, at the same time,
maintained his support among the population.
Not the call for reform and tolerance, but rather
the invitation to remain steadfast in the face offoes, again came to the fore as the formula forsuccessful leadership. Courage, defiance, piety
and probity, were combined in his presidential
campaign to cast his main opponent, the powerful
Ayatollah Rafsanjani, as corrupt and hypocritical,
much the same vocabulary used by Khomeini tocast doubt on the legitimacy of the Shah. It was byConceptualizing the Sunni-Shi’i Encounterin the Modern Period

direct appeal to sacral rulership that Ahmadinejadembarked on his project to wrest power fromthe clerical establishment, and ironically, utilized
successfully, the very religious rhetoric that thelatter claims as the lynchpin of its authority.
The point here is not to exaggerate ideologicaldifferences among Iran’s top leadership. To divide
Khamenehi, Khatami, Rafsanjani and Ahmadinejad
into hardliners or reformists obfuscates diverging
political platforms in Iran. All four, for example, layclaim to the mantle of pragmatism. Rather, thepoint is that Ahmadinejad has utilized, successfully,
politico-religious language to bolster the position of
his office vis-à-vis that of the clerical establishment
in the first instance. And by extension, the Presidentof Iran is sending a signal to the Supreme Leader,suggesting that the claim to the mahdi’s mantle,
the very raison d’être of Khamenehi’s office andthe theological rationale for his uncontested
authority, is a double-edged sword that can also
be manipulated to undermine accommodationist
clerics. If so understood, Ahmadinejad’s strategy
may also be taken to reflect his close ties with themilitary and para-military establishment in Iran,ostensibly, the very threat Khomeini had foreseenin the early days of the Islamic republic and hence
his explicit condemnation of military involvementin political life. The Office of the Juriconsult,as implemented by Khomeini after the Islamic
revolution, was considered by important Shi‘i
leaders, such as Ayatollah al-Khuyi (d. 1992) andhis successor, Ayatollah Sistani, as an innovationthat contravened Shi‘i theological premises. Verymuch in Khomeini’s iconoclastic footsteps was
taken Ahmadinejad’s invocation of the Twelfth
Imam, as evidenced, for example, by the strong
condemnation of important clerics in Qum,
accusing pseudo-scholars of exploiting the religious
fervor of the population and inciting public interestby adumbrating superstition and hallucination.
SYMBIOSIS
Or consider, as another example of obfuscation
rather than explanation, the prevalent definitionof ijma’, as the consensus of Muslim experts inreligious studies (‘ulama’), held by most modern
scholars of Islamic societies. Ijma’, we are told inalmost every primer on Islam, is the third source,
after the Qur’an and the custom (sunna) of theProphet, for the derivation of Islamic law. How could
one put one’s finger on the consensus of scholars
in a religious infrastructure, which while spreadover vast areas and enjoying centuries of vigorous

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scholarship, has no official ecclesiastical hierarchy,
and is supremely decentralized? The consensus ofwhom, where and when, are only among the mostimplicit lacunae in this characterization. Instead,
let us consider the meaning and role of ijma’ in theformulation of Muslim creed in the late Ayatollah
Tabataba’i’s primer on Shi‘i Islam. The discussion ofijma’ in Tabatabai’s text is couched in the context
of the succession dispute that engendered theSunni-Shi‘i split immediately after the Prophet’s
demise in 632. The Sunnis, wrote Tabataba’i, did notconsult with members of Muhammad’s household,presenting them, instead, with a chosen successor- a fait accompli. When members of the household
confronted them, they were accused of harboring
divisive and hostile sentiments.
It was this protest and criticism which separated
from the majority the minority that were following
Ali and made his followers known to society as the“partisans” or “shi‘ah” of Ali. The caliphate of thetime was anxious to guard against this appellation
being given to the Shi‘ite minority and thus to have
Muslim society divided into sections comprised ofa majority and a minority. The supporters of thecaliph considered the caliphate to be a matter of theconsensus of the community (ijma’) and called those
who objected the “opponents of allegiance.” They
claimed that the Shi‘ah stood, therefore, opposed to
Muslim society.
Thus contextualized, the politics of ijma’ become
clear. Both in its initial usage in the succession
dispute following the Prophet’s death in theseventh century and its later permutation as theconsensus of scholars as a valid mechanism for
legitimizing interpretation, ijma’ is and will remain
a thoroughly exclusivist mechanism. Much like thetenure process currently in place in universities,
ijma’ works to keep out undesirable elements,
and political foes, rather than being a frameworkwith clear rules and universal laws for initiating
the novitiate into the academe. And ijma’, like theseparation of church and state, and all politicalconcepts, can only be understood when studied ina spectrum against its purported nemesis. Severedfrom the political context of the separation of
the Shi’is from the nascent Muslim community,
ijma’ becomes yet another barren, legalistic, static,
amorphous and protean proto-category, that canneither be grasped by “Westerners,” nor “moderns”,
nor applied in the altered circumstances of thepresent world.

Conceptualizing the Sunni-Shi’i Encounterin the Modern Period

Assuming animosity between Shi’is and Sunnis
is another salient feature of Western scholarshipon Islam. Sectarian conflict, very much modeledon Catholic-Protestant warfare of the 16th and17th centuries in Europe, is invoked in almost
every analysis of the political situation in Iraq
in the aftermath of the US-led invasion. What is
astounding is that even well-publicized eventsof the recent past, such as the lack of support for
Iran among Iraq’s Shi’i population during the IranIraq war of the 1980s, seem to have little effecton the prevalence of the sectarian model forthe explanation of political developments in theIslamic world. Although successfully contained by
Khomeini throughout the Iran-Iraq war, and despite
efforts by Ayatollah Sistani to curb sectarianism in
Iraq following the US invasion in 2003, conventional
wisdom has it that civil war between competing
sectarian worldviews is an imminent prospectin much of the Middle East. Remove the brutal
dictators and sectarian warfare will ensue.
Despite the pervasive rhetoric of US administration
officials and many scholars that Iran is meddlingin Iraqi affairs, and that at the expense of theSunni community, relations between Iran and thatarch supporter of Sunni Islam, Saudi Arabia, arewarmer now than any point in the past 50 years.
How can we begin to understand this seeming
contradiction? Or the contradiction between thesurge in sectarian violence in Iraq, Pakistan andother Islamic societies today, and the intensified
cross-fertilization between Sunni and Shi’i scholars,as evidenced by the issuance of a fatwa by leadersof what has been termed as the “eight schools” ofMuslim jurisprudence, positing that:

Equally, it is not possible to declare as apostates anygroup of Muslims who believes in Allah the Mighty
and Sublime and His Messenger (may Peace andBlessings be upon him) and the pillars of faith, andrespects the pillars of Islam and does not deny any
necessary article of religion.
The Amman Declaration also denounces the
propagation of religious rulings by laymen. “No one
may issue a fatwa without the requisite personalqualifications that each school of jurisprudence
defines. No one may issue a fatwa withoutadhering to the methodology of the schools ofjurisprudence. No one may claim to do absolute
Ijtihad and create a new school of jurisprudence or
to issue unacceptable fatwas that take Muslims outof the principles and certainties of the Shari’ah andwhat has been established in respect of its Schoolsof Jurisprudence.”
Amidst the intensification of sectarianism, thetraditional authors of the Islamic shari’a, the‘ulama’, are converging to rescue Islam from thevery Islamism that has been misunderstood in thevast majority of academic writing on the subject.
Khomeini had warned of the dangers implicit
in lay religious interpretation back in the 1980s,
following the success of the Islamic revolution in
overthrowing the Pahlavi monarchy:

Whosoever is an adherent of one of the four Sunni
Schools of Jurisprudence (Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi’iand Hanbali), the Ja’fari (Twelver Shi’is) Schoolof Jurisprudence, the Zaydi (Fiver Shi’is) Schoolof Jurisprudence, the Ibadi (Khariji) School ofJurisprudence, or the Zahiri (Literalists) School ofJurisprudence is a Muslim.

“Recently, people have appeared who, without theslightest qualification for interpreting the Qur’an,
try to impose their own objectives and ideas upon
both the Qur’an and the Sunna, even a group ofleftists and communists now claims to be basing
themselves and their aims on the Qur’an. Their realinterest is not the Qur’an or its interpretation, but
trying to convince our young people to accept theirobjectives under the pretext that they are Islamic.
I emphasize, therefore, that those who have notpursued religious studies, young people who are notwell grounded in Islamic matters, and all who are
uninformed concerning Islam should not attempt tointerpret the Qur’an.”

Declaring that person an apostate is impossible.
Verily his (or her) blood, honour and property aresacrosanct. Moreover, in accordance with what
appeared in the fatwa of the Honourable andRespectable Shaykh al-Azhar, it is not possible todeclare whosoever subscribes to the Ash’ari creed
or whoever practices true Sufism an apostate.
Likewise, it is not possible to declare whosoever
subscribes to true Salafi thought an apostate.

Earlier in the discussion, Khomeini had singled out
Sayyid Qutb (d. 1966) as a benighted interpreter
who claimed to know the Qur’an, but “he could
interpret only a certain aspect of the Qur’an, and dothat much only imperfectly.” How surprised would
our Islam experts be to discover that Khomeini did
not regard Sayyid Qutb as a legitimate interpreterof the shari’a? Unskilled interpreters of the Qur’an,
Khomeini wrote, were vulnerable to extremist

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Conceptualizing the Sunni-Shi’i Encounterin the Modern Period
positions and to subordinating the meaning of
the text to the furtherance of a political agenda.
In the post-September 11 world, the wisdom of
the Ayatollah is self-evident. Still, he remains
inextricably tied to ‘Usama bin Ladin in the Westernimagination, and “Islam” is blamed for the fosteringof violence and radicalism.
These and other seeming inconsistencies andapparent contradictions are part and parcelof systemic misunderstanding. The secular, or
political in Islamic political discourse, needs to beunderstood on its own terms, without translation,or reliance on parallels or equivalencies. Despite
growing sectarianism evidenced in key Muslim
societies, the general trend of religious scholarshipin the Islamic world seems to promote Sunni-Shi’i
reconciliation. How can this rapprochement be
politicized and contextualized, for it to explain ina meaningful manner, Sunni-Shi’i relations in themodern period? What aspects of Sunni thought
are read and debated in Iran, and how do Iranians
write of the Sunni creed? To that end, I have studied
several works on Sunni political theology that havebeen translated into Persian recently.
CONFLUENCE
In this regard, the works of the Shafi’i Syrian‘alim, Shaykh Muhammad Sa’id Ramadan alButi, are instructive. Shaykh al-Buti appears in all
the media in Syria, and his Friday sermons in the
Jami’ Mawlana al-Rifai’i Mosque are attended byhundreds of people, many of them standing in themosque courtyard. A professor at the Universityof Damascus, al-Buti has a considerable influenceon the future generations of teachers who willteach religion and Islamic law in state primaryand secondary schools. Against the grain of Sunnisupremacist (takfiri) thinkers who, since at least thetime of Muhammad ‘Abduh (d. 1905), have argued forthe cleansing and purification of Islam, the purging
of sectarianism and syncretistic elements from thepure Islam of their forefathers, al-Buti preaches onnational Syrian TV, for the strengthening of theclerical class, and for enforcing their authority toengage in ijtihad. Strictly within the perimetersof traditional scholarship, he has denounced thesalafiya, accusing them of trying to “simplify thecomplicated demands of Islamic reasoning.” Here,al-Buti is referring to the position advocated by
Salafis that all Muslims must acquire religious
knowledge and serve as their own interpreters of
the shari’a, which when contextualized properly
reveals primarily an anti-Shi’i stance. For one of theprincipal points of divergence between the two

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communities has been the scope and function of
the clerical class in interpreting the shari’a.
An in-depth analysis of al-Buti’s work will
demonstrate that contrary to convictions
adumbrated by the Western academy, Muhammad‘Abduh and his salafi followers were not in fact
modernist Muslims who advocated a break withtradition and the rejuvenation of Islam along theexigencies of modern life. On the contrary, salafi
thought advocates a rigid, well-defined, scientistic
understanding of religion, one which attempts
to define it with tools and concepts drawn fromthe exact sciences, and has been immensely
instrumental in the fostering of jihadi and takfiriorganizations in the Arab world that are especiallycrudely on display in South Asia. Ayman al-Zawahiri
and the recently assassinated Abu Mus’ab alZarqawi are only the more notorious leaders of such
movements. To bring to the fore the reactionary
core of ‘Abduh’s alleged modernity, his discussion oftawhid (unity of God), an important pillar of Muslim
political theology, should be contrasted with thewritings of Khomeini and perhaps even several
medieval Sunni theologians, such as al-Ghazzali (d.
1111), Juwayni (d. 1085) or al-Mawardi (d. 1058), on thesame subject. In salafi writings, tawhid is the unityof God reflected in the one Muslim nation, unifiedin creed and practice, free of historical accretions,
local variations and deviant proclivities. In thehands of the politically astute Khomeini, tawhid
was a call for Muslim unity amidst differences, an
inclusive call for tolerance rather than divisiveness.
Perhaps deliberately contradicting Wahhabi
ideology, Khomeini repeatedly called for the
inclusion of Sufis in Islamic orthodoxy, and putting
aside sectarian squabbles that detract attention
from more pressing concerns.
In his writings, al-Buti draws on the work of alShatibi (d. 1388), the famous 14th century ‘alim whoargued for a clear articulation of a normative basis
for the shari’a. The shari’a, al-Shatibi had argued,
is a code of law and thus responsive to societal
exigencies and changing historical circumstances.
Al-Buti, much like his Shi’i counterparts, Ayatollah
Burujirdi (d. 1960) and Ayatollah Khomeini,
supports the centralization of religious authority
in the Islamic world, and the establishment ofa recognized hierarchy among the clerical class.
His advocacy of change is carefully grounded in
traditional language: “Rearrangements of the lawof Allah mean only the abuse of it, do they not?”Conceptualizing the Sunni-Shi’i Encounterin the Modern Period
What al-Buti recommends is the establishment of
a supreme religious council, composed of scholars
from all schools of law, vested with the mandate
to declare authoritative interpretations of thedivine will. He writes disparagingly of the salafis,
and people who are insufficiently trained in Islamic
law but take it upon themselves to declare legal
rulings.
Departure from traditional jurisprudence is also
encouraged by Ayatollah Rafsanjani, one of Iran’smost influential clerical and political leaders, who
advocates the establishment of a “Fatwa Council”
to accommodate demands placed by modern
governance on the corpus of traditional Islamic
jurisprudence. Shi’ism is a minority religion,
Rafsanjani has argued, and historically isolated frompolitical power. As such, areas such as political andpublic law have received scant attention in the past.
While Shi’ism accommodates legal interpretationand the application of rational reasoning to thederivation of law to a larger extent than the four
schools of Sunni law, the Shi’i juridical establishment
needs to expand its curriculum to include topics
such as governance and vilayat-i faqih, legislation,
elections, the rights and responsibilities of thegovernment and the public, political parties, media,
internet and satellite communication, art, foreign
policy, ethnic and religious minorities, federalism,
international relations, international organizations,non-conventional weapons, epidemic diseases,social security, inflation, insurance, banking,copyright, citizens’ rights, population control andthe environment.
The revitalization of the study of Islam is among
the major ramifications of the Iranian Revolution of
1979. Apart from “unleashing” successive waves ofIslamist militancy, the architects of the revolution
have succeeded in re-establishing Iran and Shi’ism asa crucial component of Islamic ideology. Succinctly
described in Richard Bulliet’s Islam: The View fromthe Edge, the historical peripheries of the Islamic
world, namely Iran and Algeria, have emerged in
the second half of the 20th century as its veritable
centers. The centering of Iran and of Shi’ism hasbrought into acute focus the political theology ofIslamic precepts. Once again, as perhaps akin to theIslamic ideological landscape of the ninth and tenthcenturies, the Sunni creed is compelled to reckon
with its severed half, namely Shi’i politico-religious
doctrine. The success of the Iranian revolution, notjust in the promotion of Islam, but also in carving
an independent sphere for political development
outside the matrix of Eurocentric ideologies, hasInternational Relations and Security Network (ISN) © 2008 ISN

compelled Sunni thinkers to reevaluate the role ofIslam and its erstwhile proprietors in the modern
world.
The rise of Islamist politics in the second half of the20th century has also demonstrated the necessityof paying attention to what these groups are
actually saying, rather than translating them into
the modernizing discourse of the West, as Timothy
Mitchell has pointed out. The mobilization of
the Islamic past, as we have seen, is an integral
component of political change in this period, andSunni-Shi’i dialogue at its very heart. Reinhard
Schulze has commented on the gradual waningof the primacy of hadith among Islamist thinkersof the globalization era, and the increased relianceof such authors on the Qur’an as a proof text. The
gradual shift from hadith to Qur’an, will bring, invery broad terms, the Sunni creed in line with the
Shi’i, wherein albeit very modestly, there is moreroom for the application of reasoning and juristic
interpolation in the interpretation of the divine
will. If one of the main differences between Shi’is
and Sunnis in the modern period has been thegradual emergence of a religious hierarchy among
the Shi’a, wherein an official infrastructure for therecognition of clerical authority was put in place,then the snail-paced veering of Sunni thinkers awayfrom the disparate, non-narrative and unauthored
hadith, and in the direction of the Qur’anic text, willundoubtedly work to promote the emergence of aSunni religious hierarchy, where mechanisms will
emerge to ensure that one interpretation would
be superior to the other, much in the same waythat hadith were graded in the medieval period.
In the gradual waning of the popularity of hadithin Islamic political discourse, the Sunni creed will
resemble its Shi’i counterpart to a larger degree.
It will witness an increased number of authoredpositions, where interpretation will be more
substantive and the authority of the individual
jurist more prominently on display.
Although issues of succession and of the imamate
will probably never be resolved, the increased crossfertilization among Sunni and Shi’i thinkers will
result in a homogenization of their interpretive
infrastructure. An essential restructuring of thestudy of Islamic societies is thus the underlying
premise of this historic current.
Dr. Neguin Yavari
Department of History, The New SchoolENDNOTES
Ernst Kantorowicz, The King’s Two Bodies (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1957)
	Ruhollah Khomeini, Islam and Revolution, Vol. I, ed. & tr. Hamid Algar (Berkeley: Mizan
Press, 1981), pp. 55-110
3
	Khomeini, p. 124
4
For more on the genealogy of political thought and the meaning of the twinningof religion and kingship, see my, “Mirrors for Princes or a Hall of Mirrors? Nizam
al-Mulk’s Siyar al-muhïk Reconsidered,” Al-Masaq: Islam and the Medieval
Mediterranean, 20: 1 (2008), pp. 47-69
5	Interpreting Ayatollah Khomeini’s view on the intervention of the military inpolitical life was the main point in a controversial speech delivered in February
2008 by Hasan Khomeini, the late Ayatollah’s grandson, who heads the Centerfor the Compilation and Publication of Imam Khomeini’s Work. “If a soldier wants
to enter into politics, he needs to forget the military and the presence of a gun inpolitics means the end of all dialogue,” said Sayed Hassan Khomeini, a mid-ranking
cleric in charge of his grandfather’s mausoleum, in a rare public comment.” See“Iran Debate: Who Owns the Revolution?” http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0307/
p01s02-wogn.htm
6Frances, Harrison, “Row over Ahmadinejad Imam Beliefs.” http://news.bbc.co.uk/
nolpda/ukfs_news/hi/newsid_7255000/7255602.stm
7
Sayyid Muhammad Husayn al-Tabataba’i, Shi’ite Islam, tr.& ed. Sayyid Hossein Nasr
(Albany: State University of New York Press, 1977), p. 76
8
	The recent literature on growing sectarianism, and the need to partition Iraq into
three separate nations, is gaining ground in the American political establishment.
One of the more popular among them is Vali Nasr’s The Shi‘a Revival: How Conflicts
Within Islam Will Shape the Future (New York: Norton, 2006)9
http://ammanmessage.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=20&It
emid=34
10
	Andreas Christmann, “Islamic Scholar and Religious Leader: Shaikh Muahmmad Sa’id
Ramadan al-Buti,” in Islam and Modernity: Muslim Intellectuals Respond, ed. John
Cooper et al. (London: I B Tauris, 1998), pp. 57-81, quotation is on page 67.
11“Reconstructing Political Theology: An Interview with Ayatollah Hashemi
Rafsanjani,” Shahrvand-i emruz, 57 (13 Mordad 1387/3 August 2008), p. 112.
12
	Richard Bulliet, Islam: The View from the Edge (New York: Columbia University Press,
1994).
13
Timothy Mitchell, “The Middle East in the Past and the Future of Social Science,”
UCIAS Ed. Vol. 3, Politics of Knowledge: Area Studies and the Disciplines (2003), p. 22.
http://www.repositories.cdlib.org/uciaspubs/editedvolumes/3/3/
1

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International Relations and Security Network (ISN) © 2008 ISN

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International Relations and Security Network (ISN) © 2008 ISN

12ABOUT The author
Dr. Neguin Yavari is Assistant Professor of Middle
Eastern History at The New School and holds a PhD
in History from Columbia University. Dr. Yavari’s
research interests are in political thought in the
medieval period, with an emphasis on modes oftransition from medieval to modern, and theintersections of concept and rhetoric in politicaland theological thought in pre-modern Christianand Islamic societies. She is currently preparing
a monograph on the modern history of SunniShi’i relations, concentrating on the emergence of
converging concepts and themes in their respective
repertoires at a time when it is the discordance thatis underlined and explicated. The book, from which
the present study is extracted, is under contract
with Hurst Publishers.

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