The Princeton Encyclopedia of Islamic Political Thought

guardianship of the jurist

The Twelver Shi‘i legal doctrine known as “the guardianship of the jurist” (wilāyat al-faqīh; in Persian, vilāyat-i faqīh) is best known from the works of Ayatollah Khomeini (1902–89), who formulated his views on the topic around 1970. The doctrine is relatively recent and seems to date to no earlier than the writings of Mulla Ahmad al-Naraqi (d. 1829). One may view the guardianship of the jurist as the culmination of a trend to concentrate the prerogatives of the imam in the hands of jurists as a group, and the leading jurist in particular, that began in the 10th century and proceeded by stages until the 20th century.

Wilāya refers to the authority of a religious leader or official, and the term has been used to describe the religious authority of the Prophet Muhammad. Shi‘i Muslims rallied around the argument that the Prophet’s wilāya devolved on their imams, who were the Prophet’s descendants. According to the Twelver, or Imami, Shi‘is, the first imam was ‘Ali b. Abi Talib (d. 661), the Prophet’s paternal first cousin and then son-in-law. The Twelfth Imam, Muhammad al-Mahdi, born around 870 and a direct descendant of ‘Ali through his son Husayn, is believed to have gone into concealment in the year 873 or 874 upon God’s instruction. This Hidden Imam’s return will occur prior to the end of time, but until then, his incognito existence apparently deprives the faithful of the only figure entitled to legitimate rule. Since wilāya is such a critical prerogative, and since it was believed to reside in the imams, the occultation (ghayba) of the Twelfth Imam created a crisis of religious authority: the question was whether that authority had devolved, or could devolve, on others. Eventually, by the 16th century at the latest, the Twelver jurists concluded that a relative form of it had devolved on them collectively as the “general representatives” of the imams.

The concept of the guardianship of the jurist is to a large degree implicit in Naraqi’s writings. The expression appears explicitly, however, in the writings of two of his illustrious successors, Muhammad Hasan al-Najafi (d. 1849) and especially Murtada al-Ansari (d. 1864). However, Ansari’s doctrine of wilāyat al-faqīh was firmly ensconced within the tradition that interpreted the authority that the jurists could exercise in the name of the imams to lie within the narrow compass of relative (i‘tibārī) wilāya. In other words, their authority was limited to taking over a limited number of the prerogatives of the imam, a small subset of the whole. This wilāya of the jurists, Ansari stressed, was limited to the authority to make decisions on behalf of persons who, for various reasons, were either incapable of making their own decisions or incompetent to do so. Among those who fell under this category were widows, orphans, the mentally infirm, children, and the like.

In a series of lectures given in Najaf, Iraq, in January 1970, Khomeini altered the scope of the jurists’ wilāya by expanding it to include political rule—indeed, nearly all the general functions of the imam. This was a drastic change from the classical understanding of the concept, though Khomeini did not present it as such, instead claiming that it was a widely held view. It is not surprising that most Twelver jurists rejected his interpretation. He sanctioned the idea that a single jurist, rather than the collectivity of the jurists, might be identified who could exercise this greatly broadened understanding of the concept, being careful to try to vindicate this expanded version by seeking scriptural justifications for it. Khomeini’s role in the Iranian Revolution of 1978–79 and its aftermath was so critical that his interpretation of the doctrine became the official line of the Islamic Republic of Iran, established in 1979. His sobriquet of walī al-faqīh—the supreme jurist—indicated that indeed it was he who would exercise political rule.

Shortly before his death in June 1989, Khomeini again broadened the conceptualization of this doctrine in a fatwa (legal opinion) that he issued in early January 1988 that made the wilāya of the jurist absolute. It now became wilāyat al-faqīh al-muṭlaqa. He argued that not only did the top jurist have the right to exercise political rule but he also had the power to suspend some of the secondary ordinances of the faith if he believed that such suspension was essential to rescue “Islam” from destruction. Among the secondary ordinances that he specifically mentioned were ritual prayer and the hajj (annual pilgrimage to Mecca). He apparently saw fit to elevate the already robust version of the doctrine to this even more categorical form because he believed that the Islamic Republic of Iran was the true warden of Islam and that enemies were conspiring to bring about its collapse, which would be tantamount to the collapse of Islam itself.

Khomeini’s interpretations of 1970 and 1988 remained heterodox in the world of Shi‘i Islam. However, his interpretations have become part of the discourse of high-ranking Shi‘i legal authorities and cannot easily be dismissed. Yet it seems unlikely that his view of wilāyat al-faqīh will triumph altogether. Withal, Khomeini’s death in 1989 left no one of his stature to champion the doctrine; the next faqīh (jurist) and “leader” (rahbar) of the Islamic Republic, ‘Ali Khamene’i, was considered, by most top-ranking Shi‘i clerics in Iraq, Lebanon, and even in Iran itself, too inferior to inherit Khomeini’s mantle. Under such circumstances, most observers feel that the majority of Twelver jurists will revert to the pre-1970 interpretation of Ansari, especially if the Islamic Republic of Iran continues to experience normalization of relations with the outside world.