Eleventh International Conference on Religion & Spirituality in Society

Abstract

Clergy-state relations in Shiʿism have been taken as a matter of academic interest after the Iranian revolution in 1979. Studies in the field usually address two political theories derived from Shīʿī jurisprudence. The first theory, which is more famous and Shīʿī ʿulamā have accepted it over the course of history, sees that even though the occultation (ghayba) of the Twelfth Imam led to the emergence of the notion of the collective deputyship (al-nīyāba al-ʿamma), but this nīyāba should be restricted to some specific aspects of believers’ lives. This is while on the other side, Khomeinī’s understanding of the “guardianship of the jurisconsult” (wilāyat al-faqīh) has been the most prominent and influential innovation in contemporary Shīʿī legal theory. However, this twofold understating of clergy-state relations in Shiʿism which is intertwined with the modern concept of state from one side, and legal–based understanding of Shiʿism on the other, did not undertake to describe one of the most important dimensions of Shiʿism, that is esotericism. Discussions over the clergy-state relation have rarely engaged in the esoteric dimension of Shiʿism and are mostly confined to the legal/political/textual-based analysis of the Twelver Shia. This gap can be fixed by an insider through participant-observation, alongside textual analysis. The Anjoman-e Hojjatīeh, also called the Hojjatīeh Society, is the best esoteric case study in this regard in contemporary Shiʿism. This study, relying on some non-canonical evidence, shows that advocating the theory of clerical quietism by Hojjatīeh Society is not just a matter of legal or political theory.