Introduction 

Wilāyat al-faqīh (the Guardianship of the Jurist), as the official theory of the post-revolutionary regime, has affected every aspect of the private and public life of Iranians since 1979. As the culmination of the amalgamation of religion and politics, a development that is traceable in the idea of Shaykh Faḍl ul-llāh Nūrī’s (d. 1909/1288 Sh) mashrūṭaya mashrūʿa (sharīʿa-based Constitutionalism), wilāyat al-faqīh steps beyond the classical dichotomy of church and state, and in fact, violates it. The aspiration of having a Shīʿa theocracy of their own was long-standing among the Shīʿas, and with the hierocracy being part of the Ṣafavīd bureaucracy, it seemed at the time to be more of a dream. However, the collapse of the Ṣafavīds in 1736 changed for good the balance of power in favor of a hierocracy. Because of the religious sentiments of the Qājār kings, as well as their incapability of restoring the old regime, the hierocracy gained significant political influence and socio-economic weight. Nūrī’s insistence on incorporating an article (precisely, Article Two) to the amendment of the constitution, suggesting that five high-ranking scholars (ʿulemā) needed to check the conformity of the resolutions of the Majlis with the sharīʿa, is generally regarded as the first practical attempt of its kind, that is, of assigning more space in politics to the ʿulemā who regarded themselves as the general vicegerent of the Hidden Imām. A set of juridical innovations from the pre-Nūrī era backed the realpolitik of Article Two, according to figures such as Mullā Aḥmad Narāqī (Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad Mahdī Fāḍil Narāqī, d. 1245 H/1829), who, in chapter fifty-four of his classic ʿAwāʾid al-ayyām (Achievements of the Years), developed arguments for what can be considered a ‘primitive configuration’ of the theory of wilāyat al-faqīh. Narāqī provides a basis for the authority of the Just Jurist (faqīh-i ʿādil) and his guardianship over umūr-i ḥisbīya/ḥisba (Islamic market regulations, as an example of manṭaqat ul-firāgh), as the first area in which wilāyat al-faqīh should deploy. 

The Birth of an Idea

The seeds of the theory of wilāyat al-faqīh can be traced in the early writings of Ayatollah Khomeini (circa 1321 Sh/1942-43), particularly in Kashf ul-asrār (Unveiling of the Secrets), a book written as a response to ʿAlī Akbar Ḥikamī Zādih’s pamphlet Asrār-i hizār sālih (One-Thousand Years of Secrets). In Kashf, Khomeini took his first step into politics, blurring its boundary with jurisprudence. He discussed several key concepts for the first time. Destined for implementation in subsequent decades, these included the ‘government of Islam.’ However, in the text, Khomeini wavered between belief in the classical separation of politics and religion – viewing it as a conventional solution to the problematic of governance during the occultation of the imām – and his interest in the notion of ḥukūmat-i Islam (also ḥukūmat-i fuqahā) that violates such a duality (Khomeini, n. d., p. 181ff). Kashf ul-asrār was a stepping stone to Khomeini’s further elaboration of wilāyat al-faqīh in a book under the same title, which he composed in Najaf in 1970 and published in Beirut a few months later. However, the notion of wilāyat al-faqīh appeared previously in the second volume of Kitāb al-bayʿ (the Book of Transaction) as well.¹ 

Wilāyat-i faqīh consists of many controversial hypotheses, including that wilāyat al-faqīh is self-evident (badīhī) (Khomeini, 1390, p. 9) and that “the state’s preservation … [is] a primary injunction [al-aḥkām al-awwalīyyah]”, while “rituals (e.g., the obligatory prayers and fasting) … are secondary injunctions [al-aḥkām al-thānawīyyah]” (Mavani, 2013, p. 209). Relevant to this is Khomeini’s entirely political interpretation of the history of Islam, and key terms such as nubuwwa, imamate, and wilāya, which necessitate the establishment of government in Islam. Hence, the status of wilāya, i.e., succession and authority after the Prophet, is political, and its adherence requires attempts to set up the Islamic government and to execute sharīʿa (Khomeini, 1390, Op. cit., pp. 20-26). Jurisprudence is the foundation of Islam, and just jurists are in charge of the life and death of the believers (Ibid., p. 50). Therefore, they enjoy the same authority and guardianship as the Prophet and the imāms, and their obedience is incumbent on every believer. He ascertains that although the Prophet and jurists, hold distinct statuses, their equal duties grant them equal rights to establish government (Ibid., p. 50-51ff). 

For Khomeini, wilāya of the Prophet and the imāms signify government, authority, and administration, while wilāya of the just jurists indicate a contractual non-divine office by which an individual is appointed to take responsibility for others. Interestingly, he equates the office of the wilāya of the just jurists to the appointment of a custodian for the minor (ṣaghīr) (Ibid., p. 51). The establishment of the Islamic government is a farḍ/farīḍa (duty) or wājib al-ʿaynī for jurists, and they must rise, either individually or collectively, to fulfill this task. Duties, particularly the execution of ḥudūd (divine ordinances, legal punishments), that are set to be fulfilled by the fuqahā, are the main point of the book of Wilāyat-i faqīh (Ibid., p. 52-53ff), although their fulfillment depends on the formation of an Islamic government by them (Ibid., pp. 59-75). 

Judgeship and statecraft are twins, Khomeini argues, and the right of the ʿulemā to exercise authority in politics comes from their status as judge (Ibid., p. 84ff). It is to be noted that the affinity between these two offices, i.e., judgeship and politics, is well-established in Shīʿa jurisprudence, as it was Shaykh al-Mufīd (d. 413 H/948) who first argued that fuqahā have the right “to run the important office of qāḍī [judge] on behalf of the Imām” (Kazemi Moussavi, 1996, p. 71). For Khomeini, the Islamic government is a “unique unprecedented” type of governance and could be classified as a ‘constitutional domination’ in which rulers are conditioned to the Qurʾān and to the tradition of the Prophet (Khomeini, 1390, Op. cit., p. 43). Regarding this, wilāya, which refers to the execution of the religious laws or ḥudūd, is not inconsistent with this interpretation of constitutionalism and is regarded as the executive dimension of it (Ibid., p. 51). 

Relying on Omar ibn Ḥanẓalih’s ḥadīth, known as Maqbūla-yi Omar ibn-Ḥanẓalih, and its pair, Mashhūra-yi abī-Khadījah (Khomeini, 1368 Sh, Vol.2, pp. 104-107 & pp. 109-111), Khomeini ascertains that the just jurists are the heirs of the Prophet and of the imāms, because they enjoy the same right as them to issue fatwā and to sit on the seat of the Prophet to judge among people. He further argues (Ibid., p. 94ff) that, if jurists are the heirs of the Prophet, then they should inherit his whole legacy, including the right of governance. Khomeini’s other transmitted source is verse fifty-nine of the Sūrat al-Nisāʾ, stating: “O you who believe! Obey God and obey the Messenger and those in authority among you” (Nasr, 2015, p. 219), which interprets ulu-l-amr (lit. those in authority) as the just jurists who occupy the office of political guardianship over people (Khomeini, 1390, Op. cit., p. 83ff). 

Echoing figures such as Muḥammad Bāqir as-Ṣadr (d. 1980) in Najaf and Sayyid Quṭb (d. 1966) in Egypt, Khomeini emphasizes the political dimension of the abovementioned verse, as well as “the foundation of a ‘nucleus’ of the Islamic state in the Qurʾān” (Mallat, 1993, p. 65). Discrediting these two and other similar narrations, Mohsen Kadivar in Ḥukūmat-i wilāyī (Divine Government) argues that since in this verse obedience to ulu al-amr comes immediately after obedience to God and to the Prophet, ulu al-amr are the imams and not jurists. He stresses that these three types of obedience are assumed to be equal, therefore the referent of ulu al-amr cannot be just jurists, because they are not equal to the imāms and to the Prophet. Furthermore, the prerequisite of absolute obedience is immunity from sin (ʿiṣma), which is only gifted to the Immaculate Fourteen (i.e., the Prophet Muhammad, his daughter Fatima, and the twelve Imams), and not to the just jurists. Given this, the whole idea of wilāyat al-faqīh lacks rational as well as sufficient jurisdictional foundation, and as such, the question of the political wilāya of the jurists remains suspicious and dubious (Kadivar, 1378, passim). 

Khomeini’s special emphasis on the necessity of having an Islamic government headed by a just jurist and with the implementation of sharīʿa as its main function should be regarded as a reaction to the authoritarian modernization and excessive westernization of the Pahlavis. For him, the Islamic government was an alternative to the existing political problems of his time, i.e., crisis in governance and statecraft, and that is why such a government and its laws were one of aḥkām-i awalīyya (the primary precepts, vs. the secondary precepts), with the absolute authority to issue decrees that not only stood superior to the constitution and the positive laws, but also to the precepts of Islam. 

Wilāyat al-faqīh continued its journey in the writings of one of the most notable students of Khomeini, Husayn ʿAlī Montazeri (d. 1388 Sh/2009), who was elected to a number of important offices after the Revolution of 1979, including leadership of the Assembly of Experts of the Constitution (majlis-i khubragān-i qānūn-i asāsī), Friday prayer leader of Qum, and most importantly, the designated heir apparent to Khomeini. His contribution to the

scholarship of wilāyat al-faqīh, reflected in such writings as Dirāsāt fi al-wilāyat al-faqīh wa al-figh al-duwal Islāmī (Studies on Wilāyat al-faqīh and the Jurisprudence of the Islamic States, 1364), Risāla-yi ḥuqūq (the Book of Rights, 1383), and Ḥukūmat-i dīnī wa ḥuqūq-i insān (Religious Government and People’s Rights, 1387), had three phases: the first one, which comprised the beginning of his career to the 1979 revolution, adhered to ‘the collective guardianship of the jurists’, which apparently reflects the influence of Ayatollah Burūjerdī’s concept of wilāya and the role of faqīh in society. In his second phase, Montazeri revised his initial views in favor of the single role of the faqīh, who is appointed by God and not people and acts as the representative of the imām during his Occultation. This doctrine was adopted as the official reading of the theory of wilāyat al-faqīh and eventually incorporated into the final draft of the constitution in 1979. Montazeri adopted his third position circa 1364 Sh/1985, shortly before his election to be Khomeini’s heir apparent. At that time he looked for a “greater respect of the interests of people and better control of the government” (Schwerin, 2015, p. 86), representing a return to his first position.² Montazeri’s newest reading, which he offered in 1364, contrasted with Khomeini’s doctrine of the absolute guardianship of the jurist (wilāyat-i muṭlaqa-yi faqīh), which was itself a new reading, incorporated into the revised constitution of 1989. Therefore, the different constitutional configurations of wilāyat al-faqīh, from 1979 to 1988, reflect the different deliberations on the concept in the writings of Khomeini and his student, Montazeri. 

Wilāyat al-faqīh and the Post-Revolutionary Legal Regime 

Had it not been for the ceaseless efforts of Montazeri, as head of the Assembly of Experts of the Constitution (majlis-i khubrigān-i qānūn-i asāsī), wilāyat al-faqīh would have not been incorporated into the constitution of the new regime, because the initial draft of the constitution written by Ḥassan Ḥabībī (d. 1392 Sh/2013)had not mentioned it at all. Kadivar ascertains that until its approval in the Assembly of Experts in 1979, wilāyat al-faqīh was neither regarded as one of the goals of the 1979 revolution, nor one of the principles of the new regime. Its relevance to the Islamic government was not mentioned by Khomeini, either (Kadivar, 1378, Op. cit., p. 189). So we must attribute its adoption to Montazeri, who, as “the most senior clerical defendant” of the article on wilāyat al-faqīh (Schwerin, 2015, Op. cit., p. 54), took a ‘radical’ position on the necessity of its incorporation into the constitution (Ibid., p. 55). The Assembly, which was founded in the summer of 1358 Sh/1979 to write a new constitution, convened on August 18 to consider its draft, which had been written earlier and completed its deliberations on the rewriting of the constitution on 15 November 1979. Finally, it was approved by referendum on 2-3 December 1979 by over ninety-eight percent of the vote. 

Article five of the constitution read: “during the occultation of the imām, a just, pious, cognizant, brave and resourceful jurist with leadership skills, who is accepted by the majority of people to their leadership, will be in charge of the guardianship of the cause (wilāyat-i amr), and of the leadership of the ummah, and in case no one with such qualities is accessible, a council³ consisting of competent jurists, with the same qualifications, will take care of the leadership of the ummah. However, the ways of the formation of the council, as well as its members are to be determined by the law” (Manṣūr, 1388 Sh, p. 111). 

With the subsequent endorsement of Khomeini of what was called ‘aṣl-i wilāyat al-faqīh’ (the principle of wilāyat al-faqīh), wilāyat al-faqīh became the most significant principle of the constitution. Representing the Islamism of the regime, wilāyat al-faqīh, has been continually undermining its republicanism (aṣl-i jumhūrīyat) through inventing several ‘legal’ mechanisms, chief among them niẓārat-i istiṣwābī (congressional oversight) from 1979 onwards. Aṣl-i wilāyat al-faqīh and its associated bodies have been the main reason behind preventing Iran from having free elections at any level in the past forty-five years, and with republicanism being fragile, crumbly, and at its service, there is no clear political perspective for Iran. 

– Amendments of 1368 Sh/1989 

In April 1989, the Council of the Revision of the Constitution (shurāya bāznigarīya qānūn asāsī), consisting of twenty-five jurists, with twenty of them selected by Khomeini and the rest chosen by the parliament, was formed by him to start revising the country’s legal codex. There were a number of reasons behind such a decision: authority in the executive branch was divided between the president and the prime minister; disagreements between the members of the Supreme Juridical Council (shurāya ʿālīya qaḍāyī) and the Judiciary branch due to the consultative structure of the former; and tensions between the parliament and the Guardian Council (shurāya nagahābān-i qānūn asāsī).⁴ Hence, a number of articles, including aṣl-i wilāyat al-faqīh (article five of the constitution of 1980), were revised and the prerequisite of marjaʿīyat (the status of being a source of emulation) for walī-ya faqīh was replaced by the requirement of ijtihad. The reason probably was because it was difficult to find a qualified marjaʿ for such an office then. 

The decision to replace wilāyat al-faqīh with wilāyat al-muṭlaqaya al-faqīh (the absolute guardianship of the jurist), the people were completely removed from the process of selecting the leader. Under absolute guardianship, the new walī no longer required public acceptance, but instead was conceived as being designated by God and then discovered by the Assembly of Experts. 

Similarly, the possibility of establishing a leadership council was severely downgraded in the revised constitution, further strengthening the concept of absolute guardianship. The new constitution moved the provision for a leadership council from Article Five to Article One-hundred eleven, which addresses the responsibilities and authorities of the Assembly of Experts. By removing the provision of a leadership council from the article addressing the office of the walī-ya faqīh (i.e., Article Five of the 1979 constitution), and assigning it to the article dealing with the Assembly of Experts, the legislators elevated the office of wilāyat al-faqīh and emphasized the leader’s “individual” and “absolute” power even further (Manṣūr, 1388 Sh, Op. cit., p. 31, 74-79).⁵ With these revisions, collective leadership was no longer a choice for the members of the Assembly, because it was inconsistent with the absolute power of the office of wilāyat al-faqīh. Article One-hundred ten of the amended constitution places extensive power in the hands of the new walī-ya faqīh, including outlining the general policies of the niẓām;⁶ supervising their perfect implementation through the system; supreme command of the military forces; and the authority to appoint, remove, and accept the resignation of high ranking civil and military officials (Ibid., pp. 76-77). 

The Green Movement and the Suppression of Collective Leadership 

After the controversial election of 2009 (1388 Sh) produced the pro-reform Green Movement, Ali Akbar Hāshemī Rafsanjānī, a former president and the wartime Speaker of the Parliament, pushed for the formation of a leadership council, which could have opened the possibility of the supervision of walī-ya faqīh. Joining Rafsanjani in calling for a leadership council was Saʿīd Radhawī Faqīh, the spokesperson of presidential candidate Mehdī Karrūbī, who, alongside fellow candidate Mīr Hossein Mousavi, had challenged the validity of the results of the 2009 presidential election. With Iranian politics in gridlock and beset with intractable crises, chief among them the disputed presidential elections, Rafsanjani, Radhawi Faqih, and other proponents of a leadership council concluded that the current political configuration, i.e., wilāyat al-faqīh, was incapable of serving Iran’s national interests. Rafsanjani argued that the first decade of the revolution (1979-1989) was “pro-collective leadership” and claimed that prior to the constitutional amendments of 1989 thirty-five members of the first Assembly of Experts supported a leadership council. 

Rafsanjani’s efforts to revive the idea of collective leadership provoked an uproar among hardline supporters of the regime. Such pro-regime stalwarts as Judiciary head Ṣādiq Lārījānī, Guardian Council Secretary Aḥmad Jannatī, and Major General Ḥassan Fīrūzābādī (d. 2021), the head of the General Staff of the Armed Forces, criticized the proposal, with Lārījānī calling it “a mysterious move”, and Fīrūzābādī rejecting it as a “deception” and “a key⁷to break the internal strength of the political system”⁸. The most intense reaction came from Muḥammad Taqī Meṣbāḥ Yazdī (d. 2021), the then-head of Imam Khomeini’s Educational Center and a leading theorist of the uṣūlgarā (lit. principle oriented) or hardline front, who labeled the proposed leadership council as innovation (bidʿat) and a satanic plan. In the end, despite Rafsanjani’s efforts, the proposal for a leadership council remained in limbo. Rafsanjani’s hardline opponents eventually forced his resignation of the chairmanship of the Assembly of Experts in March 2011. Since Rafsanjani’s suspicious death in 2017, no individual from among the regime’s political elite has dared to resume open discussion of the collective leadership for Iran.⁹ 

– From 2009 to Present 

The controversial rise to power of President Maḥmūd Aḥmadīnijād in 1384 Sh/2005 accelerated the intervention of military forces in Iranian elections in general and the presidential elections in particular. Against the recommendation of Khomeini,¹⁰ and in violation of Article Forty of the Armed Forces Crimes Punishment Law¹¹ prohibiting military forces from any form of involvement in politics, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC or Sepāh), the Basij, and other revolutionary forces actively promoted Ahmadinejad’s election Concurrently, the IRGC and other security organs emerged as the only trustworthy allies of the hierocracy. Aḥmadīnejād, however, proved to be a difficult president for Khamenei to guide and manage, and the leader increasingly sought to ensure that the next president would be loyal and responsive to his direction. When in the 2013 presidential campaign Rafsanjani put his name forward as a candidate, the Guardian Council quickly and controversially disqualified him, reducing the field of candidates to five conservatives, a token reformist, and one center-right technocrat, all loyal to Khamenei. In the end, the technocrat, Hassan Rouhani was elected. He focused on negotiating a resolution of the nuclear dispute with the United States, which put his administration at odds with the security establishment, but with Khamenei’s backing eventually reached a deal. When a new US administration peremptorily repudiated the agreement and re-imposed severe economic sanctions on Iran, Rouhani lost Khamenei’s backing and IRGC political influence expanded. 

The effort to ensure the election of a tamed and docile president, became even more blatant following the end of Rouhani’s presidency, leading to the election of the late Ebrahim Ra’isi, a hardline cleric and regime apparatchik whom Khamenei had been grooming for higher office for several years. Rai’si’s election in a sense represented the culmination of the steady invasion of wilāyat al-faqīh – representing the Islamism of the regime– into all facets of the system, including its republican element. Nothing was left of the so-called dual sovereignty, once considered the main characteristic of the Islamic Republic. The absolute guardianship of the jurist, which was insinuated into the constitution of 1989, has steadily taken space from the republican aspect of the regime, effectively reducing the formal government to a parliamentary (and not even a semi-presidential) system. The last two presidents, namely, Ibrāhīm Raʾīsī and the current president, Masʿūd Pezeshkian are more in the nature of prime ministers, who have been chosen carefully to be at the service of an absolute – and not even a Constitutional – sovereign. 

The current wilāyat al-faqīh has weakened, if not destroyed, the legitimacy of this office by his performance. After about 34 years as the Supreme Leader, he failed to deliver the security and prosperity that the Revolution and Islamic Governance promised to the people. The centerpiece of the Islamic Republic’s security and foreign policy, namely, the nuclear program and the Axis of Resistance, have failed miserably to improve people’s standard of living or provide peace and security to the country. The two essential criteria of “competency” and “justice” for the walī-ya faqīh are not present, judging by the performance of the current office holder, Ali Khamenei. 

The Future Perspective of Wilāyat al-Faqīh 

What will happen to wilāyat al-faqīh following the death of Khamenei? Now 85 years old, Khamenei has wielded absolute wilāyat al-faqīh effectively as a means to preserve his hold on power but has done so at the cost of fueling increasing socio-economic discontent, most recently displayed in the months-long “Women, Life, Freedom” protests of late 2022. Will the new walī-ya faqīh be capable of accommodating himself to a young society that has been severely damaged and alienated by Khamenei? For many Iranians, the outdated and medievalist doctrine of wilāyat al-faqīh is Iran’s main problem because it has blocked all opportunities for political change in the past forty-five years and left the country with no clear and positive future. When Khamenei dies, the Assembly of Experts will choose a successor, and with the support he will receive from all parts of the system, particularly the military, he will appear unassailable. In all likelihood, however, the niẓām/walī-ya faqīh will have to deal with new forms and eruptions of opposition coming from society. Until wilāyat al-faqīh is no longer the central principle of the political system, this vicious cycle of protest, violence, and oppression will continue. This dreary prospect suggests that the longevity of absolute velayat-e faqih is not assured in a post-Khamenei Islamic Republic. As the Iranian public has grown to identify the concept as the source of all their political and economic misfortunes, a new leader–or perhaps the military backers he will rely on to guarantee his rule–may find it expedient to discard a political concept that only contributes to the alienation of the Iranian people from their rulers.

From being an idea in the writings of the nineteenth-century jurists to its incorporation into Iran’s constitutional law and political regime, wilāyat al-faqīh has undergone a number of modifications until it has settled down as ‘the absolute guardianship of the jurist’ in the new constitution of 1989. However, as the Supreme Leader, wilāyat al-faqīh is held responsible by the people for their persistent economic hardship, lack of fundamental civil liberties, systemic corruption, and living under the shadow of war and sanctions for decades. The loss of legitimacy due to these factors and the succession issue makes the debate about the future of the office of walī-ya faqīh even more challenging. The winds of change have become stronger since the “Woman Life Freedom” movement and certainly after the October 7 war; only time will tell whether the office of wilāyat al-faqīh could withstand this pressure or will be forced to adjust. 

Bibliography 

– Amir Arjomand, Saïd, Authority in Shiism and Constitutional Developments in the Islamic Republic of Iran, in The Twelver Shia in Modern Times: Religious Culture and Political History, Rainer Brunner and Werner Ende (eds), 2001 (Leiden, Brill), pp. 301-333. 

– Chamankhah, Leila, The Conceptualization of Guardianship in Iranian Intellectual History (1800 -1989): Reading Ibn ʿArabī’s Theory of Wilāya in the Shīʿa World, 2019 (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan). 

– Kadivar, Muhsin, Ḥukūmat-i wilāyī (Divine Government), 3^rd edition, 1378 (Tehran: Ney Publication). 

– Kazemi Moussavi, Ahmad, Religious Authority in Shiite Islam: From the Office of Mufti to the Institution of Marja, 1996 (International Institute of Islamic Thought and Civilization: Kuala Lumpur). 

– Khomeini, Rūḥullāh, Kashf al-asrār (Unveiling of the Secrets), n. d., (n. p.).

– Khomeini, Rūḥullāh, Al-Rasāʾil (The Treatises), 2 volumes, 1368 Sh/1410 H (Qum: Muʾasasayi Ῑsmāʿīlīyān). 

– Khomeini, Rūḥullāh, Wilāyat-i faqīh (Guardianship of the Jurist), 23^rd edition, 1390 Sh (Tehran: Muʾasasay-i Tanẓīm wa Nashr-i Āthār-i Imām). 

– Mallat, Chibli, the Renewal of Islamic Law; Muhammad Baqer Sadr, Najaf and the Shi’i International, 1993 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). 

– Mavani, Hamid, Khomeini’s Concept of Governance of the Jurisconsult (Wilaya al-Faqih) Revisited: the Aftermath of Iran’s 2009 Presidential Election, the Middle East Journal, Vol 67, Number 2, Spring 2013, pp. 207-228. 

– Manṣūr, Jahāngīr, Qānūn-i asāsī-ya jumhūrīya islāmī-ya Iran (The Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran), 76^th edition, 1388 Sh/2009 (Tehran: Dawrān). – Nasr, Seyyed Hossein and Others (eds.), the Study Quran, a New Translation and Commentary, 2015 (New York: HarperCollins Publishers). 

– Ridgeon, Lloyd, Hidden Khomeini: Mysticism and Poetry, in A Critical Introduction to Khomeini, Arshin Adib-Moghaddam, (ed.), 2014 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), pp. 213-232. 

– Schwerin, Ulrich von, The Dissident Mullah: Ayatollah Montazeri and the Struggle for Reform in Revolutionary Iran, 2015 (London & New York: I.B. Tauris). 

– Ṣūrat mashrūḥ-i mudhākirāt-i shurāya bāznagarī-ya qānūn asāsī (the Comprehensive Details of the Negotiations of the Council of the Revision of the Constitution), 3 Volumes, 1369 Sh/1990 (Tehran: Idāraya Kulli Umūr-i Farhangī wa Rawābiṭ ʿUmūmīya Majlis-i Shurāya Islāmī). 

Footnotes

1. Kadivar believes that he was the first Shīʿa faqīh who used ‘ḥukūmat-i Islāmī’ in a juridical book (Kadivar, 1378, pp. 167-8).
2. Even before Montazeri became appointed as the heir apparent to Khomeini in 1364 Sh/1985, he had started revising his opinion about wilāyat al-faqīh by giving lectures on the theoretical foundations and practical implications of this theory. The lectures were published in Arabic in 1988, then translated into Persian under the title, Mabānī fiqhī ḥukūmat-i Islāmī (the Jurisdictional Foundations of Islamic Government), which is the main text containing Montazeri’s reinterpretation of the theory of wilāyat al-faqīh.
3. Later known as shurāya rahbarī (lit. the leadership council).
4. Details of the negotiations of the Council are documented in a number of sources, including: Ṣūrat mashrūḥ-i mudhākirāt-i shurāya bāznagarī-ya qānūn asāsī (the Comprehensive Details of the Negotiations of the Council of the Revision of the Constitution), 3 Volumes, 1369 Sh/1990 (Tehran: Idāraya Kulli Umūr-i Farhangī wa Rawābiṭ ʿUmūmīya Majlis-i Shurāya Islāmī). Mohsen Kadivar has also brought a decent narrative of the negotiations in his book: Ḥukūmat-i wilāyī (Divine Government), 3^rd edition, 1378 Sh (Tehran: Ney Publication), pp. 182-195. Other than these two, Khomeini’s portal contains the negotiations as well: < http://www.imam-khomeini.ir/fa/ >, last accessed 9/6/2024.
5. A number of scholars have given an explanation for Khomeini’s decision to opt for a full-fledged guardianship, including the following: Muhsin Kadivar Ḥukūmat-i wilāyī, 1378 Sh, Op. cit., Chapter 11, pp. 160-203. Lloyd Ridgeon calls it Khomeini’s appeal for “the full extent of power that the Islamic government could exercise” (Ridgeon, 2014, p. 219). Saïd Amir Arjomand discusses the developments that led to Khomeini’s decision in detail and calls these developments “the constitutional crisis of the 1980s and Khomeini’s second revolution”. See: Saïd Amir Arjomand, Authority in Shiism and Constitutional Developments in the Islamic Republic of Iran, in The Twelver Shia in Modern Times: Religious Culture and Political History, Rainer Brunner and Werner Ende (eds.), 2001 (Leiden, Brill), pp. 301-333
6. An independent research is needed to show how this word, niẓām, found its way into the legal and political terminology of the new revolutionaries—based on what the author came across a few years ago, Saïd Ḥajjārīān, in one of his interviews, said that ‘we’ created niẓām as a replacement for the ‘regime’, which was used by the pro-Pahlavis in the pre-revolution era. If this is the case, then Muslim Student Followers of the Imām’s Line (Dānishjūyān-i Payruwa Khaṭṭ-i Imām) should be behind fabricating this term. 
7. Provided that a key can break anything rather than opening it.
8. <https://www.dw.com/fa-ir//a-18968330 >, last accessed 9/9/2024. 
9. Ibid. 
10. Details are accessible here: <http://www.imam-khomeini.ir/fa/c76_15238/>, last accessed 9/11/2024. 
11. <https://rc.majlis.ir/fa/law/show/94088>, last accessed 9/11/2024.