Replies

Q: What about the traditions of studying in al Hawza al Ilmiya?

A: There are several traditional schools in Qom and the communication between the ayatollahs, scholars and the theology students is very traditional. Modern equipment is being utilized, such as computers which have been used in Qom over the past two decades. I remember towards the end of my period of study we had a computer and modern means such as book publishing since most of the books in the hawza were handwritten, after which they were photocopied and distributed amongst the students. Reading these books was incredibly difficult and thus the books were edited, printed and distributed, which was another form of modernizing the hawza. All the studies, libraries and research in Qom is related to computers – if you do not have one you cannot study easily or access the information required of you. Furthermore, there are a number of new buildings in Qom that have been constructed for educational purposes.

When I started my studies in Qom, we would take our classes around the blessed sanctuary of the Sayyida al Masuma [the Infallible Lady who is Fatimah al Masuma] the sister of the 8th Shia Imam, Ali Reza but these rooms are for the graves of the faithful Muslim men and women – not for studying (laughs). We studied by the infallible lady’s mausoleum and the atmosphere was not suitable for studying but 10 years later, many classrooms were built and we were able to sit in Ayatollah Gulpaygani school who is one of hawza’s most renowned marja’a [the highest echelons of the Shia clergy] in tradition, in addition to being the most prominent religious marja’a after Khomeini and the one to lead the funeral prayer of Khomeini. This was Qom’s first religious school and it had approximately 100 classrooms. Prior to that we had the Fayzieah school, which was similar to Egypt’s Al Azhar University, however it only had two classrooms the remaining sections was comprised of the students’ living quarters.

Q: What are the criteria of stature among the religious marja’a in Qom, and on what basis do the students choose the teachers under which they will study?

A: The norm in Qom is that each student selects the scholar whom they seek to study under from the country from which they hail, so for example Turkish students in the hawza prefer to study in the school the school of the Turkish marja’a Mousavi Ardebili who is a native of Ardabil. Since he is Turkish they can converse in their native tongue in class. This was among the hawza’s traditions, but things are starting to change; I have studied in the schools of both Arab and Turkish marja’a and their countries of origin were not a matter of concern for me. I was born in Shiraz. Ayatollah Makarem Shirazi has a school and discipline in its hawza yet I did not choose to study there, instead I chose to study under Ayatollah al Tabrizi, a Turkish man from Tabriz. He passed away a few weeks ago. I also studied under Ayatollah Montazeri who is from Asfahan.

Q: How many students are there in Qom?

A: There are approximately 100,000 clerics in Iran and over 60,000 of them are in Qom. Most of them are theology students who have been studying there for many years, between 10-25 years on average. Teaching in Qom is very traditional; five days a week and tutorials are 2-3 hours long and are then followed by research. Every student has to study a minimum of 25 years before he can attain the status of ‘ayatollah’, however most students spend 10 years studying in the hawza. Studying here is like climbing a mountain; many people stop halfway and only a minority reached the summit – an average of 1-10 percent.

Each ayatollah has his own school and his rank is determined in accordance with the number of students he can accommodate in his classes. In an advanced level some of these classes are referred to as ‘kharij’ (outside), which means ‘outside of the books’ and it means that the a religious marja’a is undertaking a particular area of study that has not been researched or written about before. Each of these classes have 3,000 students, however they are not classes in the traditional sense of the word but are rather seminars for research, discussions and arguments. These kharij classes in Qom are available in the schools of Ayatollah Nasir Makarem Shirazi, Ayatollah Wahid Khurasani, and Ayatollah Fazel Lankarani. These classes hold up to 2,000-3,000 students while the rest of the classes have 200-300 students.

The number of students signifies the power and influence of every ayatollah in Qom; this is the first factor for determining their ranks. The second factor is the amount of money they can pay as wages for their students who study under them. Traditionally in Qom, the cost of living and studying for students is covered through what the Iranian people pay the ayatollahs as one-fifth of the Zakat, not the government. As such, what the ayatollahs receive is what they pay the students in their schools as wages and the amount that they pay reflects the amount that they receive from that one-fifth of the Zakat since each one gets a share that is equivalent to his stature and religious influence among the people. Despite the fact that the ayatollah’s pay their students wages, I believe it is less than the wage of a simple employee in Iran and as such, the students deliver religious preaching in the months of Moharam, Ramadan and Safar for which people pay a small sum in return for. Still, their financial income remains very modest.

Life for the Hawza al Ilmiya students is very modest and very difficult and that is something that not a lot of people know. They see clerics working in the government who are rich and who own cars but they only form five percent of religious clerics while the other 95 percent are not wealthy and work hard performing humble jobs. Following the Iranian revolution, the government financial resources increased in the hawza, which is a dangerous thing because the al Hawza al Ilmiya’s power source lies in its independence from governmental interference. But following the success of the Iranian revolution in 1979, there were two sides to Ayatollah Khomeini; the ayatollah and the political leader, which made his power and influence, exceed all other ayatollahs in the hawza. After his death, Ayatollah Khamenei was not able to attain that same standing; he was called ‘hujjat al Islam’ and some have called him the ‘political ayatollah’ since he is not like Ayatollah Fazel Lankarani or Ayatollah Montazeri, both of whom became ayatollahs by virtue of their studies not because they were appointed by the state. However, Khamenei can pay his students more than the other ayatollahs, so on the financial side he is superior. Additionally, Khamenei’s tutorials are different from the rest of the ayatollahs; he does not live in Qom and does not teach on a regular basis. He teaches once a week to affirm his status in the hawza and many government employees attend his tutorials not students seeking knowledge.

The third factor that determines the ayatollah’s standing is that he must publish a book containing his thoughts on fiqh-related issues. If you seek to become an ayatollah, you must contribute your thoughts and fatwas on every fiqh matter that concerns the daily affairs of Muslims. They must write ‘I agree with this and disagree with that’, so that they write their own fatwa book and after that’s published they can become ayatollahs. All the senior ayatollahs in Qom have published their own fatwa books and these people acknowledge each as ‘mujtahid’ [an individual who makes independent interpretations based on the Quran and the Sunnah] and marja’a in matters of religion. The disciples are deemed ‘muqaledin’ [imitators, those who follow the mujtahids] and they give the ayatollahs one-fifth of the Zakat, which is allocated to their students. Thus the grand ayatollahs have three main criteria: To have a kharij-level educational class, that they are capable of paying each of their students monthly wages, and third and most important; that they publish their book of fatwa on Islamic jurisprudence presenting their logic or ‘empirical fiqh’ (based on Aristotelian logic where the premises lead to conclusions).

The average time it takes to publish a ‘fatwa book’ is 25 years of study. A few years after its publication, the individual is considered to be halfway to becoming an ayatollah. Presently, Ayatollah al Sistani is considered to be one of the greatest ayatollahs. Before him there was Ayatollah Khoei in Najaf and now among the grand ayatollahs today are Ayatollah Montazeri, Ayatollah Fazel Lankarani, and Ayatollah Wahid Khurasani. Ayatollah Khurasani has over 3,000 students in his class and thus judging by the number of students he is considered to be the best amongst the ayatollahs. Also renowned are Ayatollah Makarem Shirazi and Ayatollah al Tabrizi in Qom, and Ayatollah Hussein Fadlallah in Beirut. Ayatollah Saanei is currently among the distinguished ones in Qom, but he is not in the first line of Ayatollahs according to the popular schools. He has fresh ideas, which is not very common in Qom and at 60 years of age is young in comparison to the rest of the ayatollahs. The highest ranking ayatollahs include: Ayatollah Montazeri, Ayatollah Fazel Lankarani, and Ayatollah al Sistani in Najaf. If we form a list of the 15 most important Ayatollahs in Qom, Ayatollah Saanei will be among them, however he wouldn’t rank in a list comprised of the seven most important names in Qom.