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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.

Q: You have your own ideas regarding Wilayat-e-Faqih and you believe that this concept is confronted by a problem, in what way?

A: I believe the Wilayat-e-Faqih stage in Iran is drawing to a close and if indeed it did have any future, I believe that the next Wali al Faqih will be from Tehran not Qom because governing society requires more than knowledge of jurisprudential knowledge. It is common knowledge that if we wanted to use al Sayyed Khamenei as a benchmark for a jurist, we would find that he is not one but instead is an individual who has some knowledge of fight. However, I believe he has managed the society in the same way that Ayatollah Khomeini did; his method was good but that depends on his political experience since Khamenei was the president of Iran for eight years and he also held other political positions. The applies to al Sayyed Mohammed Khatemi and al Sayyed Hashemi Rafsanjani both of whom have political experience and have held the post of president, as well as ministerial positions.

However, society is in greater need of these positions than the hawza is. In the future, Qom may not have a role in Wilayat-e-Faqih. It may come as a surprise to you if I told you that some of Qom’s grand ayatollahs do not believe in Wilayat-e-Faqih at all, such as Ayatollah Wahid Khurasani and Ayatollah al Khoei. In my book ‘Governance Theories in Shia Jurisprudence’, I have explained that the theory of Imam Ruhullah Khomeini regarding Wilayat-e-Faqih is one of many theories on the subject. This means that there is more than just one theory, view or perspective.

You’ll find that most fiqh students do not believe in Wilayat-e-Faqih or do so under the constraint of authorities. I believe that many of the current ayatollahs do not believe in Khomeini’s interpretation of Wilayat-e-Faqih. For example, my respected mentor Ayatollah Montazeri believes in Wilayat-e-Faqih but he has two points of contention with his teacher Khomeini’s theories: He refutes Ayatollah Khomeini’s belief that the Guardian Jurist is appointed by God, the Prophet, or the 12th Imam and says that the Wali al Faqih is popularly elected by representatives of the public or by the Assembly of Experts, thus making it the choice of the people and not God. The second point on which he disagrees with his teacher over is the authority of the Wali al Faqih; Khomeini deemed it absolute and unrestrained by anything in the same way that the Prophet’s authority is, while Ayatollah Montazeri disagrees and upholds that it is bound by laws, which are the condition between the Guardian Jurist and the people. Both are governed by this law and neither are above it.

I told my teacher Ayatollah Montazeri, you criticized your teacher on two issues and I would like to criticize you in another two, to which he replied: after four criticisms there will be no meaning left for the Wilayat-e-Faqih. Yes, I responded. I said to him that Khomeini believed the Wilayah delegated a ‘revealed and absolute’ authority to the Guardian Jurist, you believe the Wilaya to be ‘restrained and elected’, I do not believe in the notion of Wilaya but I believe in fiqh. There is no correlation between the two and furthermore, the relationship between the people and the ruler is not that if a ‘Wilayah’ but rather a wikala [appointing representatives, delegation and procurement] – which means popularly elected representatives like parliament.

The notion of a religious guardianship does not figure into the relationship between the people and the ruler, moreover, it is not like the guardianship a father has over his son. The concept of guardianship is a religious one that is very dangerous in politics. Writing about Wilayat-e-Faqih in his book, Ayatollah Khomeini likened it to the guardianship a father has over his children and I have criticized that in my book saying that we are not children. I wrote that there are two types of incompetence; those who are declared incompetent by reason of insanity or by virtue of young age and as such, others take decisions on their behalf. The two types are: those deemed publicly incompetent and who are incompetent on a private level. Those who are incompetent on a public level cannot make their own decisions and other must make their decisions for them – others who are appointed by God, the Prophet, or the Mehdi. I told Montazeri, although he personally does not believe in this view, that the Wilayah may be understood through two different perspectives, ‘management’ and ‘hajr’ [limiting one’s power after declaring incompetent]. I said to him, by Wilayah you mean management so let us use another expression, additionally, ‘wilaya’ is a Quranic concept and because of the complexity of its meaning it has been used differently in accordance with the interpretation.

My main objection to my teacher Ayatollah Montazeri is regarding his statement that the most important characteristic for leadership or Wilayah is the knowledge of fiqh. I told him that a leader can have a consultative council of Shariah jurists but that the leader himself must have experience in managing society – which is not a jurist’s job. A Wali may be well versed in fiqh but that is not a prerequisite for ruling. If you seek to become a grand ayatollah then it would require 50 years of experience in learning and teaching theology, to read a huge amount of material and to write a book on fatwa and fiqh, however managing a society is an objective political matter. If you want to be versed in politics then you must have the relevant political expertise –which an ayatollah wouldn’t have.