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A New Voice Is Being Heard in Iran (Amir Taheri, 7/12/04, Wall St.Journal.com)

While the world is justly focusing on the movement of terrorists and weapons from Iran into newly liberated Iraq, a movement of ideas and those who preach them traveling in the opposite direction may prove to have more lasting consequences in the long run.

The ideas are coming from Najaf, a dusty nondescript town in southern Iraq which is re-emerging as the principal center of Shi'ite Islam after a hiatus of more than three decades. The men who are taking those ideas into Iran are Iranian and Iraqi clerics who believe that Khomeinism -- the official religion of the Islamic Republic in Tehran -- represents a betrayal of their faith.

The man in whose name the doctrinal challenge to Khomeinism is launched is 73-year old Grand Ayatollah Ali-Muhammad Hussein Sistani, the primus inter pares of Shi'ite theologians in Najaf.

Until Iraq's liberation last year, Ayatollah Sistani was under restrictions imposed by Saddam Hussein, and unable to communicate with his native Iran. In the final years of the Saddam regime, the grand ayatollah was not even allowed to teach.

In the past 15 months, however, Ayatollah Sistani has resumed contact with Shi'ite communities throughout the world, the first of which was Iran. Ayatollah Sistani has been sending emissaries to Iran to renew contact with the clergy, the bazaars, and the thousands of non-governmental organizations that have sprung up in recent years.

By the end of June Ayatollah Sistani had named representatives in 67 Iranian towns and cities, including the capital Tehran. At the same time a stream of visitors from Iran, including many clerics, are received by the ayatollah in his mud-brick home in downtown Najaf each day. Ayatollah Sistani's Persian-language Web site is attracting more than three millions visitors each month from Iran.

"Today, Sistani is probably the most influential Shi'ite [religious] leader in the world," says Sabah Zangeneh, who was Tehran's ambassador to the Organization of Islamic Conference until last year. "Many Iranians see in him a revival of the mainstream Shi'ite theology."

Many clerics agree. "It is now clear to most Shi'ites that Khomeinism is a political ideology and a deviation [from the faith]," says Ayatollah Mahmoud Qomi-Tabatabi. "Those who represent authentic Shi'ism cannot speak out in Iran. This is why the Najaf clergy, especially Sistani, are emerging as a pole of attraction for Iranians."

Another Iranian cleric, Hadi Qabel, says that Khomeinism should be regarded as "a political ideology" while Shi'ism, as a religious faith, is represented by "theologians like Sistani who do not seek power."

Along with George W. Bush he stands to be the most significant figure in the Reformation of Islam.

Posted by Orrin Judd at July 12, 2004 6:26 PM