THE REFORMATION ROLLS ON:

[T]he idea that during the absence of the Shia Imam, jurists may assume political authority or even that a temporal government should not be secular is not one that is readily agreed upon or adhered to by the majority of Shia scholars, although some only differ on how the guardian-jurist concept has been implemented. It is within this context that Political Thought in Contemporary Shi'a Islam is a valuable contribution to this field, as it not only explores a notable counter-thesis to Wilayat Al-Faqih but also ideas on civil government and the prospects for Shias in particular living as minorities within a multi-confessional society of a modern nation-state.

The author, Farah Kawtharani, achieves this by basing her work on the intellectual work and political career of Ayatollah Muhammad Mahdi Shams Al-Din, who was among the most esteemed 20th century Lebanese Shia scholars and who also headed the country's highest body for its Shia community, the Islamic Shi'i Supreme Council (ISCC) until his death in 2001. As a product of the Najaf seminaries in Iraq, Shams Al-Din was from a generation of young scholars who were concerned with the perceived threats of the time - secularisation and Communism - which is reflected in his earlier works. He would arrive in his ancestral homeland of Lebanon a few years after the Ba'athist coup of 1963 in Iraq as it proved increasingly intolerable under the new government for Shia scholars and activists.

Kawtharani provides an insightful and brief historical background to modern Lebanon in the introductory chapter, examining the history of the Shia community largely concentrated in Jabal Amil, or what is today South Lebanon, under the Ottoman Empire towards the end of the 19th century, at a time when ideas of nationalism and modernisation began to take hold across the region. She points out that while the Sunnis wanted unity with other Arabs in Greater Syria, the Christians and Shia opted for Lebanese nationalism through forging ties with the French authorities, thus leading to the emergence of an independent Shia confessional group in a new political order. She later argues that Shams Al-Din's intellectual evolution and his tenure as head of this confessional group would build on this "Amili legacy".

The main theme of the book is Shams Al-Din's critique of Khomeini's absolutist Wilayat Al-Faqih theory, whereby he developed his own theory; Wilayat Al-Ummah in response to concerns he had of Iran's growing influence on Shi'ism and Shia jurists beyond its borders. Kawtharani explains? "Any government that is not the government of the Twelfth Imam is inherently illegitimate," according to Shia doctrine, although there are ample examples in the classical period of coexisting with such governments. Yet for Shams Al-Din, his theory underpins his earlier advocacy for an "Islamic government" which delegates a more restricted level of authority in the hands of the jurists than the system in Iran and entrusts more power to the people, or Ummah (Muslim community).

The reader learns that Shams Al-Din's thinking would transform as his career progressed and amid the Lebanese Civil War. We learn that he later geared his attention to theorising how the Shia community can be politically integrated in a multi-confessional society like Lebanon, or in Sunni-majority countries. The fundamental shift in his thinking, says Kawtharani, would occur in the 90s, after the Taif Agreement which brought the civil war to an end. It is during this period, where Shams Al-Din formulates his ideas on civil government, or Al-Dawla Al-Madaniyya, "a government which is not Islamic in nature but is still respectful of a religious society".

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