Understanding Ayatollah Khomeini’s Doctrine of Wilayat al-Faqih (Guardianship of the Jurisprudent)
How it underpins Shia political and military power in the modern age
Ayatollah Khomeini was the founder and first leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran in 1979. Modern-day Iran in its Khomeinic conception is a Twelver Shia Islamic State. Twelver Shia (or Shi’ii/Shi’ite) Islam is distinguished from Sunni Islam (most Muslims are of the Sunni school of thought) in its emphasis on Islamic governance requiring Divine appointment or mandate. The government of the Islamic Republic of Iran is founded upon a key theological doctrine called Wilayat al-Faqih (Guardianship of the Jurisprudent). The doctrine of Wilayat al-Faqih, developed and evolved by Ayatollah Khomeini, provided a theologically based mechanism within which Islamic Jurists could govern a State in alignment with Twelver Shia belief.
Prior to Ayatollah Khomeini’s development of the doctrine, Shia political (and by extension military) power was non-existent in the modern age. Ayatollah Khomeini’s development of the theory provided a vehicle for the expression of a distinctly Shia political and military power.
To understand the political genius of the doctrine and the latent power it unleashed - a power we see today in a political and military organization such as Hezbollah (a byproduct of the Iranian Islamic revolution) - one needs to have a working understanding of a core Shia theological doctrine - Imamate. Imamate is the Shia belief in 12 Imams (leaders of the Islamic Ummah or community - spiritual and political authorities) who are the direct descendants of the Prophet Muhammad.
These 12 Imams come from the Alid line (Imam Ali ibn Abi Talib - the Prophet’s cousin and son-in-law and Fatima Al-Zahra, the Prophet’s daughter and wife of Imam Ali). Ali Ibn Abi Talib is the first Shia Imam and his 11 descendants make up the 12 Imams in Twelver Shi’ism (hence the name - Twelver). Shia Muslims believe Imam Ali was directly and explicitly appointed by the Prophet (following a direct Divine order to do so) before his death to be the leader of the Islamic community (Ummah). Hence in the Shia school of Islamic thought, the Alid line are the rightful successors of political and spiritual authority following the Prophet’s demise. Imamate, essentially, is the doctrine of the direct Divine appointment of spiritual and political authority by God through the Prophet to Imam Ali and his descendants.
Shia Muslims believe that the 12th Imam (Imam Mahdi) is currently living and is in major occultation - a state within which he is hidden from the world and is awaiting the appropriate preconditions to be met for his re-appearance. With the re-appearance of the 12th Imam (alongside the second coming of Jesus Christ - a revered Prophet in Islam), Imam Mahdi will establish a Divine world government that will restore peace and justice to the world after it has been filled with oppression and injustice (the current state of our world under hegemonic control by a cabal of globalist elites). All Muslims, Sunni, and Shia, are currently awaiting the appearance of Imam Mahdi.
With the major occultation of Imam Mahdi in 941 of the common era, the era of Shia Muslims having direct access to a Divinely appointed leader from the Alid line ended. In modern times before the founding of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Shia Muslim clerics, jurists, and theologians were largely political quietists. Given that the Imam was in major occultation and not directly accessible, all political power in the absence of the Divinely appointed Imam was broadly viewed as suspect and illegitimate. Shia Islam was relegated to the realm of theology and jurisprudence with no mechanism to connect it to political power - the type of power that could govern a modern state such as Iran.
There was no vehicle - theological, doctrinal, or otherwise - to connect the Divinely appointed authority of the hidden Imam with any potential on-the-ground political authority of Shia Muslims living in the age of the hidden Imam (major occultation). Given that there was no mechanism to connect the authority of the Divinely Appointed Imam with earthly political authority which had a Divine basis (through Divine appointment), the two realms - theological/jurisprudential and political (and hence military) were two distinct realms which only the re-appearance of the 12th Imam (Imam Mahdi) could reconnect.
During the reign of the Shah, the Shia religious class was politically neutral - of the quietest political school - in line with the widespread view amongst the clerical class that in the absence of the 12th Imam - all political authority was illegitimate - as no human authority had any legitimacy in the absence of the Divine authority of the 12th Imam - hence resigning the Shia scholars to the realm of theology and jurisprudence divorced from political power.
Ayatollah Khomeini’s doctrine of Wilayat al-Faqih provided a bridge, connecting our age with the age of the eventual reappearance of the hidden Imam (12th Imam/Imam Mahdi). Rather than the 12th Imam suddenly reappearing by Divine fiat and instantiating a Divine government, Ayatollah Khomeini understood that the ground had to be prepared for the reappearance of the 12th Imam. He saw the establishment of the Islamic Republic of Iran through this eschatological lens - he was laying the groundwork for the establishment of Imam Mahdi’s government at the end of the current world order.
Imam Khomeini believed the system of Divine Governance was a permanent one - it did not end with the major occultation of Imam Mahdi, as this would violate a core tenet of Shia Islam - Divine Justice (which would be violated if the earth was devoid of Divine leadership). In Ayatollah Khomeini’s theory, the jurisprudents (highest level of Islamic scholars) were in effect the de facto successors to the 12th Imam via their ability to interpret the Divinely inspired knowledge contained in the text of the Qurán and corpus of narrations (Hadith) - which closely mirrors the vehicle for the foundation of the Imam’s Divine authority - him being the recipient of the Divine Knowledge through a vertical chain of transmission from God to the Prophet to Imam Ali and his eleven descendants. The jurisprident was essentially connected to this vertical (celestial) chain of authority which allowed him to govern on the horizontal (earth) plane).
In this way Ayatollah Khomeini solved a hitherto intractable problem - in the absence of direct Divine Appointment, how could Shia Muslims have any political power to govern a State? They were destined to be governed by illegitimate political powers until the coming of the 12th Imam. Modern-day Iran in its Khomeinic conception rejected such a passive and obseqious role for the Shia world. His theory provided the paradigm shift required to replace the paradigm of political quietism - the Shia world in 1979 became awake to its power as a player on the global stage.
What Ayatollah Khomeini’s theory provided was the missing link between the age of the hidden 12th Imam and our current age. The jurisprudent was the representative of the Imam who was Divinely Appointed. What the doctrine provided was a catalyst to imbue political authority with distinctly Shia Islamic principles - creating a synergy between the two - leading to the distinct brand of political Shi’ism we see in our era - with a transpersonal and eschatological ethos that connects resistance and fighting oppression with the coming of the 12th Imam, rather than merely limiting resistance to personal piety guaranteeing personal salvation or an exalted place in heaven. For the Shia resistance, resistance is a vehicle for serving God and his Divine Representative - the 12th Imam - not for experiencing pleasures in heaven.
Like a transmission linking the power produced by the engine to the wheels, Ayatollah Khomeini provided the foundations for the mechanism linking Shia religious power to political power. The theory of Wilayat al-Faqih liberated the unique dynamic energy contained within Twelver Shi’ism to produce a distinctly Shia brand of Islamic social, political, and military power which we see operating on the world stage today. A power plainly manifest in the entire world waiting on the words of Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah (a Shia cleric) during the current Israeli brutality against Gaza - words which have the power to potentially ignite a third world war. Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah’s black turban is a symbol of his direct descent from the Prophet Muhammad through the Alid line - a clear manifestation of the fruits of Wilayat al-Faqih.
Shia Islam is distinct in its transpersonal and transhistorical vision - Twelver Shia Islam is distinctively eschatological in its focus. The focus is beyond a person's piety and salvation but rather extends to the fulfillment of a vision of the establishment of the Divine Kingdom on earth at the end of time - led by the descendent of Prophet Muhammad who is the 12th Shia Imam - Imam Mahdi.
Ayatollah Khomeini’s doctrine of Wilayat al-Faqih gave birth to political Shi’ism in the modern era. More than four decades since the Islamic revolution, his doctrine has given rise to Iran as a leading player in the Muslim world and at the forefront of the Islamic resistance movements and the Palestinian cause, in addition to being a key ally of Russia in its own fight against Western hegemony. Understanding Ayatollah Khomeini’s doctrine and its implications is critical for making sense of the changing world order and Shia Iran’s place in it.
In the spirit of keeping the flow of the article, the following designations following the name of the Prophet Muhammad, Imams, and Prophet Jesus, have been omitted from the body of the text.
Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon him and his family)
Imam Ali (Peace be upon him)
Fatima al Zahra (Peace be upon her)
Imam Mahdi (Peace be upon him)
Ahlul Bayt (Peace be upon them)
Jesus Christ (Peace be upon him)