[Archaea]

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Twelver Shiites, the branch to which most Iranians belong, hold that the twelfth imam, or divinely-appointed successor of the Prophet, disappeared as a child in 874 AD and will one day become visible again in this world to restore it to justice as the Mahdi, or the promised one. In the absence of the Mahdi, Twelver Shiites believe that clerics trained in seminaries can substitute for his authority on some issues. So clerics in Shiism are powerful in interpreting God’s word for their followers. And the faithful are obliged to give blind obedience to cleric’s religious rulings. Khomeini transferred this religious power to Iran’s new theocracy after the revolution.

At the core of Shiite belief and history is a basic contradiction. Shiites believe in the need for divine authority in this world. But the disappearance of the Twelfth Imam in the ninth century left the community rudderless. Over time, Shiites have tried to answer this power vacuum in their faith in several contradictory ways. They came to hold that, in general, seminary-trained clergymen could substitute themselves for the absent Imam. Thus, they could authorize the state to collect and distribute the poor tax. They could authorize the appointment of Friday prayer leaders. But the trained clergymen only solved half the problem posed by the absence of the Imam, since no one alleged that they had the prerogative actually to rule, as the Imam did. Instead, they uneasily co-existed with lay monarchs, who exercised authority on a customary, common-law, not an Islamic-law, basis.

Sunni clergymen do not have the same prerogatives or powers as Shiite ayatollahs; they are more pastors than priests. The Sunni faithful do not owe blind obedience to their sheikhs. As a result, most Sunni Muslims are today organized, like Europeans, on the basis of the nation-state, and many have chosen a relatively secular national framework. The Sunni world is thus dominated by nationalist republics and by conservative monarchies. As a result, many Sunni governments, whether secular nationalists or monarchs, view Shiite Iran as a dire threat because it offers an alternative vision of the state based on religion and clerical authority. Sunnis are also concerned by the appeal of Khomeini-ism among Shiite communities outside Iran, especially in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Lebanon, part of the so-called “Shiite crescent.”