From Crown to Turban: How Iran’s Clergy Became a Political Power |
Iran is one of the few societies in Islamic history where religious scholars eventually replaced the monarchy itself. In most Muslim states, rulers controlled religious institutions and employed scholars as officials of the government. Iran developed along a very different trajectory. Over several centuries, the Shiʿite clergy accumulated authority independent of political rulers until they became one of the most powerful institutions in society. The 1979 Islamic Revolution was therefore not simply a sudden religious uprising. As sociologist Said Amir Arjomand argues in his influential book The Turban for the Crown (where a lot of the insight of this article comes from), it was the culmination of a long historical process in which religious authority gradually rivaled—and ultimately displaced—monarchical power.
The roots of this development lie in the early history of Shiʿism. After the death of the Prophet Muhammad in 632, Muslims disagreed over who should lead the community. Supporters of Ali ibn Abi Talib, the Prophet’s cousin and son-in-law, believed leadership properly belonged to him and his descendants. Ali eventually became the fourth caliph in 656, but his assassination in 661 deepened divisions within the Muslim world. Over time several Shiʿite branches emerged, yet the one that eventually shaped Iran’s religious landscape was the Twelver (Imami) Shiʿa. Its theology would have profound political consequences.
The decisive moment came with the Occultation of the twelfth Imam. Twelver Shiʿites believe that the final Imam—Muhammad al-Mahdi—disappeared in 874 and will return at the end of time to restore justice. His disappearance created a unique dilemma. If the legitimate ruler of the Muslim community was absent, who possessed authority in the meantime? Over time Shiʿite scholars argued that qualified jurists must interpret divine law during the Imam’s absence. This gradually elevated the clergy into guardians of religious law and moral order. Unlike Sunni scholars, whose authority often depended on rulers, Shiʿite jurists derived legitimacy from their role as representatives of the hidden Imam.
Over the centuries this authority became increasingly institutionalized. Shiʿite believers were encouraged to follow leading jurists known as marājiʿ al-taqlid, or “sources of emulation.” These senior scholars issued legal opinions and guided the religious life of the community. They also collected religious taxes, including khums, a levy traditionally amounting to one-fifth of certain forms of income. Because these funds flowed directly to clerical authorities rather than the state, the Shiʿite religious establishment developed a remarkable degree of financial independence. This autonomy would later prove politically significant.
The next major turning point arrived in the early sixteenth century with the rise of the Safavid dynasty. When the Safavids took power in 1501, they declared Twelver Shiʿism the official religion of Iran. This decision permanently distinguished Iran from the largely Sunni Muslim world around it. To consolidate their rule, the Safavids imported Shiʿite scholars from Arab lands, built religious schools, and sponsored the spread of Shiʿite law and ritual throughout the country. They also suppressed rival Sunni and Sufi movements that might challenge the new order. In doing so, the Safavids transformed Iran into the heartland of Twelver Shiʿism.
Yet the Safavids faced an important structural limitation. They relied on the clergy to legitimize their rule, but they never fully controlled them. Religious scholars retained authority over legal interpretation and religious education, and they possessed their own institutional networks. In effect, Safavid Iran developed two centers of authority. The monarchy commanded armies and administered the state, while the clergy exercised moral and legal authority within society. As long as the Safavid state remained strong, the monarchy dominated this relationship. But the institutional foundations of clerical independence were already in place.
The Safavid state collapsed dramatically in 1722, when Afghan forces captured the capital of Isfahan. After this collapse, Iran lay in a state of chaos. Tribal warfare and lawlessness were rampant, the economy was in tatters, and invading rulers were a constant plague. Central government authority was weak throughout most of the country. In such times, religious institutions tend to endure, and this era was no exception: even as political leaders came and went, the mosques, madrasehs, and clerical networks of Qom and other religious centers continued to function, and in many places clerics filled the vacuum of authority.
Order reemerged with the advent of the Qajar dynasty in the late eighteenth century, but the Qajar state was fragile from the beginning. Tribal leaders continued to wield substantial power, the army was badly organized, and central administration suffered from frequent budgetary crises. Some leaders recognized these weaknesses and made attempts to shore up the state: the redoubtable prince Abbas Mirza attempted army modernization after repeated defeats at Russian hands. Later, the reforming minister Amir Kabir sought to overhaul administration, education, and taxation. Yet these reforms never created a strong centralized state capable of rivaling Europe’s emerging bureaucratic governments.
As the monarchy faltered, the clergy’s relative authority continued to expand. Shiʿite jurists controlled religious courts that handled matters of marriage, inheritance, and family law. Their seminaries trained new generations of scholars, while endowments and religious taxes ensured financial independence. Because the clergy were not dependent on government salaries, they could criticize rulers without risking their institutional survival. Their authority rested not on political office but on their standing as interpreters of divine law. This made them one of the few organized groups capable of challenging the monarchy.
What gave the clergy genuine social power, however, was their alliance with the urban merchant class. The central market was the engine of city economies, and in many ways merchants relied on clerics to give their contracts legitimacy and to resolve arguments. In turn, clergy relied on merchants for funding and for networking. This relationship came to be known by historians as the mosque–bazaar alliance. When protests broke out, mosques were used as protest headquarters, while the protest was enforced by merchants closing market stalls and striking. Religious authority and economic power were closely tied together.
One dramatic example of this alliance occurred during the Tobacco Protest of 1891. When the Qajar monarchy granted a sweeping tobacco monopoly to a British company, merchants feared economic ruin and ordinary Iranians saw the concession as humiliating foreign interference. A leading cleric issued a religious ruling declaring the use of tobacco unlawful until the concession was cancelled. The response was extraordinary: people across Iran stopped smoking almost overnight, even in the royal court. Faced with nationwide resistance, the government was forced to cancel the agreement. The episode demonstrated that clerical authority could mobilize society more effectively than the monarchy itself.
By the late nineteenth century, the Qajar state faced a deep crisis. Heavy foreign debt forced the government to grant economic concessions to Russia and Britain, fueling public resentment. Administrative corruption and ineffective taxation further undermined political legitimacy. Clerics and merchants frequently stood at the center of protests against the government. Their cooperation eventually helped ignite the Iranian Constitutional Revolution of 1906, which forced the monarchy to accept a constitution and a parliament. Although the monarchy survived, its authority was permanently weakened.
The twentieth century, however, would bring the final transformation. Under Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, Iran experienced rapid modernization, economic development, and growing ties to Western powers. The Shah pursued ambitious reforms, including land redistribution and expanded education, in what he called the White Revolution. While these reforms strengthened the central state, they also disrupted traditional social structures and alienated several powerful groups, including segments of the clergy and the bazaar. Many religious leaders viewed the Shah’s secularizing policies as a threat to Islam and to Iran’s cultural identity.
Among the clerics who emerged as critics of the monarchy was Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Khomeini first came to political prominence in the early 1960s by denouncing the Shah’s reforms and alleging that the regime was influenced by foreign, non-Muslim powers, especially the United States. His sermons were widely distributed and he built up a strong reputation as a fearless critic of the regime. The Shah responded by arresting him in 1963 and eventually forcing him into exile. Exile, however, did not silence him.From Iraq and later France, Khomeini continued to issue sermons and statements that were secretly distributed inside Iran.
By the late 1970s the Shah’s regime faced growing unrest. Economic difficulties, political repression, and widening inequality fueled dissatisfaction among students, workers, merchants, and intellectuals. Demonstrations began in 1978 and quickly spread across the country. What distinguished these protests from earlier opposition movements was the ability of clerical networks to coordinate resistance. Mosques served as centers of organization, sermons became political speeches, and religious commemorations provided opportunities for mass demonstrations. The mosque–bazaar alliance that had developed over centuries once again proved capable of mobilizing large segments of society.
Khomeini’s influence expanded rapidly during these months. Though still in exile, he became the symbolic leader of the revolution. Cassette recordings of his speeches circulated widely, allowing his message to reach millions of Iranians. Protest cycles intensified, especially around the forty-day mourning period in Shia practice, which offered regular opportunities for renewed demonstrations. Each round of protests attracted more support and further eroded the regime’s legitimacy. The Shah fell back on force, but repression only embittered the public.
As the situation worsened for the Shah in January 1979, he left Iran. Two weeks later, Khomeini returned to Tehran after fourteen years in exile. He was greeted with huge crowds and it was clear that the tide had turned. Within months, the monarchy was abolished and replaced with an Islamic Republic. Khomeini implemented the concept of velayat-e faqih, under which senior religious scholars exercise political oversight in the absence of the hidden Imam.
The system created by Khomeini put a constitutional requirement on the selection of a new Supreme Leader rather than the traditional Shiʿa process of transferring authority between top clerics, so the issue of succession was unclear when Khomeini died in 1989. Ali Khamenei was chosen as his successor after some debate. Khamenei had served as president of Iran but was not widely regarded as one of the most senior religious jurists. His selection therefore reflected the increasingly political character of clerical authority in the Islamic Republic.
Khamenei’s leadership marked a subtle shift in the balance between religious legitimacy and political control. To increase his power and further his interests, the constitution was changed so that the supreme leader did not have to be the top jurist. Over time Khamenei built up his power through patronage networks with the Revolutionary Guard, the security forces, and important clerical factions and institutions, and the position of supreme leader became the center of authority in Iran’s political system. While elections and republican institutions continued to exist, ultimate power rested with the clerical leadership at the top of the state.
Seen in this long historical perspective, the rise of Iran’s powerful clergy becomes easier to understand. Twelver Shiʿism created a religious leadership independent of rulers because the legitimate Imam was believed to be absent. The Safavid dynasty strengthened Shiʿite institutions but never subordinated them fully to the state. Later periods of political instability allowed clerical networks to expand their influence even further. Each time the state faltered, religious institutions filled the vacuum.
In most Muslim societies, rulers eventually absorbed religious authority into the machinery of government. Iran took the opposite path. For them, religious authority ultimately captured political authority. There, the mosque, seminary, and bazaar formed a countervailing authority that the state never fully mastered. By the twentieth century, the Iranian monarchy faced a deep and established clerical institution with authority and legitimacy. As Said Amir Arjomand famously argued in The Turban for the Crown, Iranian history witnessed a slow evolution of official power, from the crown moving to the turban.