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An important article about the opposition to Vilayat-i Faqih:

source: RFE/RL Iran Report Vol. 7, No. 31, 13 September 2004

IS THE HOJJATIEH SOCIETY MAKING A COMEBACK?

Friday Prayer leaders throughout Iran warned their congregations in early July of renewed activities on the part of the Hojjatieh Society -- a strongly anti-Baha'i movement that has long been regarded as a potent, if secretive threat to the ruling elites (both imperial and clerical) that have run Iran since the Hojjatieh Society was created in the middle of the last century. In Shahrud, Ayatollah Abbas Amini said that Hojjatieh activists are recruiting new members in the city's mosques, Radio Farda reported on 11 July.

The Hojjatieh Mahdavieh Society was established in 1953 by a preacher from Mashhad, Sheikh Mahmud Halabi, who supported Prime Minister Mohammad Mussadiq. Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi allowed the society to pursue its anti-Baha'i activities after Mussadiq's August 1953 ouster, in exchange for the clerical community's support for his renewed reign. Society member Mohammad Taqi Falsafi's anti-Baha'i sermons were broadcast by state radio, for example, and Tehran's Military-Governor Teimour Bakhtiar took a pick-ax to the Baha'i temple in Tehran in May 1955. Around that time, Halabi persuaded the Marja-yi Taqlid (source of emulation) Ayatollah Mohammad Hussein Tabatabai Borujerdi to issue a fatwa banning transactions with Baha'is, according to Baqer Moin's "Khomeini: Life of the Ayatollah" (1999).

After that, the Hojjatieh Society entered a period of relative inactivity, although the same cannot be said of Falsafi. The shah's court minister, Assadollah Alam, wrote in his diaries that in 1963 Falsafi preached against the shah's reform program and, after a June 1963 riot, Alam had Falsafi imprisoned (Assadollah Alam, "The Shah and I," Alinaghi Alikhani, ed. [1991]).

There is more to the Hojjatieh Society than its anti-Baha'i beliefs, however, although the depths of those beliefs say a great deal about the society. While Baha'i leader Mirza Hussein Ali Nuri (1817-1892) -- who declared himself a prophet known as Bahaullah (most Muslims view Muhammad as the final prophet in Islam) -- disputed the existence of a hidden imam, Hojjatieh members believe that true Islamic government must await the return of the hidden imam, or Mahdi, who is currently in occultation. For much the same reasons, the Hojjatieh Society opposed Ayatollah Khomeini's theory of Islamic government and Vilayat-i Faqih (rule of the supreme jurisconsult). It favors collective leadership of the religious community, and opposes religious involvement in political affairs.

The Hojjatieh Society enjoyed a revival after the 1978-1979 Islamic revolution; fearing a communist takeover, Sheikh Mahmud Halabi urged his followers to vote in favor of Vilayat-i Faqih in the December 1979 referendum on the country's form of government. Moin writes that the society was well organized at the time and its members had "impeccable religious credentials," so they were able to fill administrative gaps left by revolutionary purges, as was particularly the case in the educational sector. Some cabinet members allegedly had Hojjatieh links as well.

Prominent clerics of the revolutionary era who were Hojjatieh members or sympathizers included Ahmad Azari-Qomi, Ali-Akbar Parvaresh, Mohammad Reza Mahdavi-Kani, Abolqasem Khazali, and Ali Akbar Nateq-Nuri, according to Mehdi Moslem's "Factional Politics in Post-Khomeini Iran" (2002). None of them acknowledged their relationship with the society, however, maintaining more open ties with the Islamic Coalition Association (now the Islamic Coalition Party) and with the bazaar sector.

Within a few years this situation changed. Concern arose about the society's secretiveness, as did resentment of its members' success. An increasingly intolerant Khomeini, Moin writes, attacked the society and what it stood for. He said in a 12 July 1983 speech: "Those who believe we should allow sins to increase until the Twelfth Imam reappears should modify and reconsider their position.... If you believe in your country [then] get rid of this factionalism and join the wave that is carrying the nation forward, otherwise it will break you." The Hojjatieh Society announced its dissolution on the same day, according to Moin.

The formal end of the Hojjatieh Society did not necessarily mean the end to its role in politics. Ali Akbar Nateq-Nuri, for example, became the speaker of the fifth parliament and currently serves on the Expediency Council and as an adviser to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Ali-Akbar Parvaresh served as deputy speaker of parliament and education minister. Ayatollah Ahmad Azari-Qomi-Bigdeli served as public prosecutor, represented Khomeini during a parliamentary review of the constitution, represented Qom in the legislature, served on the Assembly of Experts, and headed the Resalat Foundation (the regime eventually put him under house arrest for questioning the system of Vilayat-i Faqih and questioning the qualifications of Supreme Leader Khamenei; he died in 1999).

Warnings of renewed Hojjatieh Society activism appeared again in 2002. Minister of Intelligence and Security Hojatoleslam Ali Yunesi told a press conference that a group of people in Qom was arrested on charges of supporting the society and trying to fuel religious discord, and their books and pamphlets were confiscated, "Toseh" reported on 27 August 2002. Rudsar and Amlash parliamentary representative Davud Hasanzadegan-Rudsari said a little later that the revived Hojjatieh Society is "exacerbating the Shi'a-Sunni conflict," "Aftab-i Yazd" reported on 1 September 2002. Hasanzadegan described the society as "the embodiment of obscurantism." An editorial in the 1 September 2002 issue of the conservative "Kayhan" newspaper took a very different tack when discussing reports of renewed political activity by the Hojjatieh Society. It claimed there are many similarities between the reformist 2nd of Khordad grouping and the Hojjatieh Society. Both advocate the separation of politics and religion; just as the society opposes creation of an Islamic government, the reformists are "trying to separate the Islamic from the republic and then gradually turn the Islamic system into a secular system of government." Society members and reformists enjoy luxury and wealth, according to the editorial, and they both opposed Vilayat-i Faqih.