A shot at the very foundations of the Islamic Republic
If the protests fail, this guy’s on the short list for a bullet in the head if he ever goes back:
“The principle of Velayat e-Faqih is neither intuitively obvious nor rationally necessary,” Mr. Kadivar wrote. “It is neither a requirement of religion nor a necessity for denomination. It is neither a part of Shiite general principles nor a component of detailed observances. It is, by near consensus of the Shiite Ulama, nothing more than a jurisprudential minor hypothesis.”
The Velâyat-e Faqîh, the State of the Jurisprudent, is the raison d’état of the Islamic Republic. It’s the idea that Shî‘ite clergy have a special, divinely ordained role to play in government. Under the influence of 20th-century authoritarianism, Khomeini used it to justify the dictatorship he erected in its name. A lot of Shî‘ite clerics have criticized the Islamic republic—Ayatollah Sistânî (a Persian) in Iraq being the most prominent—with a powerful quietist critique arguing that the clergy are actually enjoined to stay out of political life. This guy is a protégé of the Grand Ayatollah Montaẓerî who is probably the single most prominent and presigious anti-régime cleric in Iran (with impeccable Revolutionary and theological credentials, which have probably kept him out of jail—though not house arrest for five or six years).
![Confucius, Œc. Vol.](https://www.gormogons.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/headvolgi.jpg)
Don’t ask impertinent questions like that jackass Adept Lu.