Revisiting Ayatollah Khomeini’s Doctrine of <i>Wilāyat al-Faqīh</i> (<i>Velāyat-e Faqīh</i>)

MATSUNAGA Yasuyuki

doi:10.5356/orient.44.77

Much has been written about Ayatollah Ruhollah Musavi-Khomeini’s (1902-1989) doctrine of wilāyat al-faqīh, or the mandate of the jurisprudent. In this article, I will focus on the following two questions: how consistent was he in espousing the doctrine, and what was his major addition to the doctrine? After reviewing his educational and scholarly background, I will first reconstruct constituent components of the doctrine and revisit his relevant writings and statements to determine how consistent his views were over his long academic and political career. Drawing on the existing studies on the divergent doctrines of wilāyat al-faqīh, I will also identify one possible innovation Ayatollah Khomeini likely added to the doctrine. My examination of his 1944 tract, Kashf al-asrār, shows that Khomeini as a young seminary teacher had already believed in wilāyat al-faqīh al-siyāsīyah, or the divine mandate of the juiisprudent to rule. This suggests that his views on wilāyat al-faqīh most likely had solidified much earlier than the existing Western studies surmised and that they remained rather consistent throughout his scholarly and political career. The results will help better discuss various implications of the doctrine as political theory and also in the context of actual political developments in Iran over the last fifty some years.

Revisiting Ayatollah Khomeini’s Doctrine of <i>Wilāyat al-Faqīh</i> (<i>Velāyat-e Faqīh</i>)

Bibliographic Information

Description

Journal

Related Projects

Keywords

Details 詳細情報について

Export

Report a problem