Iran: Mullahs Divided

Right-wingers vs. Khomeini

In less than three years, Iran’s tumultuous revolution has spawned a staggering array of problems: civil violence, war with Iraq, economic ruin, international isolation. Yet, however untidy their methods, the country’s ruling clergymen seemed united in their dedication to establish an Islamic republic. Now, apparently, that solidarity is vanishing, if indeed it ever existed in the first place. Having ruthlessly eliminated their secular opponents, the mullahs have lately turned on each other, arguing over everything from the sacred (Islamic law) to the profane (the spoils of political power).

The divisions have pitted Muslim against Muslim, faction against faction—and, increasingly, right-wing mullahs against the revolution’s leader, the Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini. Though the disputes have so far been contained, they have become worrisome enough to elicit a pointed warning from Khomeini: “Let no one doubt that if dissension continues between groups committed to Islam, it will spread nationwide and lead to armed confrontation.”

The clerical battle lines have not been clearly drawn. But there have been struggles between the Islamic Guards, the clergy’s private army, and the Friday Prayer Leaders, Khomeini’s personal representatives throughout Iran. And in recent weeks a number of right-wing clergymen have agitated publicly for a share of political power, now monopolized by the ruling, Khomeini-backed Islamic Republic Party (I.R.P.). One source of their discontent: Khomeini’s announcement on Oct. 12 that he was delegating some functions of the cherished Velayat-e-Faqih (Supreme Theologian’s Mandate)* to the Majlis (parliament).

Khomeini took that step to end a deadlock between the parliament and the “guardian council,” a twelve-member constitutional watchdog committee, which for religious reasons had blocked needed reform legislation. Still, his questionable action offended many right-wingers. Said one ayatullah: “It is bad enough that his understanding and application of the [mandate] are faulty and selfish. His decision to suspend Islamic law for political expediency is apostasy. If his so-called Islamic republic cannot survive the application of God’s law, then there is something wrong with his system. God does not make defective laws.”

The fundamentalist challenge is dangerous for Khomeini, particularly because his right-wing critics can outdo him in blind radicalism and rabble-rousing. An outstanding example of the obscure but dangerous figures growing angry with him is Sheikh Mahmoud Halabi, seventyish leader of a Shi’ite purist society. Halabi, says one Iranian writer, “is so right wing that compared with him, Khomeini is Karl Marx.” Halabi criticizes the I.R.P. for its political accommodation with the Tudeh Party, Iran’s pro-Moscow Communists. (The arrangement is designed to counter opposition from left-wing Muslims.) And he calls for a program against “heresy and atheism.” As for Khomeini’s claim to the Supreme Theologian’s Mandate, Halabi insists it is not binding. Khomeini may have great virtue and theological scholarship, he says, but “I have received instructions from the absent Imam [the Shi’ite messiah] himself.”

As Iran’s troubles deepen, divisions among the clergy are likely to grow. In an effort to strengthen their ranks, relative moderates in the I.R.P. have already begun to rehabilitate thousands of technocrats and politicians the party once purged for being “pro-Western and liberal.” Among them: Mehdi Bazargan, the revolution’s first Prime Minister, now a member of parliament. Last week, in a secret session of the Majlis, Speaker Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani asked his fellow legislators to spare Bazargan and the others from more ridicule. Said he: “These gentlemen are closer to the Imam [Khomeini] than many of you.” But recourse to “pro-Westerners” can only alienate the right-wingers more. And in a nation further divided, claims of friendship with the Imam may not mean what they once did. ∎

*The founding principle of Khomeini’s theocracy holds that pending the return of the promised Shi’ite messiah, the Twelfth Imam, a supreme theologian with absolute powers must lead the Islamic community.