International Journal on Criminology Volume 7, Number 2, Spring 2020 | Page 45

International Journal on Criminology
ure of the Imam was desacralized first through a process of humanization during
the period of revolutionary Shiism, and later during the institutional Shiism of
the velayat-e faqih. The institutionalization of Shiism, under the Islamic Republic,
also needed to involve a desacralization of the figure of the Iman, in response to
the requirements of a theocracy. The embodiment of God’s stewardship by the
Supreme Leader divested the Imamic essence of immortality, esotericism, and infallibility.
The title of “Imam” was certainly granted to the Ayatollah Khomeini
only as an honorific, since this designation does not occur in the Constitution, but
nonetheless it remains significant. It was even discussed at the time with regard to
his successor Ali Khamenei. 11 The infallibility (isma’) coextensive with the Imam
became relativized within the framework of a secular grounding.
Moreover, from this political and temporal appropriation of the figure of
the Imam emerges the requirement of a properly secular, geographical delimitation
of the transcendent notion of ummah. The geostrategic circumstances in
which Iran had to develop, as well as its theocratic identity, forced a redefinition
of the Islamic ideal of community. Traditionally, the ummah, the ideal society, is a
community bonded more by a common faith than by blood. In some respects, it is
the horizontal axis of religare, bonding, with faith as its vertical axis. In the Koran,
the term refers to a community of conventions for acting based on the religious
principles of Good and Evil. 12 In the early days of the Islamic Republic, Khomeini’s
messages sought to encompass the entire scope of this ideal, but incompatibility
with the political realities of the secular sphere meant that it had to be focused
around the term “nation.” As well as the striking examples of national withdrawal
at the time of the Iran-Iraq war, there was also the Damascus uprising in 1982:
Khomeini clearly forgot about his plan to unify the peoples of Islam, allowing the
Syrian government to massacre thousands of Muslims recognized as belonging to
their own Islam, since it was a revolt by the Muslim Brotherhood that Damascus
crushed in blood. 13 Moreover, the conflict with Iraq clearly demonstrated the need
11 In April 2010, a lecture entitled “Why should we say ‘Imam Khamenei’?” (Tcherâ bâyad beguyim
“Emâm Khamenei”?) was given in Tehran by Mohammad Ali Ramin, a political analyst, adviser to
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and official at the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance. He was responsible
for organizing the International Conference to review the Global Vision of the Holocaust,
and he worked within a new movement to officially award the title of Imam to Ali Khamenei. In
August 2010, the Lebanese satellite of the Islamic Republic, Hassan Nasrallah, announced on television:
“The Imam Khamenei is following the same path as the Imam (Khomeini) after his death”
(“Emâm Khâmenei hamân râh e emâm râh ba’ad az rehlat ishân edâmeh dâdand”). His words were
published widely by Fars News, a newspaper linked to the regime.
12 This idea relies mainly on verse 110 of the Surah Ali 'Imran 3: “Ye are the best folk that hath been
raised up unto mankind. Ye enjoin the Just, and ye forbid the Evil, and ye believe in God. And if
the people of the Book had believed, it had surely been better for them! Believers there are among
them, but most of them are perverse.” (kuntum hayra ‘ummatin ‘uhrijat li-n-nasi ta’muruma bil-ma’rufi
wa tanhawna ‘ani-l-munkari wa tu’minuna bi-l-lahi wa law ‘amana ‘ahlu-l-kitabi lakana
hayran lahum minhumu-l-mu’minuna wa ‘aktaruhumu-l- fasiqun). The Koran, translated by J. M.
Rodwell, edited by Alan Jones (London: Hachette, 2011).
13 In 1982, Hafez al-Assad crushed the uprising of the Muslim Brotherhood in the city of Hama.
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