Ayatollah

Ayatollah (pronounced ah-yuh-toh-luh)

In Shiʿite Islam, a high title in the religious hierarchy achieved by scholars who have demonstrated advanced knowledge of Islamic law and religion.

1300s: A Persian word from the Arabic āyat (sign, testimony, miracle, verses of the Qurʿān) and allāh (God).  The Arabic ayatu-llah is literally "miraculous sign of God", the word Ayatollah (āyatullāh) best translated as “sign of God” although there are variations.  Word originates from passage 51:20–21 in the Qurʿān which the Shi'a, unlike the Sunni, interpret to mean human beings can be regarded as “signs” or “evidence” of God.  It’s most familiar now from the Islamic Republic of Iran, the Persian آیت‌الل romanized as āyatollāh where it’s an honorific title for high-ranking Twelver Shia clergy in Iran (and now also Iraq) that came into widespread use in the mid-late twentieth century.  There are variants: āyatallāh fī al-anām (آية الله في الأنعام), literally “Sign of God among mankind”, āyatallāh fī al-ʿālamayn (آية الله في العالمَین‎), literally “Sign of God in the two worlds”, fī al-ʿālamīn (في العالمین‎), literally “in the worlds” and āyatallāh fī al-warā (آية الل في الوراء), literally “Sign of God among mortals”.

Ayatollah (āyatullāh) is an honorific title in the clerical hierarchy in Twelver Imamite Shiism, bestowed by popular usage on those who have demonstrated outstanding scholarship both in Islamic jurisprudence and the holy Qur’ān.  Although the title had existed since medieval times, until well into the twentieth century, use was restricted to senior clerics (mujtahids) of Persian origin.  An imitation of the title ẓill Allāh (shadow of God) was traditionally applied to Persian Islamic rulers, which was confirmed by the use of āyat Allāh zādah (son of ayatollah), a counterpart of shāh zādah (son of the shah).  The first reputed bearer, Ibn al-Muṭahhar al-Ḥillī (d 1374), was styled Ayatollah in the twelfth century but it remained rare and didn’t come into general use until the late Qājār period (1796-1925) when, in 1922, Abd al-Karīm Ḥāʿirī-Yazdī founded the new theological centre of Qom.

Besides being a fully qualified mujtahid, the scholarship and theological authority of an aspiring ayatollah must be acknowledged by both his peers and followers.  In the period between the end of the Ottoman Empire in 1922 and the 1979 Iranian revolution, the title ayatollah became (although rare until the 1940s) clerically more ubiquitous, extended even (against their own traditions) to Sunnī religious dignitaries although, in Iran, the Sunni community does not use the title and it remains rare outside of Iran although in Iraq, is remains available to clerics of Iranian origin.  After the 1979 Iranian revolution, there were significant changes.  The title became more exclusive and a seven tier hierarchy was codified, including the role of nāyib-i imām (lieutenant of the imam), reflecting the assumption of both temporal and spiritual power by Ayatollah Khomeini who anyway removed any suggestion of collective theocratic rule with his adoption of the title imām, something historically unusual in Twelver Shīʿī.  Until then, the concept of niyābat (general vicegerency of the Hidden Imam) was purely theoretical.

Thoughts of Ayatollahs

"An Islamic regime must be serious in every field. There are no jokes in Islam. There is no humor in Islam. There is no fun in Islam. There can be no fun and joy in whatever is serious."

Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini (1900-1989), Supreme Leader, Islamic Republic of Iran, 1979-1989.

"The Victorian government must be serious in every field. There are no jokes in Victoria. There is no humor in Victoria. There is no fun in Victoria. There can be no fun and joy in whatever is serious."

Ayatollah Daniel Andrews (b 1972), premier of the Australian state of Victoria since 2014.

The title Grand Ayatollah (Ayatollah al-Uzma) (Great Sign of God) is sometimes misunderstood and in none of the strains of Islam does a defined hierarchical clerical structure exist in the manner of the classical theocratic model enjoyed in the Roman Catholic Church.  Being a Grand Ayatollah is not necessarily an indication of a place of high authority in any administrative structure.  Grand Ayatollah was a (historically rarely granted) honor and one afforded to an Ayatollah whose contribution to learning and knowledge of the holy Koran is such they are considered Marja'-e-Taqlid, (Grand Ayatollah now the usual form).  Although, practices have varied, for the title to be conferred, an Ayatollah would have been expected to have produced a substantial body of Islamic scholarship but analysts have concluded the favored works have tended to be those reflecting Koranic orthodoxy and of practical application rather than abstract explorations of the esoteric.  Again, because it’s not a centralized system, the number of active Grand Ayatollahs in Iran isn’t clear but they’re said to number in the dozens.

As a formal prelude to achieving the status, a treatise (risalah-yi'amaliyyah) (practical law treatise) is usually published, almost always a work which draws on and reinforces earlier traditions rather than anything new or controversial.  In this it’s more like the modern Western PhD dissertation, many of which appear not a genuinely new contribution to much.  The convention however works in conjunction with the political structures of state which in 1979 were absorbed by the revolution.  Upon assuming office as Supreme Leader in 1989, Ali Khamenei (b 1939) was granted the title Ayatollah although there appears to be no great history of Koranic scholarship and certainly not the customary risalah-yi'amaliyyah.  In recent years, there seems also to have been a bit of a nudge by the state-controlled media which sometimes refer to him as Grand Ayatollah or even Imam.  Foreign monitoring agencies however have reported the Iranian people seem unresponsive to the prodding and use of “Imam” seems still a historic reference only to the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

There has been a bit clerical inflation since the death of the Imam.  Although there exists in Shia Islam no codified hierarchical structure of ecclesiastical offices, observers have identified shifting conventions which move with the political climate of the day.  Possession of the more exalted titles used to depend on popular assent, granted only to the most prominent religious figures and those who were of necessity a Mujtahid, an important pre-condition being a demonstrable superiority in learning (aʿlamīyat) and authority (riyāsat) the latter definitely demanding popular support.  Not unrelated too, as structuralists like to point out, it helped if one was good at raising religious taxes (Khums).  Plus ça change...

Some presumably un-intended mission-creep resulted from the Imam’s educational reforms intended to secure the primacy to Koranic teaching.  The restructuring of the Shia seminaries created four layers of structured scholarship, those clerics attaining the highest qualification styled as Dars-e-Kharej (beyond the text) and thus assuming the title of Ayatollah.  Being an Islamic state, bureaucratic progression in the state bureaucracy was assisted by the qualification and the numbers graduating increased, the dynamic driven also by (1) a worsening economy which made state-sector employment increasingly attractive and (2) the unlimited ability of the seminaries to offer course to fee-paying students.  By 2017, it was estimated over three thousand clerics in Iran were calling themselves Ayatollah.

To mark “Mean Girls Day” on 3 October 2019, the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) took to X (the app then known as Twitter) and trolled Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah (b 1960) and then Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani (1957-2020), photoshopping the trio into a well-known scene from the film, labeling the image “There’s no one meaner than the mean girls of the Middle East” and advising the twitterati: “Don’t sit with them”.  It wasn’t the first time the Jewish state had deployed the movie against the ayatollahs: In 2018, in response to Ayatollah Khamenei calling the Jewish state a “cancerous tumor” which “must be eradicated,” the Israeli embassy in Washington posted a Mean Girls GIF asking “Why are you so obsessed with me?”  On both occasions, the ayatollahs ignored the IDF's provocations.