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Guardians of
Shi‘ism
SAC RED AU T H OR IT Y A N D
TRA N S N AT ION A L FA M ILY N E T W O R K S
Elvire Corboz
GUARDIANS OF SHI‘ISM
SACRED AUTHORITY AND TRANSNATIONAL FAMILY NETWORKS
Elvire Corboz
© Elvire Corboz, 2015
Edinburgh University Press Ltd

The Tun – Holyrood Road
12 (2f) Jackson’s Entry
Edinburgh EH8 8PJ
www.euppublishing.com
Typeset in 11/13 JaghbUni Regular by

Servis Filmsetting Ltd, Stockport, Cheshire
and printed and bound in Great Britain by
CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon CR0 4YY
A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978 0 7486 9144 9 (hardback)

ISBN 978 0 7486 9145 6 (webready PDF)
ISBN 978 0 7486 9146 3 (epub)
The right of Elvire Corboz to be identified as author of this

work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988 and the Copyright and
Related Rights Regulations 2003 (SI No. 2498).
Contents
List of Tables and Figures v

Acknowledgementsvi
A Note on Transliteration viii
Glossaryix
Introduction1
The Social Facets of Clerical Authority 4
Transnational Authority between Communities and States 10
Two Families of Religious Scholars 13
Part I Family, Students and Friends: From Dyadic to

Transnational Networks19
1 An Iraqi Family of Religious Scholars: Local and Transnational
Networking Strategies 21
The Hawza’s Social Capital and the Making of
Interpersonal Networks 22
Old Networks for a New Life in Exile 31
Institutionalising Najaf’s Scholarly and Familial Networks
in an Exiled Political Organisation 36
Conclusion 44
2 An Iranian Marja‘ in Najaf and a Foundation in London:
Reproducing Interpersonal Ties across Place and over Time 48
The Marja‘iyya’s Local and Transnational Networks 48
Traditional Networks in an Unconventional Structure 57
Conclusion 70
Part II Charitable Politics: Benevolent Patrons, Beneficiaries

and the State73
3 Leadership in Patronage: the Benefits of Serving and Educating 75
A Marja‘ Reconnecting with Iraqi Shi‘a 76
An Imported Leader at the Service of the Shi‘a 78
Guardians of Shi‘ism
Charity for Political Loyalty and Recognition in Exile 82

Conclusion 92
4 The Priority of Charity: a Global Brand of Philanthropy in its
Local Making 94
Patronage and Clerical Politics in the Seminaries 95
Transnational Charity: Many Encounters with the State 100
Institutionalising Shi‘ism in the West 110
Conclusion 116
Part III The Affairs of the State: Clerical Participation in

Politics 119
5 From Najaf to Najaf: a Family at the Forefront of Iraqi Politics 123
The Political Choices of an Iraqi Marja‘124
Opposing Baghdad in Exile 132
The Politics of Self-representation in the New Iraqi
Polity154
Conclusion 161
6 Quietist Activism: Calculated Responses to Political Turmoil 165
A Marja‘ in the Midst of Iranian and Iraqi Politics 166
Representing the Voice of the Shi‘a 177
Conclusion 186
Conclusion189
Reaching Out to the Community 189
The Significance of the State 193
Four Features of Transnational Clerical Authority 196
Notes204
Bibliography237
Index268
iv
Tables and Figures
Tables
1.1 Muhsin al-Hakim’s bayt members and representatives 27
1.2 Composition of SCIRI’s central committee (1982–6) 38
1.3 Composition of SCIRI’s central committee (1986–2003) 40
2.1 Abu al-Qasim al-Khu’i’s bayt52
2.2 Abu al-Qasim al-Khu’i’s representatives outside Iraq 54
2.3 The Al-Khoei Foundation’s trustees 60
Figures
1.1 Marriages arranged between the offspring of Mahdi,
Muhammad Baqir and ‘Abd al-‘Aziz al-Hakim 46
2.1 Marriage arranged between the grandchildren of Abu
al-Qasim al-Khu’i and ‘Ali al-Sistani 68
Acknowledgements
This book would not have been possible without the help of many persons.
Members of the al-Hakim and al-Khu’i families have trusted me with
some pages of their family history. I am indebted to all of them and to my
other informants. I am especially grateful to ‘Abd al-Sahib al-Khu’i, Yusif
al-Khu’i and Muhsin al-Khalkhali at the Al-Khoei Foundation in London,
Mr Ghanim Jawad and Sahib al-Hakim in London, Dr Ja‘far al-Hakim
at the Al-Hakim Foundation in New York, Mujtaba Faqih-Imani and
Muhammad Faqih-Imani in Qum, as well as to Sahib al-Hakim in Beirut.
They not only shared their knowledge with me, but also introduced me to
many contacts. I collected more information than I had hoped for and I
apologise for not including all of it in this book, as well as for the different
perspectives I may have taken on some particular points.
My deepest gratitude goes to James Piscatori for his unique super
vision of the doctoral dissertation on which this book is based. James, your
intellectual guidance and personal qualities continue to inspire me, and I
am simply thankful to be your student. I am also most indebted to Benoît
Challand, Robert Gleave, Roy Mottahedeh and Qasim Zaman, who pro-
vided insightful comments on parts of the draft manuscript. Over the
years, I had fruitful discussions on my research with Juan Cole, Laurence
Louër, Sabrina Mervin, Robert Riggs and many other colleagues whom
I all wish to thank, along with Anoush Ehteshami and Homa Katouzian
who examined the dissertation. Any errors, shortcomings and mistakes of
judgement remain entirely my own.
Reza Sheikholeslami deserves my deep appreciation for the many
doors he opened to help me start my field research in Iran. I am also grate-
ful to Hujjat al-Islam Ruhollah Husaynian and Kazem Bojnourdi who
facilitated my work in their institutions in Tehran, while Kanan Makiyya
welcomed me in his house to consult the archival material held by the Iraqi
Memory Foundation. John Walbridge kindly shared with me a most valu-
able unpublished manuscript written by his wife, Linda Walbridge. Reidar
Vissar also provided a useful piece of primary material.
Nicola Ramsey, Eddie Clark with his remarkable patience and the rest
of the team at Edinburgh University Press did not spare themselves any
vi
Acknowledgements
effort during the production of this book. The index was prepared by Sally
Phillips. Amy Heneveld, William Blair and my other shadow proof-read-
ers improved early and later drafts of this work with their stylistic touch.
Florence Keriakos and Sandrine Keriakos offered great help with some
Arabic translations. I am grateful to all.
I have benefited from the financial assistance of several institutions
to conduct this research. I thank the Swiss National Science Foundation,
the Abdullah Al-Mubarrak Al-Sabah Foundation at BRISMES, Wadham
College, the Vice-Chancellors’ Fund, the Andrew Smith Memorial
Foundation and the Soudavar Fund at Oxford for their scholarships and,
for their travel grants, the Institut français de recherche en Iran, the Institut
français du Proche-Orient, the British Institute of Persian Studies, the
Council for British Research in the Levant, the Iran Heritage Foundation,
as well as the Faculty of Oriental Studies and the Cyril Foster Fund at
Oxford. I also had the privilege of finalising this project during a post-
doctoral fellowship offered by the Department of Near Eastern Studies
at Princeton University; I could not have hoped for a more enjoyable and
stimulating environment.
I am grateful to my friends, too many to be named; each found a way
to help me over the years and often in spite of the distance. Kamal Parsi-
Pour provided unforgettable support. I dedicate my most special thanks
to my parents and sisters for their unwavering encouragement, care and
understanding.
vii
A Note on Transliteration
The transliteration of Arabic and Persian words is based on a simpli-

fied version of the system recommended by the International Journal of
Middle East Studies (IJMES). It employs IJMES’ transliteration of conso-
nants and vowels but omits all diacritics, as well as the mark for the hamza
at the beginning of a word. The plural of nouns is formed by adding an ‘s’
to the singular, with the exception of a selected few for which the Arabic
broken plural form is provided in the Glossary. Words transliterated from
Arabic and Persian are preferably italicised; exceptions include titles such
as Ayatullah, Sayyid, Shaykh and Imam, the months of the Muslim calen-
dar and the Qur’an. Place names and names of personalities are spelled in
accordance with the English usage found in IJMES’ word list whenever
there is one.
The study of transnational Shi‘i clerical networks poses the problem-
atic question of whether to Arabise or Persianise the names of individuals
who lived a life across borders, by respectively using the ‘al-’ or omitting
it. The origin of the family name is not a satisfactory criterion because
Persian descent has been a politically laden issue in the Iraqi context. With
as much consistency as possible, therefore, any name of Persian origin
includes the ‘al-’ if the individual carrying it is identified in this book, at
least in part, with Iraq or another Arab country.
viii
Glossary
ahl al-bayt ‘people of the house’, a term used to refer to the

family of Prophet Muhammad
a‘lamiyya superiority in learning
‘alim (pl. ‘ulama’) a religious scholar
arba‘in the commemoration of the fortieth day after Imam
Husayn’s martyrdom
‘atabat ‘the holy thresholds’, the name given to the Shi‘i
muqaddasa shrine cities of Iraq
Ayatullah ‘sign of God’, a title granted to a mujtahid; Grand
Ayatullah is generally used to refer to a marja‘
bahth al-kharij the most advanced level of study in the Shi‘i reli-
gious training
bayt household, a term used to refer to the family and
close entourage of a marja‘
faqih a jurist
fatwa a religious edict
fiqh Islamic jurisprudence
hajj the pilgrimage to Mecca
hasab honour acquired through deeds
hawza ‘ilmiyya ‘territory of knowledge’, a term referring either to a
circle of scholars, to a specific religious teaching
institution or to the totality of religious teaching
institutions in a specific place (e.g. Najaf)
Hujjat al-Islam ‘proof of Islam’, a title generally granted to a religious
scholar who has not reached the level of ijtihad
husayniyya a Shi‘i place of worship
ijaza permission, a certificate
ijazat al-ijtihad permission to exercise ijtihad
ijazat al-wikala permission of representation
ijtihad ‘exertion’, refers to the effort of a qualified jurist to
use independent reasoning to derive laws
‘ilm religious knowledge
Imam for the Shi‘a, a legitimate successor of Prophet
Muhammad
ix
imam prayer leader; the imam al-jum‘a is the leader of the

Friday prayer
intifada an uprising; the Iraqi popular uprising of March
1991 is called the Sha‘ban intifada after the
Muslim month during which it took place
istifta’ a request for the legal opinion of a jurist
jihad effort or struggle, often used to refer to holy war in
defence of Islam
khums ‘one fifth’, a religious tax paid by the Shi‘a to the
marja‘ they follow
madrasa a religious teaching institution
marja‘ (pl. maraji‘) ‘source of emulation’, a mujtahid who is seen to
al-taqlid be qualified to provide guidance on all points of
religious practice and law
marja‘iyya leadership of a marja‘
mu’assasa a foundation
Muharram the first month of the Muslim calendar; month
during which the Shi‘a commemorate the martyr-
dom of Imam Husayn
mujtahid a scholar capable of exercising ijtihad
muqaddamat ‘preliminaries’, the introductory level of study in the
Shi‘i religious curriculum
muqallid an emulator, follower of a marja‘ al-taqlid
nasab descent, honour acquired through descent
Ramadan the ninth month of the Muslim calendar; month of
fasting
risala ‘amaliyya a practical treatise containing the legal opinions of a
marja‘ on various issues
sayyid a descendant of Prophet Muhammad
shahid (pl. shuhada’) ‘witness’, commonly a martyr
shar‘i deriving from religious law
sutuh ‘externals’, the intermediate level of study in the
Shi‘i religious curriculum
tabligh religious propagation
talib (pl. tullab) a student in the religious sciences
taqlid emulation, imitation
usul al-fiqh principles of jurisprudence
wakil (pl. wukala’) a representative
wali amr al-muslimin Guardian of the Muslims
waqf (pl. awqaf) a pious endowment
wilayat al-faqih guardianship of the jurist
zakat alms tax in Islam
x
Introduction
A visitor entering the foyer of the Imam Al-Khoei Islamic Centre in

New York, with its crystal chandelier and frieze of gilded verses from
the Qur’an, will also certainly notice the framed portrait of an ageing,
white-bearded, black-turbaned Shi‘i cleric. During the research conducted
for this book, I have encountered the same picture many times in many
places: the library of a theological college in the Iranian seminaries of
Mashhad, an orphanage in Beirut, a small religious school in Bangkok,
the prayer room of a community centre in Paris, the website of a charitable
association operating in India and the cover page of an Arabic magazine
published in London. The face of Grand Ayatullah Abu al-Qasim al-Khu’i
adorns the walls of places he never went to. From his classroom in the holy
city of Najaf in Iraq, his teachings influenced millions of Shi‘i followers
across the world. An eminent scholar, spiritual leader and philanthropist,
his legacy traverses time and borders.
Any considered assessment of Shi‘i Islam requires looking with a
transnational lens beyond the national framework. For centuries, reli-
gious networks defined by common affinities have been sustained across
localities by the movement of peoples, the exchange of ideas and com-
munal practices. The ‘ulama’ (sing. ‘alim; religious scholar) have come
to represent the quintessential transnational actor and their continued
visibility in the worldwide geography of Shi‘ism is the focus of this
book. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, clerics from today’s
Lebanon, Bahrain and Iraq settled in Persia at the invitation of Safavid
rulers who were converting the country from Sunnism to Shi‘ism.1
Scholarly migration also reinforced the development of major centres of
learning in the Iraqi and Iranian shrine cities where the most prominent
religious scholars have offered guidance to believers worldwide. It was
in the Iraqi seminaries of Najaf that the Persian Muhammad Husayn
al-Na‘ini designed his influential treatise in support of constitutionalism
at the height of Iran’s first revolution (1906–11) and that, decades later,
the Iraqi Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr produced writings which inspired
a new constitution for the Islamic Republic established after the coun-
try’s second revolution (1978–9). Moreover, significantly, the ‘Shi‘i
1
International’2 – the community of foreign students and scholars populat-

ing the seminaries – had among its ranks the leaders-to-be of the myriad
Shi‘i Islamist groups which emerged in the Arab world and South Asia
from the early 1960s onwards.
This book explores the political sociology of transnational cleri-
cal leadership in Twelver Shi‘ism. It seeks to decipher the analytical
meaning of transnational linkages rather than simply describe how they
manifest themselves. Accordingly, the central question is: How do Shi‘i
‘ulama’ establish and maintain their authority across borders? Clerical
authority has several layers: religious, economic, social and political. Far
from immutable, it is constituted, projected, negotiated and reformulated
through the interactions of clerics with the communities and states located
within their geographical reach. Based on an interpretative history of two
prominent families of religious scholars, al-Hakim and al-Khu’i, this book
identifies the main dynamics of these interactions across Iraq, Iran, other
Middle Eastern countries, South Asia, South-East Asia and the West. This
multi-sited approach aims to stress the mutually reinforcing importance
of the local and the transnational for the construction and maintenance of
Shi‘i clerical authority.
Two matters of concern for the study of Muslim societies and politics
will be addressed here. First, this book is a reflection of the enduring cen-
trality of the ‘ulama’ to contemporary affairs. The literature on modern
Sunni Islam brought the religious scholars ‘back in’ only recently, dem-
onstrating that their role in colonial and post-colonial societies has not
been, as previously assumed, on the decline.3 Shi‘i ‘ulama’ did not suffer
from scholarly neglect for as long as their Sunni counterparts. Following
the coming to power of Ruhullah Khomeini (d. 1989) in Iran, studies on
state–clergy relations from Safavid times to the twentieth century were
a posteriori attempts to make sense of the watershed events of 1979,
though different conclusions were reached with regard to the confronta-
tional nature of the religious leadership.4 Initially a scholarship on Iranian
Shi‘ism, its geographical scope was eventually broadened to consider
the participation of the ‘ulama’ in Iraqi political affairs during the late
Ottoman and the mandate periods,5 their contribution to a Shi‘i reform-
ism in pre-independence Lebanon6 and their leadership of Arab and South
Asian political movements.
Accounts explaining how religious scholars establish, maintain and
reformulate their status at the top of the Shi‘i community remain scarce,
however, especially if compared to the many questions one could ask
about their centrality. We owe our best understanding of the internal
organisation of the community of learning to Meir Litvak’s study of
2
Introduction
the Iraqi seminaries in the long nineteenth century.7 It was also at that
time that the marja‘iyya was developing to become a sort of centralised
system of transnational religious authority. In a work that could not be
brought to completion, Linda Walbridge delved into the working of
the contemporary marja‘iyya, shedding precious light on the more or
less traditional ways through which key Iranian and Iraqi figures of the
latter half of the twentieth century have exercised it.8 In the so-called
periphery, the clerics of Lebanon have found the preference of scholars
who have explained the making of these religious, cultural and politi-
cal leaders in relation to the Lebanese context.9 The complementing
works proposed by Juan Cole and Justin Jones have focused on clerical
Shi‘ism away to the east. The ‘ulama’ were able to grow as a hiero
cracy within the Shi‘i State of Awadh (1722–1856) in today’s northern
India,10 while they later showed a remarkable capacity to rework their
religious and communal leadership in response to great change under
colonial rule.11
A noticeable feature of the Shi‘i community of scholars, which has
often been observed but rarely studied, is the prevalence of clerical
families in its ranks, both at the lower and upper levels.12 A meso-level
unit of analysis, such families are a useful object of study to back with
empirical e vidence any assessment of the internal and external d ynamics
that u nderpin clerical authority in Shi‘ism. Moreover, the diverse life
trajectories of their many members and their networks provide m aterial
to analyse, in a single work, different clerical leadership patterns. In
exploring the m ultifaceted roles played by the al-Hakim and al-Khu’i
families, this book seeks to explain the sociological working of the tradi-
tional marja‘iyya, political groups and non-governmental organisations
(NGOs).
Second, addressing the question of clerical leadership from a clear
transnational perspective can contribute to the debate swirling around the
meanings of cross-border Shi‘i linkages for the future of the Middle East.
In December 2004, King ‘Abdullah of Jordan famously expressed anxiety,
soon to be echoed by Sunni ruling elites in Egypt and Saudi Arabia, at
the existence of a ‘Shi‘i crescent’ (al-hilal al-shi‘i) stretching from Iran
into Iraq, Syria and Lebanon.13 The coming to power of the Shi‘a after
the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003, the political and military victories
of Hizbullah, the meddling of Damascus in Lebanese affairs, and Iran’s
ambitions for regional hegemony, let alone nuclear power, could only
threaten the stability of the region. Starting in 2011, the ‘Arab Spring’
uprisings in Shi‘i-majority but Sunni-ruled Bahrain led to a revival of the
crescent paradigm.
3
The influence of the Islamic Republic of Iran is the cause of much of

this alarm at transnational Shi‘ism. Yet, the literature usefully demon-
strates that it should not be overstated. Iran’s failure to export its revolu-
tion was already evident at the end of the revolutionary decade.14 From the
1990s, moreover, transnational Islamist movements underwent a process
of domestication, at least in the Gulf region.15 In Lebanon, where Iran’s
multifaceted relations to the Shi‘a can be traced back five hundred years,16
cross-border linkages with the Islamic Republic also contributed to the
production of Shi‘i Lebanese nationalisms.17 Hizbullah itself became
Lebanonised in parallel with its continued Iranian patronage.18 In general
terms, not only do Shi‘i communities have their own historical specifici-
ties,19 but the diverse nature of their transnational connections indicates
that a uniform Iranian model does not exist.20
This book takes a similar line to this literature as it, too, aims to com-
prehend interactions across the Shi‘i world in their depth and complexity.
Instead of taking one or several national Shi‘i communities as its unit
of analysis, however, it follows the trajectories of transnational clerical
actors across different communities and states. In so doing, it pays particu-
lar attention to the dialectical relationship of the local and transnational
nature of the networks under study. This approach allows for an original
consideration of the dynamics through which, to paraphrase Madawi al-
Rasheed, the transnational is localised and, simultaneously, the local is
transnationalised.21 A critique of overly universalistic views of transna-
tional religious phenomena, this book demonstrates the potential tension,
yet c ompatibility and mutually reinforcing effect, between both facets of
Shi‘ism.
The Social Facets of Clerical Authority

Any attempt to prove authority is methodologically complex. Broadly
defined as the acceptance of a legitimate right to be obeyed, authority can
be addressed with more or less abstraction. This study privileges the latter
approach by asking analytical questions about the practical ‘how’ rather
than undertaking an inquiry into the normative ‘why’.22 The focus is not
on authority per se but on the holders of clerical authority, the ‘ulama’
who exercise religious and communal leadership (riyasa).23
The ‘ulama’ derive their name from ‘ilm (religious knowledge). They
can speak authoritatively because they have the expertise to interpret
Allah’s message. In Shi‘i Islam, the legitimate guardians and interpret-
ers of Divine Law were the Imams, Prophet Muhammad’s descendants
and rightful heirs according to the creed. Given their inability to exercise
4
Introduction
their claim to political rule, the Imams’ main function was to guide and
educate the community.24 ‘Ilm was the portion of their authority most
easily transferrable to the religious scholars after the Twelfth Imam went
into hiding in 874, and more so from 941 during the greater occultation
(ghayba).
Initially, the role of the ‘ulama’ was to transmit what was considered a
complete and comprehensive law laid down by the infallible Imams. The
need to derive new norms led to the acceptance of ijtihad (independent
reasoning) in the fourteenth century as a process through which scholars
attain legal decisions. Based on the rational principles of Islamic jurispru-
dence (usul al-fiqh), this methodology provided the ground for the exten-
sion of clerical juristic authority.25 The Akhbari approach, which holds
that the reports attributed to the Prophet and the Imams are self-sufficient
to derive judicial decisions, survived, but by the late eighteenth century
the Usuli understanding had become the most widely accepted method of
jurisprudence.
Gradually, and not without much doctrinal debate, the ‘ulama’ came
to assume the executive functions originally invested in the Imams. The
concept by which they could act as the general deputy (na’ib al-‘amm)
of the Hidden Imam reached maturity, theoretically, in the first half of
the sixteenth century. Among other prerogatives were leading the Friday
prayer and holy war (jihad), the imposition of punishment and the collec-
tion of religious taxes.26 In practice, the ‘ulama’ undertook their deputy-
ship of the Imams not during but after Safavid rule in Iran, once Usulism
also took precedence over Akhbarism. For instance, the first declaration of
defensive jihad by Shaykh Ja‘far Kashif al-Ghita’ and other ‘ulama’ dated
back to the first Russo-Iranian War (1804–13), in exchange for which the
Qajar monarchy tacitly consented to the right of the ‘ulama’ to collect
the sahm al-imam (the share of the Imam) as part of the khums (religious
tax).27
Doctrinal developments also enhanced the social status of the ‘ulama’
vis-à-vis Shi‘i society. While Akhbarism viewed all believers as equal in
their effort to imitate the Imams, the Usuli emphasis on ijtihad justified a
hierarchical configuration of the global community of believers. The dis-
tinction was not only between ‘ulama’ and laypeople; the clerical group
was also stratified between the mujtahids and those who could not exer-
cise independent judgement. A corollary of ijtihad, the principle of taqlid
(emulation), which requires believers to refer to the rulings of a qualified
scholar, became the legal basis for the theoretical and practical elaboration
of the function of marja‘ al-taqlid (source of emulation; pl. maraji‘).28
A process of centralisation of religious authority was at work from the
5
mid-nineteenth century, although the ideal of a unique, supreme, religious

reference (marja‘ a‘la or marja‘ al-taqlid al-mutlaq) at any given time
was never clearly achieved.
In contrast to the Catholic Church to which the Shi‘i clerical establish-
ment is often compared, the lack of an institutionalised procedure for the
designation of a source of emulation makes the marja‘iyya an informal
system of religious authority. A‘lamiyya (superiority in learning) is a
criterion to establish a ranking order among the mujtahids. Yet this deter-
minant of status, as well as other moral qualities such as probity and piety,
can hardly be quantified. Also essential is the strong organisational ability
needed to develop social and economic ties with lower-rank scholars and
lay emulators, in particular those among the wealthy classes.29 In effect,
the marja‘iyya is a remarkable framework where loyalties are negotiated
and clerical influence is projected.
Maraji‘ are the holders of religious authority par excellence. Clerical
leadership in Shi‘ism also entails other roles assumed by the schol-
ars who do not reach this status. Locally, ‘ulama’ officiate on legal
matters, mediate family and community disputes, lead rituals and run
religious schools.30 Significantly, the past fifty years have witnessed a
tendency towards the institutionalisation of clerical functions in order to
better promote the legal, religious, social and political advancement of
local or national Shi‘i communities. Cleric-run institutional initiatives
have generally obtained moral or material support from the marja‘iyya,
alternatively from the Shi‘i state of Iran, or sometimes from both of
them.
In this study of contemporary Shi‘i leadership, I propose to adopt a
sociological view of the clerical establishment. Approaching the notion
of authority from the top down, I identify three broad domains accounting
for prominent status: networks, philanthropy and participation in politics.
Each alone cannot deliver clerical authority, yet they all determine the
circular processes through which it is acquired, exercised and further
reinforced. The analytical distinction between what accounts for author-
ity and the outcome of authority becomes empirically blurred. While
networks inform primarily the structure of authority, philanthropic and
political practices refer more closely to its functionality. Related to the
latter dimension is the notion of performance, which is often excluded
from definitions of legitimacy because of its connotation of instrumen-
tality. Obedience based on ‘purely material interests and calculations of
advantage’ is likely to result ‘in a relatively unstable situation’.31 If author-
ity should not need justification, the distinction is less clear in practice.
Religious leaders carry out a number of functions for the community. In
6
Introduction
the process, success or failure in satisfying the ends which justify their
authority affects p erceptions of their legitimacy.
Structured thematically, this book seeks to explain how the networking,
philanthropic and political practices of Shi‘i ‘ulama’ contribute to their
prominent status. Part I looks at the internal organisation of clerical net-
works, the nature of which is highly interpersonal. In particular, scholarly
and familial ties have the potential to sustain and legitimise a network.
Traditionally, the ‘ulama’ derive authority from their ‘spiritual filiation’,
which can be described as the chain of scholars from disciple to master
going back to the Imams. Similarly, sacred nasab (genealogical lineage)
is important. The descendants of Prophet Muhammad, the sayyids, take
pride in their privileged bloodline and display evident signs of their ances-
try, for instance the wearing of the black turban by those who are clerics.32
Sacred lineage based on scholarly and familial ties is significant
not only in relation to the sources of Shi‘ism – the Imams, the Prophet
and, by extension, to God – but also to contemporary clerical figures.
Religious learning is characterised by its informal and personalistic
nature. The term hawza, used to describe a religious school or the Shi‘i
seminaries more largely, originally referred to the study circles around
a master. A student enters into a relationship with his teachers, not
with an institution per se, although studying in the renowned centres of
Shi‘ism in Iraq and Iran is also a source of prestige. The transmission
of knowledge establishes scholarly lineage between the disciple and the
scholars with whom he studies, evidence of which is provided in the
signed ijaza (permission; a certificate) he might receive from them. The
more famous the mentor, the greater the legitimacy that can be derived.
Similarly, familial ties are a channel for the transfer of authority,
through both blood and marriage. The legitimacy claimed on the basis of
heredity is evidenced for instance in Shi‘i (auto)biographies. In addition
to providing the complete nasab of the individual under consideration,
such works put emphasis on the achievements of his ancestors whose
influence has been particularly marked in a more or less recent past.33
Marriage also lends prestige to the individuals or families engaged in
the union, and is a strategy for formalising existing ties, for instance
mentor–student relations.
Accordingly, Part I demonstrates that interpersonal ties help sustain
individual leaderships, reinforce the status of a whole group such as a
family or a network of learning, and allow the clerical community to
reproduce itself. To clarify the effects of scholarly and family lineage on
authority, the analysis adopts a micro-perspective considering the internal
organisation of specific networks through which leadership is exercised.
7
An individual, a group of people or an institution earns prestige by dint

of interpersonal connections to one or several prominent figures. For a
person in authority, moreover, the inclusion of his students, sons, sons-in-
law and other relatives in his network will facilitate the diffusion of his
legitimacy into the network’s larger structure. Interpersonal ties are also
important because of their temporal endurance. As such, they contribute
to the stabilisation of clerical networks over time. The legacy of a figure
who has marked his own time often endures past his death through the
students and descendants he has engendered. In turn, the latter derive
lasting legitimacy from their scholarly or familial descent from him. The
question follows of whether successions within the clerical community
are informed by interpersonal ties. Bearing in mind the enduring power
of both scholarly and familial ties, this book will point to different trends
regarding the importance of each. In the case of the marja‘iyya, while
hereditary successions are not privileged, at least to date, scholarly lineage
is more often a basis for claims to the position, a confirmation of the con-
tinued centrality of ‘ilm for traditional religious leadership. In contrast,
with regard to forms of clerical leadership relying less on a mastery of
religious knowledge, family-based successions seem to be the norm rather
than the exception.
The philanthropic facet of clerical authority is explored in Part II. The
function exercised by Shi‘i ‘ulama’ as providers of patronage is related
to the fact that religious taxes, the zakat and the khums, are designed to
serve a charitable purpose. The right, initially assumed by the Imams, to
collect these alms was devolved to the mujtahids in the course of history.
With the development of the marja‘iyya, it became customary for believ-
ers to pay their dues to their source of emulation, who in turn took on the
responsibility of reallocating the funds back to the community through
patronage. Still robust today, this system for the collection and redistribu-
tion of religious money constitutes a powerful means of social engage-
ment along the informal ‘charity chain’,34 between financial contributors
and their marja‘ on the one hand, and the marja‘ and his lay and clerical
beneficiaries on the other. A central link holding the chain together are the
intermediaries collecting money and more importantly providing services
on the ground on behalf of the marja‘. Individuals or institutions estab-
lished specifically for this purpose are entrusted with this task, and they
are likely to earn popular legitimacy for their role. Given the centrality of
charity in Shi‘ism, it is also common to have political clerical leaders and
their organisations assume charitable and social functions by relying either
on the permission obtained from a marja‘ to collect khums, or on voluntary
donations or on other financial resources. Because of the range of actors
8
Introduction
who can be involved in its provision, charity offers a multitude of ways to

support clerical claims to religious, social and political leadership, at either
a local or a transnational level.
Participation in politics is the third feature of the clerical establishment
under consideration in this book. For centuries, the transfer to the ‘ulama’
of the prerogatives entrusted with the Imams excluded the latter’s politi-
cal authority. Shi‘i political theory and practice afforded a high degree
of accommodation with temporal, albeit illegitimate, rulers. Even when
the ‘ulama’ arrogated the option for themselves to actively bring them
into line with the shari‘a (religious law), they did not make claims to
governance.35 The right to rule was the step Khomeini took in his radical
reinterpretation of wilayat al-faqih (guardianship of the jurisprudent).
Initially a theoretical exercise in the form of the lectures he gave in Najaf
in 1970, his doctrine was put into practice when he assumed the reins of
leadership in Islamic government after the Iranian revolution.
Regardless of doctrinal debates, the legitimising potential of political
activism on clerical leadership is ambivalent. The efforts of Murtada al-
Ansari (d. 1864) to depoliticise the clerical community and his emphasis
on high moral and scholastic values were a mark of his influence.36 In
contrast, the fatwa (religious edict) attributed to Mirza Hasan al-Shirazi
(d. 1895) at the height of Iran’s Tobacco Protest (1891–2) reinforced the
centralisation of religious authority in al-Shirazi’s hands.37 Similarly, in
the twentieth century, while Khomeini partially built his leadership on
his opposition to the Iranian monarchy, the upholding of the Usuli tradi-
tion by other maraji‘ was also a key factor. With this word of caution,
Part III explores the political facet of authority by looking at the specific
moments when clerical leaders assume positions with a view to political
intervention, and the variety of motivations, aims and methods of par-
ticipation are examined to demonstrate the diversity of clerical attitudes
towards politics. This approach aims to question the conventional catego-
risation of these attitudes in terms of a rigid dichotomy between aloofness
and activism.
In this book, the socio-political underpinnings of clerical leadership are
explored with a focus on its constitution and maintenance across borders.
To clarify, I do not regard transnationalism as an independent source of
authority but consider it an attribute of the networking, philanthropic and
political practices of transnational actors. All three domains are relevant
locally but also have (additional) meaning transnationally. In the course of
the analysis, it will become clear that the correlation between authority and
transnationalism is bilateral. Authoritative status helps transnationalism;
equally true, cross-border relations impact on authority.
9
Transnational Authority between Communities and States

Transnationalism can be simply defined as the processes by which non-
state actors maintain connections across national boundaries. Physical
mobility is not a sine qua non. The circulation of persons, as well as the
influx of ideas, culture and markers of identity, each sustains such connec-
tions. Transnational processes do not take place in an unbounded space,
the ‘third space’ being neither here nor there, which is sometimes thought
to characterise their locus. As convincingly disputed by Michael Peter
Smith and Luis Eduardo Guarnizo,
Transnational practices cannot be construed as if they were free from the con-
straints and opportunities that contextuality imposes. Transnational practices,
while connecting collectivities located in more than one national territory,
are embodied in specific social relations established between specific people,
situated in unequivocal localities, at historically determined times.38
Accordingly, transnational clerical authority takes on meaning in and

across contextualised localities. Authority, I argue, is not acquired
once and for all but undergoes constant (re)formulation when clerical
actors interact with situated communities and states. The complexity
and simultaneity of these processes are reinforced by the multi-locality
of their reach in the worldwide geography of Shi‘ism. This book travels
from Iraq to Iran, Lebanon, Syria, the Gulf monarchies, Pakistan, India,
Thailand, Malaysia, as well as the UK, France, the US and Canada – the
many countries that constitute the sacred map of the Shi‘i networks
under study.
To capture the multi-directional web of external interactions that are
constitutive of clerical authority, the analysis adopts both a ‘from below’
and a ‘from above’ relational perspective of transnationalism. First,
the capacity of clerics to connect with Shi‘i communities at home or in
migration is decisive. These communities are resources to be mobilised
and, therefore, the worldwide topography of Shi‘ism already contributes,
at least as a potential, to clerical authority itself. The broader the cleri-
cal network’s reach, the more influential it is expected to become. From
this perspective transnational authority is, in part, the sum total of local
recognitions.
The prolific literature on transmigration is useful in elucidating further
how these processes work.39 Thought of as a (new) field of social relations,
transnationalism helps account for the capacity of people to maintain
multistranded relationships across borders. Social, economic, political,
cultural and religious activities forge these relationships.40 With the
10
Introduction
prerequisite that ‘transnational activities must be in the interest of those

that engage in them’,41 the more diverse, thick and regular they are, the
more resilient transnational connections become.42
Thomas Faist insists on considering the content of transnational ties
and the resources inherent in them.43 The authority relations explored in
this book contain both tangible and intangible resources. Either directly or
through their transnational network, clerical leaders establish a presence in
their communities by performing functions in various fields of Shi‘i life:
religious guidance, provision of social and educational welfare, and politi-
cal representation. This presence does not consist solely of people but
can be attested by other material marks of clerical leadership: a mosque,
a religious treatise, a clinic, money, a political banner or the branch of an
organisation. As a continuation of this, the content of transnational ties
encompasses an intangible, symbolic, dimension. Perhaps more than any
other social practice, religion offers a myriad of symbols to nourish sacred
attachment inside religious communities. Symbols travel easily across
borders. By disseminating them, clerical leaders expand the geographi-
cal scope of their social relationships, while creating a sense of symbolic
propinquity with their constituencies.44 Symbols are not transplanted as
such from one place to another, moreover.45 Their meanings change or
gain additional significance outside the site from which they are imported.
Second, this study of transnational clerical authority also seeks to elu-
cidate how the state figures in the process. In its early days, the study of
transnationalism by international-relations scholars was mainly preoccu-
pied with the demise or survival of the state. In questioning the traditional
state-centred paradigm, the seminal volume co-edited by Robert Keohane
and Joseph Nye in 1971 marked a shift towards society-dominated and
multi-centred models of international relations.46 However, as contended
by the ‘new transnationalism’ scholars, one ‘does not have to do away
with the “state” to establish the influence of transnational relations in
world politics.’47 Disengaged from concerns about the survival of the
state, the literature produced from the mid-1990s started to explore
the interactions between transnational movements and the state. It also
broadened the scope of inquiry to incorporate the study of a new set of
transnational actors, such as social movements, advocacy networks, civil
society and religious groups.48
Adopting a relational perspective of transnationalism, I argue that
the interpenetration between transnational religious actors and the state
further qualifies clerical authority. The state seeks to preserve its power
domestically and internationally, and also possibly to gain legitimacy over
the sacred. In so doing, it acts defensively or proactively to secure benefits
11
for itself. While regimes and decision-making apparatuses often

permeate transnational activity, in my usage these constitute the

administrative side of the state. The state is thus considered as a whole
entity – ‘a political organization that is the basis for government in a given
territory’ – without making a conceptual distinction between its specific
agencies and attributes.49 In effect, the state commands different strate-
gies to be used simultaneously or over time; it can produce, sponsor, curb,
compete with or ignore transnational networks. This takes place within
national borders, but sometimes also outside when the state becomes
de-territorialised.50
Clearly, transnational relations are influenced from above. Non-state
actors are not passively subject to the ‘will of the state’, however.
Confronting the state is an option, but it would be too restrictive to regard
Shi‘i clerics as an anti-state force only. Alternatively, they might prefer to
avoid the state, accommodate with it or seek its support. In the process,
they are sometimes able to shape state interests to bring about change in its
behaviour. Their approaches to the state, this book will show, demonstrate
their great capacity to adapt, making them quite pragmatic transnational
actors.
The interactions between the state and transnational clerical leaders
may result in positive or negative outcomes in terms of power and author-
ity, for the former or the latter, or both of them. Their interests are not
always antithetical, or at least they provide enough common ground as a
basis for cooperation. Alternatively, their end goal might be different, but
the means reconcilable. State and non-state actors may also have diverg-
ing interests, but nevertheless choose to bargain.51 The cost of confronta-
tion appears too high and provides enough incentive for negotiation. The
difficulty in achieving one’s objectives without the cooperation of the
other party, as well as the added value that a partnership can offer, are
additional motivations for bargaining. In general terms, ‘high religion’ –
as opposed to more amorphous religious networks emerging from below
– is more likely to make formal or informal pacts with the state.52 In any
event, the outcome of bargaining between the transnational clerical actors
and the state will depend on the balance of their interests as well as their
capacities to pursue them. Whatever the scenario, transnational relations
are not a zero-sum game.
The bidirectional orientation of clerical interactions with communities
and states is analytically distinct, yet intertwined in practice. The com-
plexity of transnationalism is even more salient because clerical actors
interact with a multiplicity of communities and states. The dynamics of
these interactions can be at variance in different locations. The i mportance
12
Introduction
of one site or the other(s) is also unlikely to be equal at all times and
will change according to historical conjunctures. Moreover, because the
transnational clerical leadership is not a unified force, distinct networks
often seek to reach out to the same communities. Open or latent compe-
tition follows, a situation further affecting the outcome of cross-border
interactions. Patterns of sacred authority in transnational Shi‘ism cannot
therefore be expected to follow a linear course.53
Two Families of Religious Scholars

The al-Hakim and al-Khu’i families hit the headlines in 2003 after the fall
of the Iraqi Ba‘th regime when ‘Abd al-Majid al-Khu’i and Muhammad
Baqir al-Hakim were killed in separate attacks in the shrine city of Najaf.
Obituaries published in British newspapers characterised these figures as
follows:
Abdul Majid al-Khoei who has been murdered in Najaf aged 40, was a leading
figure in the exiled Iraqi community. He belonged to one of the country’s great
clerical families, being the son of Grand Ayatollah Abdul-Qasim al-Khoei . . .,
a great jurist and scholar, and spiritual head of the worldwide Shia community
until his death in Saddam Hussein’s custody.54
The Shiite cleric and political leader, Ayatollah Mohammad Baqir al-Hakim,
who has been assassinated, aged 63, in his hometown of Najaf, devoted most
of his adult years to opposing the regime of Saddam Hussein . . . As a scion
of one of the most prominent and respected Iraqi Shiite families, he wielded
enormous influence over the Shiites, who constitute more than 60% of the Iraqi
population.55
Both were Shi‘i clerics recently returned from exile. They were expected
to play an influential role in post-Saddam Iraq and historicising their
leadership claims prior to the American invasion is one objective of this
book.
As emphasised in the above quotations, Muhammad Baqir al-Hakim
and ‘Abd al-Majid al-Khu’i also had in common the fact that each of
them came from a distinguished clerical family with a strong connection
to the shrine city of Najaf. Shi‘i clerical families, which are known in
Arabic as bayts al-‘ilm (families of knowledge), have often produced gen-
erations of religious scholars, even though they include laymen. Because
many can trace their origin to Prophet Muhammad through Imam ‘Ali,
the al-Hakim and al-Khu’i families included, Raffaele Mauriello calls
them ‘Alid families. While being a sayyid (or sharif ) is crucial to status
in Muslim societies,56 I prefer the term clerical families to acknowledge the
13
importance of scholarly tradition as a source of their fame. As explained by

Sabrina Mervin,
Generation after generation, sayyid families gain a little bit more of charisma
every time one of their members becomes a cleric. Conversely, if a lineage of
sayyids does not produce clerics anymore, if it does not fulfil the purpose of its
status for several generations, its dignity as sayyid fades away, progressively.57
Along with nasab, in other words, engagement in clerical life creates a

sort of hasab (honour acquired through deeds) which, as clarified by Roy
Mottahedeh, includes the personal achievements of both the possessor of
hasab and his ancestors.58
I argue that the hasab of the most renowned clerical families owes con-
siderably to the leadership positions they have attained at the head of Shi‘i
communities. The achievements of select family members are a source
of fame for the wider family, which also explains why families without
a long history of prominence might nevertheless become, in only a few
decades, forces to be reckoned with. Because of its legitimising potential,
the family’s hasab needs to be upheld to allow the family to maintain and
project further its status. Crucial in this regard are the narratives that are
made of hasab, or in other words, family history narratives.
This book explains the centrality of clerical families in Shi‘ism by
exploring the history of the al-Hakim and al-Khu’i families from the
latter part of the twentieth century. Focusing in turn on their networking,
philanthropic and political practices, each part of this book considers the
two families separately, starting with the al-Hakim family (Chapters 1, 3
and 5) before moving to the al-Khu’i family (Chapters 2, 4 and 6). The
lives of their many members would certainly provide material answers to
questions about clerical authority. To help readers find their way through
the intricacies of these family histories, however, the scope of this book is
limited to a few figures who, with their informal and institutionalised net-
works, came to represent the most emblematic leadership roles assumed
by clerics across the contemporary Shi‘i world.
Particularly central to both families’ prestige was having their names
associated with the marja‘iyya. Based in his hometown of Najaf, Muhsin
al-Hakim (1889–1970) consolidated his authority in the 1950s and became
primus inter pares after the death of Muhammad Husayn Burujirdi
(d. 1961) of Qum. Significantly he was Iraqi, the first non-Iranian scholar
ever to attain such prominence worldwide. Given that his marja‘iyya
coincided with the establishment of the republican regime in Baghdad
in 1958 and the Ba‘th Party’s rise to power a decade later, the continued
secularisation of Iraqi society, and also the birth of the Iraqi Shi‘i Islamic
14
Introduction
movement, his religious, social and at times political influence will be

considered mainly with reference to the Iraqi context, not to the other
geographies of Shi‘ism. This selective bias by no means implies that al-
Hakim’s reach as a marja‘ was not farther-flung, but it is a reflection of his
special legacy for c ontemporary Iraqi Shi‘ism.
The al-Khu’i family, originally from Iranian Azerbaijan, gained trans-
national prominence in recent decades thanks to the fame of Abu al-Qasim
al-Khu’i (1899–1992). Having migrated in his youth to the Iraqi shrine
city of Najaf, by the early 1970s this figure rose to become the most widely
followed source of reverence for the Shi‘a worldwide. His networking
strategies, the establishment of a phenomenal philanthropic network in
his name, as well as his calculated stance to the political developments
of his time in the Middle East, are all worthy of attention to explain the
working of the marja‘iyya across borders. The significance of this figure
also needs to be understood from the perspective of his capacity to uphold
the traditional system of religious leadership in the face of the model
of clerical governance within an Islamic state that came to fruition in Iran
in 1979. Because al-Khu’i embodied the antithesis of Khomeini, the study
of his leadership is paradigmatic to determine the impact that the estab-
lishment of the Islamic Republic of Iran had on the marja‘iyya. The exist-
ence of these competing forms of transnational clerical leadership, it will
become clear, does not necessarily result in overtly antagonist encounters.
More often than not, it would be in the interest of neither to engage in fully
fledged confrontation, although competition is certainly palpable. Distinct
clerical networks can develop either in different places or side by side in
the same locations. While the future is difficult to predict, the lessons one
can draw from the past and enduring legacy of Abu al-Qasim al-Khu’i
provide grounds for a case against the view that anticipates the imminent
end of the marja‘iyya.59
If the marja‘iyya survived the external and internal turmoil of the
last half century, it also provided a framework for the emergence of new
forms of clerical leadership. In 1989, the Imam Al-Khoei Benevolent
Foundation (Mu’assasat al-Imam al-Khu’i al-Khayriyya) was established
under Abu al-Qasim al-Khu’i’s patronage to represent the marja‘iyya.60
Successively headed by three of the ayatullah’s sons, Muhammad Taqi
(1958–94), ‘Abd al-Majid (1962–2003) and ‘Abd al-Sahib al-Khu’i (b.
1955), this institution has offered a hybrid structure for the exercise of the
family’s leadership – traditional, indigenous on the one hand, and modern,
NGO-inspired on the other. The Al-Khoei Foundation has also been an
early manifestation of the growing trend in Shi‘ism towards an institu-
tionalisation of the multifaceted functions of clerical leadership. From its
15
headquarters in London, this international charity has provided religious,

educational, social and humanitarian services to the Shi‘a worldwide.
It has also acted as a lobby for the defence of their rights and helped
shape Western agendas towards the regime of Saddam Hussein under the
leadership of Majid al-Khu’i, the cleric killed in Iraq in 2003.
An illustration of the different leadership roles clerics can play in con-
temporary Shi‘i society is also found in the life history of the descendants
of Muhsin al-Hakim. Attention is specifically paid to his best-known sons
who experienced long years in exile away from Iraq. The path taken by
Muhammad Mahdi al-Hakim (1935–88) was somewhat atypical in this
regard. He was forced into exile already in 1969, a decade before the
larger-scale departure of Shi‘i ‘ulama’. He set out to organise the religious
and social affairs of the Shi‘a in Pakistan for a short while and in the
United Arab Emirates (UAE) for nine years. Then, in 1980, at a time when
many figures of the Iraqi Islamic movement were settling in Iran, Mahdi
al-Hakim rather chose to take up residence in London. His role had a dual
orientation. First were his oppositional activities against the Iraqi regime.
With his closest associates, al-Hakim established the Ahl al-Bayt Islamic
Centre to provide a community centre for Iraqi refugees and an opera-
tional base for his attempt to organise the affairs of the Iraqi opposition.
More specifically, his Organisation for Human Rights in Iraq, also set up
in the British capital, undertook to record and internationalise the human
rights violations committed by the Ba‘th regime. Second, al-Hakim aimed
to stimulate the advancement of the Shi‘a worldwide. To this end, he
launched the London-based World Ahl al-Bayt Islamic League (WABIL)
as an umbrella organisation enhancing international cooperation among
‘ulama’ and their institutions. Mahdi al-Hakim’s life ended abruptly in
1988 when he was assassinated by Iraqi agents during a visit to the Sudan.
Better known to any observer of Iraqi politics is the association of
the al-Hakim family name with the Supreme Council for the Islamic
Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI; Al-Majlis al-A‘la li-l-Thawra al-Islamiyya
fi al-‘Iraq), now called the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI).61
Established in Tehran in 1982 as an umbrella organisation aiming to
unify the exiled Islamic opposition to the Ba‘th regime, it became a
body for the institutionalisation of the family, with Muhammad Baqir al-
Hakim (1939–2003), ‘Abd al-‘Aziz al-Hakim (1950–2009) and currently
‘Ammar al-Hakim (b. 1971) successively coming to head it. These figures
thus represent clerical leadership exercised in a political organisation, one
leading at first a struggle for regime change from exile and then competing
with other Shi‘i contenders for a position in power back home after 2003.
The importance of SCIRI/ISCI as a player in Shi‘i Iraqi politics for
16
Introduction
more than three decades has not been matched with much in-depth schol-
arly attention.62 Considered the most pro-Iranian faction of the broader
Iraqi Shi‘i Islamic movement, it is a particularly relevant organisation to
study when looking at the workings of transnational Shi‘ism where they
entail a connection to the Islamic Republic. SCIRI developed itself in
exile under Iranian patronage, a situation that had both advantages and
disadvantages. Yet it would be too reductive a portrayal to consider it
as a mere Iranian entity. If the exiled organisation advocated an Islamic
revolutionary model with the end goal of establishing a political order in
Iraq based on Khomeini’s doctrine of wilayat al-faqih, it did not rely on a
homogenising Iranian-style version of Shi‘ism to undertake this mission.
Rather, it capitalised on the mobilising potential of the recent history of
Iraqi Shi‘ism, emphasising the enduring legacy of the Iraqi marja‘iyya
and the record of persecution suffered by Iraqi ‘ulama’ at the hands of
the Ba‘th regime. Initially aimed at keeping the idea of Iraq alive in exile,
these narratives were still useful for exploitation at home after SCIRI
returned to Iraq and felt the need to attest to its Iraqiness.
This brief introduction to the al-Hakim and al-Khu’i actors under
examination is a preliminary testimony to different transnational authority
patterns found in contemporary Shi‘ism. The marja‘iyya is the most tradi-
tional, while the institutionalisation of clerical leadership in charitable and
political organisations is a more recent phenomenon. These institutions
are not substitutes for the marja‘iyya, however. On the contrary, as will be
discussed throughout this book, they are likely to claim an attachment to
it, seeking to derive legitimacy from its sacred authority.
17
part i
Family, Students and Friends:
From Dyadic to Transnational Networks
Introduction
Inquiring into the nature of transnational clerical authority in Shi‘ism
requires close consideration of the forms it adopts. I conceptualise infor-
mal and institutionalised structures of leadership in terms of authority
networks, in other words the ‘ulama’ and laymen who compose them. The
purpose of documenting the internal organisation of an authority network
is to identify its individual elements and, more importantly, to map the
dyadic relations keeping them together, wherever they might be. These
relations not only facilitate exchanges within the network, but are in them-
selves a source of social capital constitutive of authority. As explained in
the Introduction, both familial and scholarly ties have a strong legitimis-
ing potential. The more geographically widespread the network, the more
interpersonal relations matter to its internal organisation.
Meir Litvak has found that interpersonal ties were preponderant in the
social organisation of the community of ‘ulama’ in the Shi‘i shrine cities
of nineteenth-century Iraq.1 Considering the formation of transnational
authority networks in recent decades, the following chapters confirm that
his findings still hold true. The internal working of clerical leadership has
largely remained unaltered, not only in the case of the marja‘iyya, but also
when Shi‘i scholars exercise their roles in more formal, institutionalised,
structures.
The marja‘iyya is the transnational system of religious authority par
excellence. Although maraji‘ generally do not travel much abroad,2 their
reach across borders is sustained by their wukala’ (sing. wakil) – the clerics
and laymen authorised to represent them in their own place of residence,
to collect religious taxes and distribute patronage and, for those who are an
‘alim, to answer the legal enquiries (istifta’at) of believers. The authority
network of a source of emulation is often born out of dyadic relations estab-
lished locally in the shrine cities before it develops in full strength into the
wide geography of Shi‘ism. The value of a system of representation largely
19
based on familial and scholarly ties cannot be overstated. Those ties can be
a safeguard against its potential corruption or inefficiency. For a marja‘,
having wukala’ he personally knows and whom he can trust compensates
for the difficulty of controlling their work at a distance. More importantly,
as Linda Walbridge explains, even if ‘the follower never meets or lays eyes
on the marja‘, there is a sense of a personal relationship, maintained by
both the intermediaries and by the informality of the institution’.3 Taking
her reflection further, I posit that this sense of a personal relationship is rein-
forced thanks to the pre-existing interpersonal ties between a marja‘ and
the members of his network. The power of such ties travels across borders.
By bringing to their local communities the fame of having a personal con-
nection to the source of emulation they represent, the wukala’ embody the
symbolic presence of the physically absent religious authority. The con-
struction of emotional proximity reduces the actual geographical distance,
while it is also expected to facilitate the work of the representatives locally
by boosting their own stature. All in all, interpersonal networks help organ-
ise the marja‘iyya, which lacks by its very nature well-defined structures.
Cleric-run organisations offer an institutionalised version of Shi‘i
leadership. Behind a façade more structured than that of the looser
marja‘iyya, they nevertheless replicate the informal networking strategies
of the religious establishment. This is best revealed in the use of interper-
sonal connections for the composition of their leadership apparatus. The
networks which are formed within these institutions are not necessarily
new. Existing ones, for instance those associated with a former or current
marja‘, can also be transplanted into a new organisation. They have the
advantage of providing a readily accessible source of sacred capital to be
‘borrowed’ across place and over time by institutional initiatives in search
of legitimacy. This practice explains how informal scholarly circles and
clerical families not only become institutionalised but also maintain them-
selves outside, though with a connection to, the traditional community of
learning.
20
Local and Transnational Networking Strategies
1
An Iraqi Family of Religious Scholars:

The al-Hakim family is a sayyid family descended from Prophet

Muhammad through his grandson, Imam Hasan. It traces its name to one
ancestral figure, ‘Ali, who was a doctor at the court of Shah ‘Abbas (1587–
1629) in Isfahan until he went on a visit to Najaf and decided to stay. He
became known as al-Hakim, the Arabic word for doctor.1 Over the centu-
ries, the al-Hakim family built its fame as one of Najaf’s most renowned
families of religious scholars. In recent decades, several family members
gained particular prominence. Muhsin al-Hakim was the source of emula-
tion for the majority of the Shi‘a worldwide in the 1960s. If he embodied
the traditional system of transnational religious authority, the leadership
of his most famous sons was of a different nature. Forced to leave Iraq,
Mahdi and Muhammad Baqir al-Hakim, the latter being accompanied by
his brother ‘Abd al-‘Aziz, exercised religious, philanthropic and political
roles in exile. They institutionalised their leadership in separate organisa-
tions and in different places. Based in Iran, Muhammad Baqir and ‘Abd
al-‘Aziz al-Hakim eventually returned home in 2003 at the head of the
powerful SCIRI, a political organisation led since 2009 by the latter’s son
‘Ammar al-Hakim.
This chapter explores the structure of transnational clerical authority. It
maps the informal and institutionalised networks around which the above
al-Hakim family members established and maintained their leadership,
both in the family’s stronghold in Najaf and outside Iraq. Interpersonal
ties informed the creation of these networks. The development of familial
and scholarly relations in the Iraqi seminaries allowed Muhsin al-Hakim
to build and later organise his marja‘iyya locally and, thanks to the move-
ment of people, transnationally. The sons of Muhsin al-Hakim also relied
on interpersonal networks to establish their leadership in exile and insti-
tutionalise it in their organisations. The transnationalisation of Najaf’s
community of learning, a natural process exacerbated by the massive
departure of scholars because of state repression under the Ba‘th regime,
gave them access, in their respective places of residence, to home-made
21
networks composed of their relatives and friends, former members of

their father’s entourage, as well as the student circle of another renowned
figure, Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr (d. 1980). Because the organisational
appearance of political exiles is believed to invoke loyalty if it is trans-
planted from home,2 the practice of reproducing pre-existing networks in
their institutions was crucial for the constitution of their leadership.
The Hawza’s Social Capital and the Making of Interpersonal

Networks
The recognition of Muhsin al-Hakim as a source of emulation for the
majority of the Shi‘a was unprecedented. It was the first time that a non-
Iranian scholar – in this case an Arab – attracted such a broad following.
Regardless of this uniqueness, his religious leadership allows for a broader
sociological understanding of the marja‘iyya in the twentieth century. His
early life as a seminary student up to his rise to prominence, and there-
after the years he exercised the function of a source of emulation, both
confirm that the hawza is a source of social capital for religious authority.
This section assesses the importance of teacher–student relations, family
lineage and marital strategies in the formation and maintenance of the
marja‘iyya’s local and transnational authority network.
How to become a marja‘

The practice in Western scholarship of listing the names of maraji‘ by date
of death conveys the misleading impression of a neat chain of succession
throughout which each holder of the title would emerge at once when his
predecessor passed away.3 Accordingly, Muhsin al-Hakim’s marja‘iyya
is said to have started after the death of Qum-based Muhammad Husayn
Burujirdi, who would have previously held the sole religious leadership.
This view should be further qualified, however. The Iraqi ayatullah made
a name for himself in the hawza of Najaf earlier on, and he was already
attracting a small popular following in the shrine city and in Baghdad after
the demise of Abu al-Hasan al-Isfahani in 1946.4 His influence increased
gradually in Iraq throughout the 1950s, as well as in Lebanon, the Gulf
countries and Afghanistan. He then became primus inter pares after
Burujirdi passed away.5
The rise to the marja‘iyya is an uncertain and gradual process. There
is no set of precise criteria that one needs to satisfy to become a source
of emulation. In addition to personal qualities such as piety, maturity,
intelligence, faith and equity, a number of inherent attributes are required,
22
most importantly being a male of legitimate birth. Descent from a sayyid

and/or clerical family, as well as ethnicity, plays a role, but the acquisition
of merit rather than these ascriptive factors determines status in the Shi‘i
clerical hierarchy.6 Of prime importance is the scholarly and social capital
that a religious scholar manages to accumulate in the seminaries from
an early age until the recognition of his religious authority. The story of
Muhsin al-Hakim provides an illustration.
Shi‘i hagiographic biographies like to emphasise sacred signs sur-
rounding the birth and childhood of prominent religious figures as early
manifestations of a predestined promising future.7 The birth of Muhsin
al-Hakim in 1889 on the first day of the ‘id al-fitr, the festival of fast-
breaking at the end of the month of Ramadan, allows for the exploitation
of this topos. Regarding his birthplace, there are two stories. One states
that al-Hakim was born in Bint Jbeil in today’s southern Lebanon where
his father Mahdi bin Salih (d. 1894) had recently migrated. The other
holds that his mother gave birth in Najaf where she had stayed without her
husband.8 Shi‘i accounts prefer the second version because of the sanctity
that Najaf confers upon a new-born, especially if his birth coincided with
a holy date of the Muslim calendar. Be that as it may, Muhsin al-Hakim
also lost his father at the age of six, becoming an orphan like Prophet
Muhammad and several of the Shi‘i Imams.
Given the importance of religious knowledge for the hierarchical
organisation of the Shi‘i community, the acquisition of scholarly creden-
tials is a prerequisite for religious leadership. Muhsin al-Hakim, first edu-
cated in the preliminaries (muqaddamat) by his older brother, entered the
seminaries of Najaf when he was thirteen. He completed the sutuh classes
(the intermediate level) in seven years. He attained ijtihad in Islamic sci-
ences and deduction in 1919 after attending the bahth al-kharij lectures
(the advanced level) of Muhammad Kazim al-Khurasani (d. 1911), Diya’
al-Din al-‘Iraqi (d. 1942) and ‘Ali Baqir al-Jawahiri (d. 1922). Muhsin al-
Hakim continued to take advanced classes with the renowned Muhammad
Husayn al-Na‘ini (d. 1936), as it is not uncommon for a mujtahid to pursue
further his religious training.9
Even though a‘lamiyya is more of an ideal than a practical criterion
for the selection of a marja‘, scholarly excellence is nevertheless a central
qualification that any contender to the position should attain. The ahl al-
khibra (experts) will assess the extent of his knowledge before vouching
for him.10 In addition to specialised books, an aspiring marja‘ needs to
write a risala ‘amaliyya (practical treatise) with his opinions on various
aspects regulating Shi‘i life and practices. Doing so is the main act by
which he announces his claim. Among his many other works, al-Hakim
23
published one such treatise, Muntakhab al-Rasa’il (Selection of the

Epistles), immediately after Abu al-Hasan al-Isfahani’s death. This was
followed by his Minhaj al-Salihin (The Path of the Righteous) in 1952/3.
The Iraqi ayatullah nevertheless waited for Muhammad Husayn Burujirdi
to pass away before he issued his Arabic and Persian Tawzih al-Masa’il
(Clarification of the Questions) in Tehran.
Another aspect related to scholarly excellence is teaching. It is also the
main social activity for a religious figure to build his prestige in the hawza.
Even though students take classes with different teachers at the same time,
each high-ranking mujtahid generally acquires a student base who will act
as a lobbying force for the promotion of his marja‘iyya inside and outside
the seminaries. Muhsin al-Hakim started his career as a teacher in 1920,
initially at the intermediate level and later at the advanced level.11
Al-Hakim also developed a public presence in Najaf. He was asked
to replace the ailing Ayatullah ‘Ali al-Qumi as imam al-jum‘a (Friday
prayer leader) at the Al-Hindi Mosque in the mid-1920s. He started to
perform the evening prayer in the yard of the Imam ‘Ali Shrine following
Muhammad al-Na‘ini’s demise in 1936.12 The importance of these roles
for the constitution of religious leadership should not be underestimated.
The congregational prayer is one moment when clerics are in direct
contact with followers, whether drawn from the local Shi‘i community or
from pilgrims visiting the ‘atabat muqaddasa (the shrine cities of Iraq; lit.
the holy thresholds).
Networks in the community of learning are often formalised through
marriage. Therefore Muhsin al-Hakim’s early marital strategies, if any,
provide an additional perspective by which to analyse the social con-
stitution of his religious leadership. The Iraqi cleric took his first wife
when he was still a student in his twenties. Marrying the daughter or
granddaughter of one of his renowned teachers, a practice not unusual
in the hawza, would have given him social capital. But al-Hakim did
not. Instead he married into his extended family. Endogamic marriages
within Shi‘i clerical families are actually commonplace because they
help consolidate kinship, in addition to more mundane purposes such as
keeping property within the family.13 To be precise, Muhsin al-Hakim
married the daughter of his maternal aunt and she bore him two sons,
Muhammad Yusif (1922–91) and Muhammad Rida (1923–91), as well
as three daughters.
The choice of Muhsin al-Hakim’s second wife had more immediate
benefits for the consolidation of his social status. This time, the cleric
married a Lebanese woman. The opportunity for this transnational mar-
riage arose during his stay in southern Lebanon in 1932. In need of a better
24
climate than Najaf because of health problems, he went to Bint Jbeil at the
invitation of Hajj Hasan al-Bazzi, a member of the powerful landowner
family that had already encouraged his father Mahdi al-Hakim to migrate
to this small town in 1889. Muhsin al-Hakim cemented ties with his host
by receiving the latter’s daughter in marriage.14 Eight sons, Muhammad
Mahdi (1935–88), Muhammad Kazim (1937–75), Muhammad Baqir
(1939–2003), ‘Abd al-Hadi (1940–85), ‘Abd al-Sahib (1941–83), ‘Ala’
al-Din (1945–83), Muhammad Husayn (1947–83) and ‘Abd al-‘Aziz
(1950–2009), as well as one daughter, were born out of this union.
This marriage was interest-oriented for at least two reasons. The first
benefit for Muhsin al-Hakim was financial. Life in the Shi‘i seminaries
was precarious15 and any kind of material assistance from his wealthy
in-laws could help him live decently; more importantly, the contributions
one can assume al-Hakim received from the al-Bazzi clan allowed him to
build the financial capacity of his marja‘iyya in its early days. Second, the
association of his name with a well-respected family of the Jabal ‘Amil
was an asset for the Iraqi mujtahid in gaining recognition from Lebanese
Shi‘a. His ties with the al-Bazzi family were also reinforced in following
decades with several marriages arranged between his offspring and those
of Hajj Hasan.
The marja‘iyya’s social organisation

The rise to prominence of a mujtahid owes much to a quite ill-defined
mix of scholarly and social credentials acquired in the Shi‘i seminaries.
Once the status of marja‘ is attained, religious leadership is no more for-
malised. Best described as an amorphous system of authority rather than
an institution, the marja‘iyya is internally organised in networks. These
are composed of a number of individuals who assume key functions in
the system. The bayt (entourage) of a source of emulation handle the
affairs of his office (barani in the Najaf jargon) and its finances, answer
legal enquiries, attend meetings with visitors, oversee the distribution of
patronage and take care of the students’ administrative affairs, among
other tasks. The representation of the marja‘iyya outside the seminaries
is assumed by the wukala’ who fulfil similar administrative and religious
functions for local communities. Muhsin al-Hakim found it important to
dispatch representatives to all Iraqi cities and villages, unlike his prede-
cessors whose reach was limited to the country’s major urban centres. As
a result, the number of his agents in Iraq increased from six to forty over
the years.16 Some were permanent residents of the places where they rep-
resented him, but the majority were students in Najaf undertaking tabligh
25
(religious propagation) missions on weekends and during the religious

holidays. Al-Hakim also had many representatives abroad.
Because of, and possibly in order to compensate for, the lack of insti-
tutionalisation of this system, the marja‘iyya’s authority networks are
formed to a large extent along interpersonal ties. As an illustration, Table
1.1 provides a selective list of the individuals who were part of Muhsin
al-Hakim’s network, their function and the place where they exercised it,
and the nature of the ties they had with the Iraqi ayatullah, if any. A cell
left blank indicates that I have not found the relevant information.
Members of renowned religious families have sacred lineages, the
legitimacy of which can be transferred to the marja‘ having them in his
network. This was the case of the pillars of Muhsin al-Hakim’s bayt in
Najaf. The ‘thinking brain’ of his office, Muhammad al-Rashti, was the
grandson of Mirza Habibullah al-Rashti who had been a marja‘ in the latter
part of the nineteenth century. Ibrahim al-Tabataba’i was also the grand-
son of a former source of emulation, Muhammad Kazim al-Tabataba’i al-
Yazdi (d. 1919), and it was not incidental that al-Hakim gave his daughter
in marriage to this important member of his bayt in 1945/6 precisely when
he needed to consolidate his own authority network, with Abu al-Hasan
al-Isfahani about to die. A few years later, his son Muhammad Baqir
al-Hakim married the daughter of Muhi al-Din al-Mamaqani, a cleric
who was a former student of Muhsin al-Hakim and a member of his bayt
and who also happened to be the son of the former marja‘ ‘Abdullah al-
Mamaqani (d. 1932). Muhammad Jawwad al-Hashimi, the son of Jamal
al-Din al-Gulpaygani al-Hashimi (d. 1957), was also part of the Iraqi ayat-
ullah’s close entourage in Najaf.
The Bahr al-‘Ulum family has produced a long and illustrious line of
religious scholars in Najaf, many of whom have assumed a variety of
religious, social, economic or political positions of influence.17 Given the
historic importance of this family, it was natural that Muhsin al-Hakim
incorporated some of its members into his authority network. Muhammad
Bahr al-‘Ulum (b. 1927) was one such cleric whose early career as the
ayatullah’s social and political advisor in the 1960s is less commonly
known than his later political activities, first in exile and then back home
in 2003.18 His ties to al-Hakim were formalised with a marriage arranged
between their children. In addition, father and son Musa and Ja‘far Bahr
al-‘Ulum, who both studied with the marja‘, worked as his representatives
in the Iraqi towns of Kufa and Mashkhab, respectively.
As this suggests, the family lineage of the individuals working for the
marja‘iyya matters because its sacredness can symbolically be transferred
onto the network they are associated with. The centrality of genealogy for
26
Table 1.1 Muhsin al-Hakim’s bayt members and representatives.1

Name Function Place of work Relationship to
al-Hakim
Muhammad al-Rashti bayt member; majlis Najaf –
al-istifta’ member
Muhi al-Din al-Mamaqani bayt member; majlis Najaf student; father of
al-istifta’ member his daughter-in-
law
Ibrahim al-Tabataba’i bayt member; liaison Najaf son-in-law
al-Yazdi to the Iranian
authorities
Muhammad Jawwad bayt member; majlis Najaf –
al-Hashimi al-istifta’ member
Muhammad Bahr social and political Najaf father of his
al-‘Ulum advisor daughter-in-law
Ja‘far al-Dujayli financial officer Najaf –
Musa al-Ya‘qubi public relations Najaf –
officer
Yusif and ‘Abd al-Sahib hawza affairs officers Najaf sons
al-Hakim
Muhammad Rida liaison to the Najaf son
al-Hakim authorities in Najaf;
manager of the
House of Wisdom
School
Mahdi al-Hakim liaison to the Najaf; Baghdad son
authorities in (from 1964)
Baghdad; wakil
Muhammad Baqir aide; envoy for Najaf son
al-Hakim missionary
activities; head of
hajj delegation
‘Abd al-Hadi and ‘Ala’ managerial functions Najaf sons
al-Din al-Hakim in educational
projects
Sa‘id and Muhammad liaison officers to the Najaf cousins
Husayn al-Hakim tribes
(father and son)
Murtada al-‘Askari wakil Baghdad –
Hadi al-Hakim wakil Baghdad distant relative
Isma‘il al-Sadr wakil Kazimayn, Iraq student
Musa Bahr al-‘Ulum wakil Kufa, Iraq student
Ja‘far Bahr al-‘Ulum wakil Mashkhab, Iraq student
Muhammad Taqi and wukala’ Hilla, Iraq and
Muhammad Husayn Qatar
al-Jalali
Muhammad Sadiq wakil Kut, Iraq student; distant
al-Hakim relative
27
Table 1.1 (continued)

Name Function Place of work Relationship to
al-Hakim
Sulayman al-Yahfufi wakil Kut, Iraq student
Muhammad Baqir al-Nasiri wakil Nasiriyya, Iraq
Husayn and ‘Ali Husayn wukala’ Suira, Iraq and students
al-Makki (father and son) Damascus, Syria
‘Ali al-Kurani (al-‘Amili) wakil Khalis, Iraq; –
Kuwait (from
1968)
Muhammad Taqi al-Faqih wakil Rafa‘i, Iraq; student
Lebanon
Muhammad Husayn wakil ‘Aziziyya, Iraq; student; nephew
Fadlallah Lebanon (from (by marriage)
1966)
Muhammad Mahdi Shams wakil Diwaniyya, Iraq; student; family
al-Din Lebanon (from marital
1969) relationship
‘Ali and ‘Abd al-Amir wukala’ Masib and Hayy,
al-Qasam Iraq
Mirza Jawwad al-Tabrizi wukala’ Kirkuk, Iraq
and Muhammad Baqir
al-Badkubi
Husayn ‘Ali al-Musuli wakil Mosul, Iraq
Hamid and Ahmad wukala’ Samawa, Iraq
al-Samawi (father and
son)
Muhammad Husayn wakil Mashhad, Iran
Misbah
Asadullah Madani Tabrizi wakil Tabriz, Iran student
‘Abd al-Jalal Jalali wakil Kirmanshah, Iran
Musa al-Sadr wakil Tyre, Lebanon student
(from 1959)
‘Alawi al-Ghurayfi wakil Bahrain student
Faraj al-‘Umran and ‘Ali wukala’ Qatif, Saudi
al-Jayshi Arabia
Muhammad ‘Ali al-‘Amri wakil Medina, Saudi
Arabia
Note
1. This table was compiled with information from Mu’assasa li-l-Dirasat al-Islamiyya, Al-‘Iraq
bayna al-Madi wa-l-Hadir wa-l-Mustaqbal, pp. 540–1, 545; Ibn al-Najaf, Tarikh al-Haraka
al-Islamiyya al-Mu‘asira fi al-‘Iraq, pp. 18–19; al-Sarraj, Al-Imam Muhsin al-Hakim, pp. 60,
112–13; Ahmad al-Husayni al-Ishkiwari, interview, Qum, 21 November 2006; Muhammad
Rida al-Hakim, interview, Qum, 4 December 2006; Muhammad Husayn al-Hakim, interview,
Qum, 12 December 2006; Muhammad Bahr al-‘Ulum, interview, London, 20 July 2007; Salih
al-Hakim, interview, Beirut, 23 and 26 March 2008; ‘Abd al-Amir al-Hakim, interview, Dubai,
28 December 2008.
28
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written by gentlemen of that class, but we never have been able to
find any intelligible explanation of that phenomenon. Yet surely it is
a remarkable one. This country is, in respect of its population, far
more heavily burdened than any of the leading states of Europe—it
has not the climatic advantages of some of them—and it can scarcely
be said to produce the precious metals. Its exports, though
undoubtedly large, were, and are, as nothing to the quantity
produced, intended for the home consumption. It has been
computed, from an investigation of the census taken in 1841, that not
much more than half a million of people, the population being then
nearly twenty seven millions, were employed in the manufacture of
articles for the foreign trade.[33]
It may be useful here to mention that, according to one foreign
statistical authority, Schnabel, the proportion of taxes paid yearly by
each individual in Great Britain, France, and Prussia, was in the
following ratio:—
Great Britain, 18
France, 11⅔
Prussia, 5½
And the comparative rate of agricultural wages is stated thus by

Rau, in his Lehrbuch der Politischen Oekonomie:—
S. D.
Great Britain, (average,) 1 6
France, (do.) 1 0¾
East Prussia, 0 4⅔
These figures, of course, may be slightly inaccurate, but they are

sufficient to show the great variation, both in taxation and wages,
which prevails in the three countries which are here specified; and
we have no reason to believe that, during the few years which have
elapsed since these calculations were made, any material difference
in proportion has taken place. A similar discrepancy prevails in
wages of every kind. For example, Mr Porter tells us that in
Wurtemberg the wages of the artisans in towns are from 1s. 8d. to 4s.
2d. per week; that in Bavaria “labourers are paid at the rate of 8d.
per day in the country, and from 8d. to 1s. 4d. in the towns;” and that
in Saxony “a man employed in his loom, working very diligently from
Monday morning until Saturday night, from five o’clock in the
morning until dusk, and even at times with a lamp, his wife assisting
him in finishing and taking him the work, could not possibly earn
more than 20 groschen (2s. 6d. sterling) per week.” We might have
added many other instances to these, but we judge it to be
unnecessary. We quote them simply for the purpose of showing that
labour in Britain, if heavily taxed, was better remunerated than
elsewhere.
Now, why was it better remunerated? That is—after all that has
been said and written on the subject, and Eolus-bags of oratory, and
hundreds of thousands of reams of paper have been expended on it—
the question, upon the solution of which the merit of the rival
systems depends. It was better remunerated in this way—because in
Great Britain there has been a far greater outlay of capital in every
department and branch of industry, than has been made in any other
country of the world. With us, land has been reclaimed, and brought
under tillage, which elsewhere would have been left in a state of
nature. At an immense cost the difficulties of climate have been
overcome, and the soil rendered productive, and capable of
sustaining an increased number of inhabitants. We must go back
farther than the memory of the present generation can reach, in
order to appreciate the vast nature of the improvements which were
so effected. Since the commencement of the present century, very
nearly four millions of acres, in England alone, have been brought
into cultivation under the Inclosure Acts, besides all that has been
effected by private enterprise—and it is probable that amount
immensely exceeds the other—on land held by a simple tenure.
Eighty years ago, the greater part of the surface of what are now our
best cultivated counties, was covered with heath and ling, and of
course wholly unproductive. It was from this outlay of capital in the
cultivation of the soil that the rapid growth of our towns, and the
great increase of our manufactures, took their rise. The latter cannot
precede—it must always follow the other. The country supplied the
towns with food, and the towns in turn supplied the country with
manufactures. Such being the case, it is evident that the prosperity of
either interest depended greatly upon the circumstances of the other.
If agriculture was depressed, from whatever cause, there was no
longer the same demand as formerly for manufactures; if
manufactures were depressed, the agriculturist suffered in his turn.
But in reality, except from over-trading, and a competition pushed to
an extent which has affected the national interest, it is difficult to
understand how a depression in manufactures for the home trade
could take place, except through and in consequence of agricultural
calamity. The home demand was remarkably steady, and could be
calculated upon with almost a certainty of return. It was reserved for
the enlightened economists of our age to discover that the interests
of agriculture and manufactures were not harmonious. Such, clearly,
was not the theory of our forefathers. The Book of Common Prayer
contains a form of thanksgiving for a good harvest—it has none for a
year of unusual export and import.
We must not, however, pass over without notice, the
circumstances which led to the extraordinary development of
industry and enterprise in Great Britain, in every department.
Without consumers, it is quite evident that agriculture could not
have advanced with such rapid strides; and it is important that there
should be no misunderstanding on this matter. The possession of a
hundred or a thousand acres of land is of little value unless the
owner can command a remunerative market for his produce; nor will
he cultivate his land to the utmost unless he has the assurance of
such a market. It is all very well to say, that, by the expenditure of a
certain sum of money, such and such an amount of crops may be
reared on each acre;—that is a mere feat of agricultural chemistry,
such as Mr Huxtable offered to undertake upon pure sand with the
assistance of pigs’ dung; but the real and only question is—will the
return meet the outlay? Without some unusual and extraordinary
cause to increase the number of consumers, it is clear to us that the
progress of agriculture must have been comparatively slow; and
accordingly, we find that cause in the Continental war, which
continued for nearly a quarter of a century, and which has effected
such mighty changes—the end of which is not yet apparent—in the
social position of Great Britain.
To maintain that war, the resources of this country were taxed to
the utmost. So great were the demands, that they could not possibly
have been met but for two things—one being the result of internal
arrangement, and the other arising from external circumstances. The
first of these was the suspension of cash payments, and the
extension, or rather creation, of credit, arising from an unlimited
paper currency. The second was the monopoly of the foreign
markets, which we engrossed, in virtue of our naval supremacy. No
writer on the social state of Britain, even at the present hour, and no
political economist who does not specially refer to these two
circumstances, are worth consulting. Better put their volumes into
the fire, than discuss effects without regard to their antecedent
cause.
It may be that the extent to which that unlimited currency was
pushed, has since had disastrous results. If unwisely permitted
without control or regulation, it was, as we think, contracted in a
manner even more unwise; and the practical consequence has been
an enormous addition to the weight of the public debt. But without a
currency of very large extent—without the credit which that currency
created—Great Britain could not have continued the struggle so long,
nor brought it to a triumphant issue. It was this that stimulated both
agriculture and manufactures, the latter having, in addition, the
inestimable privilege of the command of the markets of the world,
without any interference of a rival. Reclaimed fields and new
manufactories were the products of that period; and unquestionably
there never was an era in our history when prosperity appeared to be
more generally diffused. If prices were high, so were wages.
Employment was plentiful, because improvement was progressing
on every side, and no jealousy existed between the manufacturer and
the agriculturist. During fifteen years, from 1801 to 1815, the average
annual quantity of wheat and wheat-flour imported to this country
was only 506,000 quarters.
Perhaps it may be instructive here to quote the words of an acute
observer in 1816, regarding the improvements which had taken
place, before any check occurred. The writer of the historical
summary in the Edinburgh Annual Register for that year thus
expresses himself:—
“During the continuance of the last war, many things had conspired to stimulate
to the highest extent the exertions of every class of the people of England. Cut off
by the decrees of Buonaparte from direct intercourse with some of the richest
countries of Europe, the policy which England had adopted in revenge of this
exclusion, had greatly increased the action of those many circumstances which
naturally tended towards rendering her the great, or rather the sole entrepot, of the
commerce of the world. In her the whole of that colonial trade which had formerly
been sufficient to enrich, not her alone, but France and Holland also, had now
centred. The inventive zeal of her manufacturers had gone on from year to year
augmenting and improving branches of industry, in which, even before, she had
been without a rival. The increase of manufactures had been attended with a
perpetual increase in the demand for agricultural produce, and the events of the
two years of scarcity (as they were called) lent an additional spring to the motion of
those whose business it was to meet this demand. The increase which took place in
the agricultural improvements of the island, was such as had never before been
equalled in any similar period of time. Invention followed invention, for
economising labour, and increasing production; till throughout no inconsiderable
part of the whole empire the face of the country was changed. ‘It may safely be
said,’ asserted Mr Brougham, ‘that without at all comprehending the waste lands
wholly added to the productive tenantry of the island, not perhaps that two blades
of grass now grow where one only grew before, but certainly that five grow where
four used to be; and that this kingdom, which foreigners were wont to taunt as a
mere manufacturing and trading country, inhabited by a shopkeeping nation, is, in
reality, for its size, by far the greatest agricultural state in the world!’”
Contrary, perhaps, to the general expectation, the close of the war

and the return of peace operated disastrously upon the internal
interests of the country. Though the manufacturing energies of the
Continent had been checked, its agriculture was ready and available;
and accordingly, no sooner were the ports opened than prices fell at
an alarming rate. The result was not only immediate agricultural
distress in Britain, but the greatest depression in every branch of
manufacture connected with the home trade. The agricultural
distress needs no explanation. The vast improvements on land had
been made with borrowed money; and when prices went down, the
proprietor too often found himself unable from his rents to pay the
bare interest of the money expended. Yet, had these improvements
not taken place, how could Britain have continued the struggle so
long—how could her manufacturing population have been fed? These
are questions never considered now, especially by those agitators
who revile the landlords, or rather the Legislature, for the imposition
of the Corn Laws; but the truth is, that, unless the corn duty had
been then imposed, England must, within a very few years, either
have exhibited the humiliating spectacle of a bankrupt and ruined
state, or been plunged in revolution. The distress rapidly spread to
the manufacturers—for example, those engaged in the silk trade, and
the iron and coal-workers of Staffordshire and Wales. The fall in the
price of corn produced its natural effect by limiting the consumption
of everything else; and, as if to crown the calamity, the exporting
manufacturers, in their eagerness for gain, committed precisely the
same blunder, from the effects of which they are now suffering so
severely; and by creating a glut in the Continental markets, they both
annihilated their own profits, and excited such an alarm in foreign
governments as to give rise to a system of prohibitory duties, which
continues to the present hour. Then followed the resumption of cash
payments, with all its train of ruin—a measure which, whether
necessary or not in principle, could not have been carried but for the
existence of a corn law, which in some degree mitigated its pressure.
In a country so loaded with debt as ours, it is in vain to talk, as
Lord John Russell lately did, of a “natural price.” The term, indeed,
has no kind of significance under any circumstances; and we are
perfectly certain that the noble lord, when he employed it, was not
attempting to clothe a distinct idea in words. He found the phrase
somewhere—perhaps borrowed it from the Economist—and used it,
because he thought it sounded well. If he could reduce the price of all
commodities here to the level of that which prevails in a Continental
country—a consummation which appears to be contemplated and
desired by the Free-Traders—the result would necessarily be a like
decadence of our wealth—not accompanied, however, by a relaxation
of our present burdens. The high wages which the working-classes
receive in this country, contrasted with the low wages which are
given elsewhere, depend upon the return which is yielded to the
capitalist who calls their labour into being. Now, let us see what
effect depression in any one great branch of industry exercises upon
the working-classes, who are not immediately dependent upon it for
their subsistence.
This involves one of the most curious phenomena in economical
science. When an interest is depressed, it does not always happen—
especially in the first stage of depression—that the labourers
attached to that interest feel immediately the consequences of the
decline. Agricultural wages, for example, do not fluctuate according
to the price of wheat. The retrenchment which becomes necessary in
consequence of lessened returns is usually effected, in the first
instance at least, by curtailment of personal expenditure on the part
of the cultivator—by abstinence from purchases, not necessary
indeed, but convenient—and by that species of circumspect, but
nameless thrift, which, at the end of a year, makes a very
considerable difference in the amount of tradesmen’s bills. This kind
of retrenchment is the easiest, the safest, and the most humane; and
it is not until the depression becomes so great as to render other and
more stringent modes of economising necessary, that the agricultural
labourer is actually made to feel his entire dependence upon the
land, and the interest which he has in its returns. The small
tradesmen and dealers in the country and market towns are usually
the first to discern what is called the pressure of the times. They find
that the farmers are no longer taking from them the same quantity of
goods as before; that their stocks, especially of the more expensive
articles, remain on their hands unsold; and that there is no demand
for novelties. If the depression goes so far as to necessitate a
diminution of rental, then the same economy, but on a wider scale, is
practised by the landlord. Expensive luxuries are given up,
establishments contracted, and the town’s-people begin to complain
of a dull season, for which they find it impossible to account, seeing
that money is declared to be cheap. All this reacts upon the artisans
very severely; because in towns labour has a far less certain tenure
than in the country; and when there is a cessation of demand,
workmen, however skilled, are not only liable, but certain to be
dismissed. If the shopkeeper cannot get his goods off his hands, the
manufacturer need not expect to prevail upon him to give any farther
orders. The demand upon the mills becomes slack, and the
manufacturer, finding that there is no immediate prospect of revival,
considers it his duty to have recourse to short time.
This is precisely what has been going on for the last two years.
Landlords and farmers have curtailed their expenditure in
consequence of the great fall of prices; and the parties who have
actually suffered the most are the tradesmen with whom they
commonly deal, and the artisans in their employment. It is
impossible to affect materially the gigantic interest of agriculture
without striking a heavy blow at the prosperity of home
manufactures; and unfortunately these manufactures, or at least
many branches of them, are now liable to foreign competition. If it
should be allowed that this is a true statement of the case—and we
cannot see how it can be controverted—then it will appear that the
working-classes, the vast majority of whom are engaged in producing
for the home market, have lost largely in employment if they have
gained by cheaper food.
And it is most remarkable, that in proportion as food has become
cheap in this country, so has emigration increased. That is
apparently one of the strangest features of the whole case. What
contentment can there be in a nation when the people are deserting
their native soil by hundreds of thousands? They did not do so while
the other system was in operation. Whatever were the faults of
Protection, it did not give rise to scenes like the following, which we
find quoted in the Economist of 17th April, as if it were something
rather to be proud of than otherwise. The pious editor entitles it “The
Exodus.” Certainly he and his friends have made Ireland the reverse
of a land flowing with milk and honey:—
“The flight of the population from the south is thus described by the Clonmel
Chronicle:—‘The tide of emigration has set in this year more strongly than ever it
has within our memories. During the winter months, we used to observe solitary
groups wending their way towards the sea-coast, but since the season opened, (and
a most beautiful one it is,) these groups have been literally swelled into shoals, and,
travel what road you may, you will find upon it strings of cars and drays, laden
with women and children and household stuffs, journeying onward, their final
destination being America. In all other parts of the country it is the same. At every
station along the rail, from Goold’s Cross to Sallins, the third-class carriages
receive their quota of emigrants. The Grand Canal passage-boats, from Shannon
harbour to Sallins, appear every morning at their accustomed hour, laden down
with emigrants and their luggage, on their way to Dublin, and thence to Liverpool,
whence they take shipping for America.’”
And yet this wholesale expatriation is so far from appearing a

disastrous sign, that it does not even excite a word of comment from
the cold-blooded man of calculations. Truly there are various points
of similarity between the constitution of the Free-Trader and the
frog!
Remarkable undoubtedly it is, and to be remarked and
remembered in all coming estimates of the character and ability of
the men, styling themselves statesmen, whose measures have led to
the frightful depopulation of a part of the British Empire.
Remarkable it is, but not to be wondered at, seeing that the same
thing must occur in every instance where a great branch of industry
is not only checked, but rendered unprofitable. Succeeding
generations will hardly believe that it was the design of the Whigs
and the Free-Traders to feed the Irish people with foreign grain, and
so promote their prosperity, at a time when their sole wealth was
derived from agricultural produce. Just fancy a scheme for
promoting the prosperity of Newcastle by importing to it coals to be
sold at half the price for which that article is at present delivered at
the pit-mouth! Conceive to yourselves the ecstasy which would
prevail in Manchester if Swiss calicoes were brought there to be
vended at rates greatly lower than are now charged by the master
manufacturers! Undoubtedly the people of Newcastle and the
operatives of Manchester would in that case pay less than formerly
both for fuel and clothing—both of them “first articles of necessity;”
but we rather imagine that no long time would elapse before there
were palpable symptoms of a very considerable emigration. And lest,
in their grand reliance in a monopoly of coals and cottons, the Free-
Traders should scoff at our parallels as altogether visionary, we
challenge them to make a trial in a case which is not visionary. Let
them take off the manufacturing protective duties which still exist,
and try the effect of that measure upon Birmingham, Sheffield, and
Paisley. Of course they know better than to accept any such
challenge; but we warn the manufacturers—and let them look to it in
time—that the day is rapidly drawing near when all these duties must
be repealed, unless justice is done to the other suffering interests. If
they persist in asking Free Trade, and in refusing all equivalents or
reparation for the mischief they have done, they shall have Free
Trade, BUT ENTIRE. Then we shall see whether they—with all their
machinery, all their ingenuity, and all their capital—with all their
immunity from burdens which are imposed upon other classes—with
all the stimulus given to them by the income-tax, now levied since
1842, in order that taxes weighing on the manufacturing interest
might be repealed—can compete on open terms in the home market
with the manufacturers of the Continent. Do not let them deceive
themselves; that reckoning is nigh at hand. They must be content to
accept the measure with which they have meted to others; and we tell
them fairly, that they need not hope that this subject will be any
longer overlooked. Not one rag of protection can be left to
manufactures of any kind, whether made up or not, if Free Trade is
to be the commercial principle of the country. If so, the principle
must be universally recognised.
What is now taking place in Ireland, must, ere long, we are
convinced, take place in Britain. Nay, in so far as Scotland is
concerned, the same symptoms are exhibited already, almost in the
same degree. In one point of view, we cannot deplore the emigration.
If it is fated that, through the blindness and cupidity of men whose
religious creed consists of Trade Returns, and whose sole deity is
Mammon, the system which has contributed so much to the
greatness and wealth of the nation, and which has created a garden
out of a wilderness, is to be abandoned for ever, it is better that our
people should go elsewhere, and find shelter under a government
which, if not monarchïcal, may be more paternal than their own. It is
a bitter thing, that expatriation; but it has been the destiny of man
since the Fall. They will find fertile land to till in the prairies of the
West—they will have blue skies above them, and a brighter sun than
here; and, if that be any consolation to them in their exile, they may
still contribute to the supply of food to the British market, without
paying, as they must have done had they continued here, their quota
to the taxes of the country. But we must fairly confess that we feel
less sympathy for those who go than for those who are compelled to
linger. Until the home demand is revived—which can only be in
consequence of the enhanced value of home produce—we can see
nothing but additional misery in store for all those artisans and
operatives who are unconnected with the foreign trade. With regard
to that trade, we have yet to learn how it has prospered. Those who
are engaged in it admit that, in spite of increased exports—which, be
it remembered, do not by any means imply increased demand—their
reasonable hopes have been disappointed; and that in regard to the
countries from which we now derive the largest supply of corn, their
exports have materially decreased. That is a symptom of no common
significance; for it shows that, simultaneously with the increase of
their agriculture, those countries are fostering and extending their
own manufactures. As for the other—the home trade—it is, by the
unanimous acknowledgment of our opponents, daily dwindling; and
the income of the country—as the last returns of the property-tax,
which do not by any means disclose the whole amount of the deficit,
have shown us—has fallen off six millions within the last two years.
Were we to add the diminution on incomes under £150 per annum,
we have no doubt whatever that the loss would be found to amount
to more than three times that sum. All that is so much lost to the
retailer and home manufacturer. For a time, even yet, cheapness may
serve to palliate and disguise the evil; but it cannot do so long. Many
important branches of industry, such as the iron trade, are in a state
of extreme depression. The evil is not confined to the mother
country; it is impoverishing the fairest parts of our colonial empire.
Some of the sugar-growing colonies are on the verge of
abandonment. Unless a very different policy from that adopted by
the Liberals is pursued and sanctioned by the people of this country,
the catastrophe cannot long be delayed; and then, perhaps, the
British public, though too late, may be instructed as to the relative
value of colonial possessions of our own, and those belonging to
states which do not recognise reciprocity.
Years ago, when the Free-Traders were in the first blush of their
success, and the minds of men were still inflamed with the hot fever
of speculation, the advocates of the new system were requested to
state in what way they proposed to employ that mass of labour which
must necessarily be displaced by the substitution of so much foreign
produce instead of our own. They answered, with the joyousness of
enthusiasm, that there would be room enough and to spare in the
factories for every man who might so be thrown out of employment.
It was not until an after period that the stern and dreary remedy of
emigration was prescribed and enforced—not until it had become
apparent from experience that all their hopes of increased profit
from foreign trade and expected reciprocity were based upon a
delusion. Then indeed the misery which had been created by reckless
legislation was exalted into a cause for triumph, and the Exodus of
the poor from the land of their birth, wherein they no longer could
find the means of labour, was represented as a hopeful sign of the
future destinies of the country.
We are very far, indeed, from blaming those who, at the present
time, declare themselves averse to any violent changes, and who
think that some remedy and redress may be given, without having
recourse to an entire alteration of the principle upon which our
present commercial policy is based. It may be that time is yet
required before the effects of Free Trade can be fully felt and
appreciated by some of the classes of this country; and, certainly, the
first step which ought to be taken in the new Parliament, should be a
readjustment of taxation, corresponding to the altered circumstances
of the community. Of course, as this demand is founded strictly upon
justice, it will be opposed strenuously by many of those who glory in
their Liberal opinions; but we believe that the great bulk of the
British people, whatever may be their thoughts on other points, have
that regard to justice, that they will not countenance oppression. It
may be that the agricultural classes cannot yet expect to receive that
measure of relief which they have waited and hoped for so long. The
partial failure of the last harvest on the Continent, though it has not
brought up prices to a remunerative level, has had more than the
effect of checking their further decline; and that circumstance, we are
bound to admit, may have some influence on the minds of many who
are slow to believe that foreign importations can really affect the
permanence of British agriculture. The experience of another season
may be necessary to open their eyes. So far as we can gather from the
opinions of men who are engaged in the trade, and who are best
qualified to form a judgment upon such subjects, we may look almost
immediately for a great increase of importations, and a rapid decline
of prices. The failure on the Continent did not extend to the wheat
crop—it was limited to the rye and potatoes, the customary food of
the peasantry; and it is now ascertained that there is a large surplus
of wheat ready to be thrown into our ports. But it would be out of
place to discuss such points just now. The verdict lies with the
country, to which Lord Derby has appealed. If that verdict should not
be of a nature to enable him at once to apply a remedy to agricultural
distress, by the reimposition of a duty on corn, then we must look in
the first instance to such a readjustment of burdens as shall at least
give fair play to the cultivator of the soil. But there is much more
than this. The strength of the Protective case lies in its universal
application to all classes of the community; and it is not we, but our
opponents, who affect to regard it as a question in which no one is
interested beyond the landlord and the tenant. We look upon it as of
vital importance to the retailer, the tradesman, the artisan, and the
home manufacturer, and to all who labour for them; and it appears
to us that the time has now arrived when a full and searching
Parliamentary inquiry should be made on the subject of the cheap
loaf in connection with the rate of wages, and the prosperity of the
home trade. Surely the Free-Traders can have no reason to object to
this. They ground their case on philanthropy and regard to the
interest of the poor and labouring man, and in that respect we are
both agreed. Well then;—if, as we think and say, agricultural distress,
occasioned by the low prices which have prevailed in consequence of
the large importations of foreign corn, has had the effect of lessening
employment generally throughout the country—a position which, in
our mind, is much strengthened by the enormous and
unprecedented increase of emigration—surely that proposition is
capable of tangible proof or equally distinct refutation. Let us know,
from authentic sources, not from partial or interested assertion,
whether, along with the cheap loaf, the people have had full and
remunerative employment—whether the condition of the working-
classes and of the home interests has been improved by the change
or not. The inquiry undoubtedly would be an extended, but at the
same time a most valuable one. It would necessarily, in order to
arrive at a fair and thorough understanding of the subject, embrace
the present state of every trade as contrasted with that of former
years—it would show us in what way the home market has been
affected by what we must still be allowed to term a diminution of the
means of the purchaser. Surely such a subject as this is well worth
the pains of inquiry. Parliament cannot be better occupied than in
receiving evidence upon the condition of the people. And we cannot
rate too highly, either for the present or the future, the importance of
such an investigation in checking and correcting, or, it may be, in
confirming the doctrines of political economy, as they are usually
quoted and received.
Some, no doubt, may be interested in opposing such an inquiry.
We have little expectation that the Manchester men will accede to
any such reasonable proposal; for, as we have already said, we regard
this outcry of theirs for wild and sweeping reform simply as a ruse to
withdraw the attention of the public from the disastrous effects of
their lauded commercial system. Lord John Russell and his
immediate Liberal followers would probably oppose such an inquiry
as impious, because casting a doubt on the infallibility of Whig
tradition. But we are convinced that sensible and moderate men, of
every shade of opinion, would rejoice to see this vexed question
brought to something like a practical test; so that, whatever policy
England may pursue for the future, it shall at least have for its object
that of promoting the welfare and the happiness of the people.
Printed by William Blackwood & Sons, Edinburgh.
1. Notes on the Distribution of Gold throughout the World. London: James

Wyld, 1851.
2. An Historical Inquiry into the Production and Consumption of the Precious
Metals. By William Jacob, Esq., F.R.S. London: 1851.
3. California: its Past History, its Present Position, its Future Prospects, p. 77.
4. We leave our readers to form their own opinion of the following passage
from Mr Theodore Johnson’s “Sights in the Gold Region:”—Speaking of the Padres
of the old mission of San Francisco Dolores, he says, “That these priests were
cognisant of the abundance of the precious metal at that period is now well known;
but they were members of the extraordinary society of the Jesuits, which, jealous of
its all-pervading influence, and dreading the effect of a large Protestant emigration
to the western as well as to the eastern shores of America, applied its powerful
injunctions of secresy to the members of the order; and their faithful obedience,
during so long a period, is another proof both of the strength and the danger of
their organisation.”—(Second Edition, p. 104.)
5. Reports of British Association for 1849—Appendix, p. 63.
6. Jacob, i. chap. x. passim.
7. Murchison—Reports of British Association, 1849, (Appendix, pp. 61, 62.)
8. “In the Temeswar Bannat the washings were performed exclusively by the
gypsies, who display great skill in finding it. They dig chiefly on the banks of the
river Nera, where more gold is found than in the bottom of the stream.”—Jacob, i.
p. 245.
9. A Ride over the Rocky Mountains. By the Hon. Henry J. Coke, p. 359.
10. Sights in the Gold Region, and Scenes by the Way. By Theodore J.
Johnson. Second Edition. New York, 1850.
11. Quoted by Jacob, vol. i. pp. 56, 57.
12. The Mormons, or Latter-Day Saints, (a cotemporary history,) p. 227.
London, 1851.
13. Jacob, i. p. 246, note.
14. Jacob, ii. pp. 263, 264, note.
15. A pood is 36 lb. Russian, of which 100 are about 90 English avoirdupois;
and a solotnik, 1–96th of a Russian pound, or about 65½ troy grains.
16. Rose, Reise nach dem Ural, &c., chaps. ii. iv. viii. Berlin, 1842.
17. Compare Wyld, p. 26, with Jacob, ii. pp. 62, 167.
18. Jacob, i. p. 56. In copying the above extract from Diodorus, we inserted the
word quartz in brackets after his word “marble,” under the impression that the old
Egyptian mines were, like the similar ones in California, really situated in veins of
quartz, and not of marble. We have since communicated with a gentleman who,
about twenty years ago, accompanied M. Linant, a French engineer in the service
of Mehemet Ali, to examine these mines, and he informs us that the gold was really
found in quartz veins traversing a black slaty rock. The locality, as may be seen in
Sharpe’s Chronology and Geography of Ancient Egypt, plate 10, is in the Eastern
Desert, about the middle of the great bend of the Nile, and about the 21st parallel.
The samples of rock brought down by M. Linant were considered rich enough to
justify the despatch of a body of miners, who were subsequently attacked by the
natives, and forced to abandon the place. A strong government would overcome
this difficulty; and modern modes of crushing and extraction might possibly render
the mines more productive than ever. A very interesting account of these mines is
to be found in a work by Quatremere de Quincy—“Notice des Pays voisins de
l’Egypte.”
19. Ibid. p. 247.
20. Fournet, Etudes sur les Depôts Metallifers, p. 167.
21. The reader will be interested by satisfying himself of this fact, so peculiar
to Victoria, and so favourable to it as a place of settlement. He will find it pictured
before his eye in the newly-published small and cheap, but beautifully executed,
School Physical Atlas of Mr Keith Johnston.
22. Jacob, i. p. 55.
23. Ibid. ii. p. 267.
24. Fournet, p. 169.
25. Cortes invaded Mexico in 1519; Pizarro landed in Peru in 1527; and Potosi
was discovered in 1545.
26. Rose, Reise nach dem Ural, i. 555–7.
27. To some of our readers this remark may call to mind the beautiful process
of Mr Lee Pattinson, of Newcastle, for refining lead, by which so much more silver
is now extracted from all our lead ores, and brought to market.
28. Commercial Dictionary, edit. 1847, p. 1056.
29. Quoted in Johnston’s Notes on North America, vol. ii. pp. 216, 217.
30. The Life and Letters of Barthold George Niebuhr, with Essays on his
Character and Influence. By the Chevalier Bunsen and Professors Brandis and
Loeball. In 2 vols.
31. Every one remembers that Goethe’s last words are said to have been,
“More Light;” and perhaps what has occurred in the text may be supposed a
plagiarism from those words. But, in fact, nothing is more common than the
craving and demand for light a little before death. Let any consult his own sad
experience in the last moments of those whose gradual close he has watched and
tended. What more frequent than a prayer to open the shutters and let in the sun?
What complaint more repeated, and more touching, than “that it is growing dark?”
I once knew a sufferer—who did not then seem in immediate danger—suddenly
order the sick room to be lit up as if for a gala. When this was told to the physician,
he said gravely, “No worse sign.”
32. Claret and Olives, from the Garonne to the Rhone. By Angus B. Reach.
London: 1852.
33. Mr Spackman, in his Analysis of the Occupations of the People, states the
whole number of persons employed in manufactures of every kind at 1,440,908;
the total
annual value of their production in 1841, at

£187,184,292
Whereof, for the Home Trade, £128,600,000
For the Foreign Trade, 58,584,292
187,184,292
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
1. Silently corrected obvious typographical errors and
variations in spelling.
2. Retained archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings
as printed.
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Guardians of Shi Ism Sacred Authority and Transnational Family Networks 1st Edition Elvire Corboz 2024 Scribd Download

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SACRED AUTHORITY AND TRANSNATIONAL FAMILY NETWORKS

Edinburgh University Press Ltd

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ISBN 978 0 7486 9144 9 (hardback)

The right of Elvire Corboz to be identified as author of this

List of Tables and Figures v

Part I Family, Students and Friends: From Dyadic to

Part II Charitable Politics: Benevolent Patrons, Beneficiaries

Charity for Political Loyalty and Recognition in Exile 82

Part III The Affairs of the State: Clerical Participation in

The transliteration of Arabic and Persian words is based on a simpli-

ahl al-bayt ‘people of the house’, a term used to refer to the

imam prayer leader; the imam al-jum‘a is the leader of the

A visitor entering the foyer of the Imam Al-Khoei Islamic Centre in

International’2 – the community of foreign students and scholars populat-

The influence of the Islamic Republic of Iran is the cause of much of

The Social Facets of Clerical Authority

mid-nineteenth century, although the ideal of a unique, supreme, religious

An individual, a group of people or an institution earns prestige by dint

who can be involved in its provision, charity offers a multitude of ways to

Transnational Authority between Communities and States

Accordingly, transnational clerical authority takes on meaning in and

prerequisite that ‘transnational activities must be in the interest of those

for itself. While regimes and decision-making apparatuses often

Two Families of Religious Scholars

importance of scholarly tradition as a source of their fame. As explained by

Along with nasab, in other words, engagement in clerical life creates a

movement, his religious, social and at times political influence will be

headquarters in London, this international charity has provided religious,

An Iraqi Family of Religious Scholars:

The al-Hakim family is a sayyid family descended from Prophet

networks composed of their relatives and friends, former members of

The Hawza’s Social Capital and the Making of Interpersonal

How to become a marja‘

most importantly being a male of legitimate birth. Descent from a sayyid

published one such treatise, Muntakhab al-Rasa’il (Selection of the

The marja‘iyya’s social organisation

(religious propagation) missions on weekends and during the religious

Table 1.1 Muhsin al-Hakim’s bayt members and representatives.1

Table 1.1 (continued)

And the comparative rate of agricultural wages is stated thus by

These figures, of course, may be slightly inaccurate, but they are

Contrary, perhaps, to the general expectation, the close of the war

And yet this wholesale expatriation is so far from appearing a

Printed by William Blackwood & Sons, Edinburgh.

1. Notes on the Distribution of Gold throughout the World. London: James

annual value of their production in 1841, at

Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions

List of Tables and Figures v

Part I Family, Students and Friends: From Dyadic to

Part II Charitable Politics: Benevolent Patrons, Beneficiaries

Charity for Political Loyalty and Recognition in Exile 82

Part III The Affairs of the State: Clerical Participation in