In order to create another political and religious pole in...

In order to create another political and religious pole in the face of the Ottoman sultan-caliphs, he ferociously imposed his ideas and ultimately declared Imamism to be the state religion of Iran.

Drawing its legitimacy from its doctrinal adherence, the Safavid power needed a religious “system.” Besides local doctor-theologians, religious authorities were invited from Syria, Bahrain, and Arabian Iraq to put into place a veritable “ideological” armature, in order to support the Safavid idea of Imamism. A whole religious structure, to avoid the term “official Church,” controlled by the state was put into place.

Simultaneously, the religious system gave birth to a body of independent Doctors of the Law vis-a-vis the powers that be. 718 The disappearance of the charisma of the sovereigns, the failure of the religious politics of the state, and serious economic crises created a condition of wavering and uncertainty, the beneficiaries of which were the independent Doctors.

719 With the exception of a few cases of desperate resistance on the part of sovereigns, it can be said that from the time of Shah Tahmasb I’s reign (931/1524 to 984/1576), power effectively fell into the hands of the Doctors of the Law.

720 The School of usuli (“rationalist”) theologians, who carried on the thought of al-Mufid or al-Allama al-Hilli , was restructured at this time, and it displaced (although not without violence) the old akhbari (“traditionalist”) School; thus the idea of ijtihad, supported by the theologian’s personal dialectical reasoning, officially and effectively became one of the methodological bases of Imamite law.

721 Ijtihad brought significant political and religious power to the jurist-theologian who used it (the mujtahid). The mass of faithful, incapable of reaching the level of ijtihad, was relegated to relying on “imitation” (taqlid), that is, to following the mujtahid and his instructions scrupulously (painstakingly).

The mujtahid was promoted to the rank of “general representative of the hidden imam” (naib-e amm-e imam), and the four “representatives” of the period of the minor Occultation were henceforth named “the particular representatives of the imam” (naib-e khass). 722 The fiqh, which tends to be usuli, easily became the dominant discipline of Islamic studies, and eclipsed the other sciences almost totally.