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The decision to defrock a dissident ayatollah – widely considered to wear the mantle of spiritual leader of the opposition – has pried open conflicts within the Islamic Republic’s religious core.

The Qom Theological Lecturers Association, a regime-aligned grouping of clerics, mandated Saturday that Ayatollah Yusuf Sanei’s edicts are no longer religiously binding. The ruling was furiously disputed by the rival Association of the Lecturers and Scholars of Qom Theological Seminary and the Association of Combatant Clerics.

“It’ll be tough work [defrocking Sanei],” says Nicola Pedde, director of the Rome-based Institute for Global Studies and a frequent visitor to Iran. “It’ll provoke a massive movement from the clerical side and, possibly, totally and completely religiously delegitimize the regime.”

The crucial background struggle waged by the government and opposition supporters over religious legitimacy has taken backstage to the high-profile coverage of street-level political and social tensions. But the religious dimension is crucial in an Islamic Republic, where it is customary for members of the majority Shiite Muslim population to select an ayatollah as a religious and social object of emulation and donate to him a fifth of their income.
Maintaining legitimacy by controlling clerical networks

The Islamic Republic has safeguarded its religious legitimacy in the past 30 years by extending its authority over disparate ... >>>