As the 1978–1979 revolution approached, Khomeini’s reactionary conceptions of the ideal social order were all but forgotten. The popular assumption was that Khomeini and, along with him, the rest of the clerical establishment were “revolutionary” in the true sense of the word. But the clerical establishment, which had long been divided among itself, had engaged in little innovation of any kind, either on its own or through the institution of the howzeh. Equally valuable for the victors of the revolution has been the howzeh, a hallowed institution of religious teaching and learning for the better part of a century. For nearly as long, it has been a bastion of jurisprudential traditionalism. Khomeini saw it as archaic. Two decades later, Khamenei extended the state’s capture to the howzeh, bureaucratized it, ensured its financial dependence, and, through added administrative units, made it a practical extension of the state. If the howzeh was ever a forum for jurisprudential innovation, that rare possibility is even rarer now. Not surprisingly, what jurisprudential innovation has taken place, by Khomeini and by successive generations of religious scholars, has been overwhelmingly outside of the howzeh.

In today’s Iran, state–religion relations exhibit three key features. An obvious feature is the deep basis of the state in innovative interpretations of Shia jurisprudence. The Islamic Republic is based on the system of the velayat-e faqih, generally translated in English as the “guardianship of the jurisconsult.” As a concept, the notion of the velayat-e faqih had existed in Shia thought for some time before Ayatollah Khomeini elaborated on it in his 1970 book by the same name. Khomeini’s contribution lay in his innovative interpretation of the velayat-e faqih as a supreme political leader who oversaw not just religious affairs, as previous theologians had theorized but was in overall charge of all affairs of the entire community, profane and political as well as religious. Today, Khomeini’s conception of velayat-e faqih underlies the institutional and political foundations of the Islamic Republic. The Iranian political system is far more ideologically informed, and hence ideological, than may at first meet the eye.