Muslims agree that the establishment of an Islamic state requires the implementation of Islamic principles and laws. In Iran, Khomeini and his supporters developed doctrinal justifications for uncontested clerical rule to ensure political order and social conformity. By emphasizing “communal interest” in legislation and establishing an extensive institutional mechanism of legal control, the clerics gradually marginalized the Shari'ah and sacrificed the Islamic notion of universality of law for legal territoriality. This legal trend is separating the clerics from their traditional role and is undermining their legitimacy. Ironically, the current attempts at legal and political reform by the reformers, as harshly opposed by the hard‐line clerics, would benefit the clerical class by pursuing a more liberal legal and political agenda consistent with the Shari'ah.

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The history of religious minority politics and rights in Iran dates back to the early periods of the ancient Persian Empire. With the passage of time, expansion of the empire led to increased religious pluralism that necessitated official religious tolerance and accommodation. With the adoption of Shi’a Islam as the official religion of the country at the outset of the 16th century, which was largely motivated by the monarchs’ search for greater political legitimacy, Shi’ism was gradually linked to Persian monarchism and was effectively integrated into the Persian national identity and values. The growing influence of Shi’ism empowered the Shi’a clerical establishment that effectively sought exclusionary and discriminatory policies toward religious and sectarian minorities. With the establishment of the Islamic Republic in the aftermath of the revolution in the late 1970s, religious minority politics in Iran gained a more complex and nuanced dimension that facilitated Shi’a dominance and ushered in increasingly exclusionary and discriminatory governmental policies that have undermined religious and sectarian minority rights. This article surveys the history of religious pluralism and regulation in pre-Islamic Persia as well as pre-revolutionary Iran, and examines the legal and practical underpinnings of religious regulation in the Islamic Republic. While Islam does account for certain exclusive rights for Muslims in an Islamic state, it explicitly rejects discrimination against the Peoples of the Book (ahl-al Kitab). To a large extent, the current discriminatory practices against religious and sectarian minorities in Iran are rooted in the regime’s advocacy for sectarian exclusivity and political self-interests, which have very little to do with the Islamic worldview.

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Abstract:In this paper, we offer some preliminary insights into a comparison of Islam and Roman Catholicism as transnational or "transcivilizational" political phenomena. We note that both traditions are monotheistic, offer universalist theologies, and have played important political roles both historically and in contemporary national and international politics. The comparison provides some additional insights into the role of "the sacred" in politics at various levels, and presents the possibility of an intermediate level of analysis in comparative politics.