The Pope's Meeting with Ayatollah Sistani has Implications for Iran

Pope Francis, the head of the worldwide Catholic Church, has arrived in Iraq ahead of a historic meeting with Ayatollah Ali Sistani, an influential Shia source of emulation. Footage was published earlier today of the Pope being received at Baghdad Airport by the Iraqi prime minister, Mustafa Al-Kadhimi, and escorted through Baghdad by motorcycle police: marking the beginning of his first international trip since the outbreak of coronavirus last year.

As well as fostering a stronger connection with Iraq's dwindling Christian community, many of whom were displaced by ISIS, and attending Mass in Erbil later this month, the Pope will travel to Najaf tomorrow to meet with Ayatollah Sistani.

The head of Iraq's Chaldean Catholic Church, Luis Sako, has expressed hope that at the meeting, the 90-year-old Ayatollah Sistani, a source of inspiration to millions of Shia Muslims worldwide, may add his name to the Document on Human Fraternity for World Peace and Living Together. This agreement was first signed in 2019 by Pope Francie and Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb, Grand Imam of Al-Azhar and the highest living Sunni Muslim cleric, and calls for peaceful dialogue, mutual respect and cooperation between religions.

Ali Khamenei's supporters do not want anyone other than he to be treated as leader and representative of the Shiite Muslims of the world. Not only this, but they call Tehran the “Umm al-Qura” (Mother of all Settlements, or the religious capital) of all Islam. Unsurprisingly, they will therefore be unhappy that the Pope has opted to meet with a senior cleric based in Iraq rather than their preferred source of emulation.

Regardless of the outcome, this meeting is a remarkable event that might well have an impact on both politics and interfaith relations in years to come. It is less likely, however, to be well-received by those close to the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

What's at Stake for Iranian Clerics?

Apart from being potentially detrimental to the Islamic Republic given its current stance on foreign policy, if Ayatollah Sistani signs the document, it will implicitly position him in the eyes of many as the world’s foremost Shiite Muslim.

News about the meeting, which is due to take place between March 5 and 8, first broke in Iran in late January. Around four months earlier Hossein Shariatmadari, the Supreme Leader's representative at Kayhan newspaper, had also written in protest against Ayatollah Sistani's meeting with Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, the UN Secretary-General's Special Representative for Iraq.

The complaint was met with retorts from some Iraqi officials who said that with his remarks, Shariatmadari was insulting Ayatollah Sistani. Eventually Shariatmadari issued a climbdown. In his original critique he had claimed that Ayatollah Sistani had called for direct UN monitoring of Iraq's upcoming elections, but the Shia news agency Shafaqna had in fact written that Ayatollah Sistani wanted the monitoring of elections in Iraq to be in line with UN rules. Shariatmadari admitted the misinterpretation on his part, and apologized.

The Delicate Relationship Between the Islamic Republic and Ayatollah Sistani

The Iranian government had somewhat strained relations with Ayatollah Abolqasem al-Khoei, a Najaf-based Iranian-born cleric and arguably Ayatollah Sistani’s predecessor, who was the source of emulation for millions of Shiites until his death in 1992. The Iranian state was less than happy with al-Khoei because he did not involve himself in politics, but it nonetheless maintained a deferential stance toward him throughout his life.

After the death of Ayatollah al-Khoei, Ayatollah Sistani along with several other sources of emulation, including Mohammad Sadeq Rouhani, rose to prominence. In time Ayatollah Sistani came to be recognized as the most learned Shiite authority in Iraq. He became a household name in Iran after the US invasion of Iraq, but long before that he had enjoyed a close relationship with some sources of emulation and officials in the Islamic Republic. His son-in-law and representative in Qom, Javad Shahrestani, is known to have met with Iranian officials on many occasions.

After the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, the differences of approach between Najaf and Qom came to the fore in Iranian media. Those close to the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic initially sought to defame him, with Ahmad Jannati, the secretary of the Guardian Council, infamously calling him an American and British agent at Tehran Friday prayers.

Gradually, however, the Iranian authorities were forced to accept his position as an important spiritual and political leader in his own right. There was a financial component to this as well as a pragmatic one. Former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani writes of Sistani in his memoirs: "The visits [to Iran] by followers of the sources of emulation are many. They spend 300 million tomans a month in Iran.”

By and large, Ayatollah Sistani has had a closer relationship with figures such as Hashemi Rafsanjani and so-called reformists. During the tenure of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, it was said that he had rejected an invitation to visit Ahmadinejad in Iran. In 2008, remarks he allegedly made about the differences between Rafsanjani and Ayatollah Khamenei made headlines around the world. According to Masih Mohajeri, then editor-in-chief of Jomhuri Eslami newspaper, he had told Rafsanjani that he had read his memoir twice realized that there were “deep differences” between him and the Supreme Leader.

Ahmad Masjed-Jamei, the minister of culture and Islamic guidance in Mohammad Khatami's government, also met with Ayatollah Sistani in 2008. He later wrote of the meeting that Sistani had read the book Policies of Akhund Khorasani by Mohsen Kadivar, a cleric critical of Ayatollah Khamenei, as well as some works by Iranian clerics Abdollah Javadi-Amoli and Mohammad Taghi Mesbah Yazdi, and had said he followed developments related to the publication of religious books in Iran.

Two years ago Ayatollah Sistani also met with President Hassan Rouhani. But recently he declined to meet in person Ebrahim Raeisi, the current head of the judiciary – despite having also met with Raeesi’s predecessor Sadegh Larijani.

This might well be to do with the recent alleged misuse of Ayatollah Sistani’s name by Iranian security forces to lure dissident journalist Ruhollah Zam to Iraq, where he was then kidnapped, spirited back to Iran and hanged last December. Zam is understood to have travelled from hisp place of relative safety in Paris to Baghdad in the belief that he would be interviewing Ayatollah Sistani.

Ayatollah Sistani's office later announced in a statement that 50 days before Zam's execution, his representative in Qom had met with the head of the judiciary but was unaware of any planned abduction. Earlier, the theologian Hassan Fereshtian had told the media that evidence showed the Revolutionary Guards had infiltrated Ayatollah Sistani's office. But a source in Sistani’s office told IranWire that the use of Sistani’s name to stage a kidnapping had been an “insult” to him, adding: “This office has played no role in this cowardly plot, and we condemn it.”

Ayatollah Sistani and the Quds Force

The 2018 meeting between Hassan Rouhani and Ayatollah Sistani also raised the issue – not for the first time -of the Shia source of emulation’s dissatisfaction with the activities of the Islamic Republic and the Quds Force in Iraq and the wider region.

At the same time as the visit was taking place, a short video was also posted on the Iranian government’s website stating that the meeting was a message to Iraqi leaders to meet with the President instead of Iranian military figures.

It was removed from the site shortly afterwards, but led to renewed attention on Ayatollah Sistani's displeasure with the Quds Force and his recent refusal to meet with its then-commander Ghasem Soleimani. Al-Sharq al-Awsat newspaper explicitly reported that Ayatollah Sistani was upset with Soleimani's actions in Iraq.

Rafsanjani writes that back in 2013, in reference to the actions of Ahmadinejad's government, Ayatollah Sistani had told him: "You are doing things there that our imitators in Arab countries are indemnified for.”

Ayatollah Sistani also refused to meet with an Iranian-backed "Houthi" Shiite delegation from Yemen in 2016. Then in 2017, through an intermediary, Ayatollah Sistani had advised all Iraqi groups and forces to distance themselves from any “regional project” and to keep in mind that regional or international powers were primarily concerned with furthering their own interests – which were not necessarily aligned with those of Iraq. Separately in a joint statement with Sheikh Eshaq al-Fayyad, Seyed Mohammad Saeed Hakim, and Sheikh Bashir al-Najafi, three other sources of emulation, he also wrote: "People who go to Syria for jihad disobey the orders of religious officials."

Ayatollah Sistani has also issued a fatwa declaring opposition to the presence of Hashd al-Shaabi, an Iranian-backed militant group in Syria. "We have already issued a fatwa emphasizing the legality of military service as a priority in supporting the Iraqi people, their land and their holy places," he said in the ruling. "Despite some progress by our brave fighters in defeating the terrorists, this will last as long as the state of emergency continues."

For their part, however, officials of the Islamic Republic, however, have tried to maintain the appearance of good relations with Ayatollah Sistani and not to highlight their differences in public. Actions, however, speak louder than words.

Related coverage:

IranWire Exclusive: Grand Ayatollah's Office Denounces "Cowardly" Kidnapping of Ruhollah Zam