The Role of Grand Ayatollahs and Senior Scholars in Imam Khomeini's Movement and the Islamic Republic

One of the frequently questioned and doubted issues has been the role of senior scholars and grand ayatollahs in political issues especially Imam Khomeini’s movement and the Islamic Republic of Iran. We are looking for answer to this question in this paper. Since we are dealing with an extensive discussion, the role of grand ayatollahs and senior scholars of Najaf and Qom were studied. By analyzing the historical documents we came to this conclusion that during the movement from 1962 to the victory of the Islamic Republic in 1979, almost the majority of the grand ayatollahs contributed in promotion and support of Imam Khomeini’s movement and the Islamic Republic in various degrees in Qom and Najaf by holding consultative meetings, issuing notifications and declarations, sending telegraphs to the governmental authorities, answering different political inquiries, being present in some sanctuaries, and political gatherings. Although there are disagreements among them to some extent on methods and limitations to fight against the previous regime, none of the titles such as “being nonpolitical”, “advocate of separation of religion from politics” and “opposition to formation of Islamic government” could be attributed to these grand ayatollahs.