UCLA

The marāji‘ are the ultimate source of legal reference for tens of millions of Twelver Shī‘ī Muslims, and yet the nature of their authority has yet to be understood. Muqallids of these jurists have a stronger attachment to them than what is believed to have existed between mufti and mustaftī. This attachment is related to both law and spirituality; the marāji‘ have the exclusive right to give fatwas and collect certain religious taxes, and are also spiritual role models. Both Twelver Shī‘ī jurists and academic scholars have theorized about the nature of this taqlīd and the authority of the marāji‘. However, these theories generally consist of either legalistic arguments that ignore the actual practice of taqlīd or distant observations that borrow from other frameworks that do not necessarily fit due to the particularities of the Twelver Shī‘ī context. This exposition engages with previous theory as well as the biographies and hagiographies of the marāji‘ in order to conceptualize marja‘iyya. It then enhances this understanding with fieldwork conducted in Iran in order to demonstrate how taqlīd operates in practice, which is important considering that the marāji‘ are only legal and spiritual authorities because they have followers, and the extent of their authority is related to the degree to which they are followed. Ultimately, interviews with muqallids reveal that the marāji‘’s authority does not really shape everyday practice, as most of it is learned through culture, and there is little contact with the marāji‘ or reference to their works. And while the marāji‘ may serve as models of spirituality, idealized notions about them indicate that the idea of a marja‘ is shaped at an earlier stage and then projected onto these jurists. This means that the marāji‘ do not so much function as spiritual authorities as much as they represent the identities of their followers.