The Influence of Shiʿi Political Thought on the Relationship between the Sultan and the Ulama in the Qajar Era

Abstract

This article examines the influence of Shiʿi political thought on the relationship between the sultan and the ulama in the Qajar era. The central problem of the study is how Qajar monarchy, ruling over a predominantly Shiʿi society, depended on religious language, support for shariʿa, and interaction with the ulama in order to stabilize its authority, while the ulama, relying on religious authority, social influence, and their interpretive position regarding shariʿa, entered into a relationship with the monarchy that was cooperative, supervisory, critical, and at times conflictual. The study adopts a historical-analytical method and interprets the political and religious concepts embedded in Qajar texts, institutions, and political developments. The findings show that Shiʿi political thought transformed the relationship between the sultan and the ulama into a multilayered relationship through concepts such as imamate, occultation, deputyship, shariʿa, justice, obedience, preservation of order, avoidance of sedition, and criticism of oppression. Within this framework, the Qajar shah sought to represent himself as the protector of religion, guardian of order, and refuge of the subjects, yet his legitimacy remained incomplete without reference to the ulama and shariʿa-based criteria. Conversely, the ulama were not merely passive legitimizers of monarchy; as interpreters of religious law, social mediators, and holders of public influence, they could endorse, restrain, or criticize royal authority. Late Qajar developments, especially the Tobacco Protest and the Constitutional Revolution, demonstrated that the same Shiʿi political thought that could support the preservation of monarchical order under certain circumstances could, under different conditions, become a foundation for criticizing despotism and demanding law, justice, and limitation of royal power. The article concludes that the relationship between the sultan and the ulama in the Qajar era was neither a complete alliance between religion and monarchy nor a full separation between them, but rather a tense and changing coexistence that helped prepare the ground for Iran’s political transition toward constitutionalism and legal accountability.