Friday Prayers Leader Targets President's Wife

Frontline - The public campaign to weaken President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and heighten the authority of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei may have entered a new stage today. In depicting Ayatollah Khameni's status as that of an infallible Imam, Hojatoleslam Kazem Sadighi, leader of Tehran's Friday Prayers, even took a swipe at the president's wife. "One of the cabinet ministers told me, we believe that if his Excellency (Supreme Leader) decrees the divorce of the president's wife, the president's wife will become haram (religiously forbidden) for him and the president will no longer be able to touch her," Sadighi said in his sermon.

As our political columnist Muhammad Sahimi explains:

Friday prayer sermons all over Iran today were dedicated to the authority and power of Ayatollah Khamenei. The increasingly public rift between the two principlist camps has forced supporters of the Supreme Leader to rally around him and emphasize his power. In his sermon today on the University of Tehran campus, where the Tehran's Friday prayer is held, Sadighi said,

"I was meeting some of the cabinet ministers, and surely all of them without exception are Shiites believing in Amir ol-Momenin [Imam Ali, the first Imam of the Shiites, cousin of the Prophet, and also his son-in-law] and emulators of Hazrat-e Agha [His Excellency, Ayatollah Khamenei], before being a government official. One of the ministers told me, 'We believe that if His Excellency decrees the divorce of the president's wife, she will become haram (religiously forbidden) for him and the president will no longer be able to touch her. That is how [the extent to which] we believe in him [Khamenei]."

Sedighi also said,

"We consider the Velaayat-Faghih [guardianship of the Islamic jurist, represented by the Supreme Leader] above and beyond the Constitution. The late Mirza-ye Shirazi ordered the boycott of tobacco in Iran, and there was evidence that Imam Mahdi paid particular attention to it. Had the Constitution recognized Mirza-ye Shirazi as the Supreme Leader? Shiism has always been this way. Shiites have always been and will always be led by the flag of Velaayat-e Faghih. When the Faghih of the era boycotted tobacco, he was living in Iraq, but his decree demonstrated the power of Velaayat in the world and terrified the enemies..."

Sadighi was referring to Ayatollah Sayyed Hassan Shirazi who issued a fatwa in 1890 for boycotting tobacco, after the Persian king, Nasser al-din Shah granted a tobacco concession to Britain that was protested widely by the people. Due to the boycott, the king had to cancel the concession and compensate the British company. But, unlike what Sadighi said, there was no constitution at that time, as Iran was ruled by absolute monarchy.

Sadighi also said, "Not only are the powers of the Velaayat-e Faghih and Hazrat-e Agha as the leader of the country absolute according to the constitution -- Article 4 of the constitution is an umbrella for all the powers -- he is also Marja' Taghlid [source of emulation for the masses] for millions of people both outside and inside the country. Thus, even without the Revolution and the constitution, Grand Ayatollah Khamenei would have been a Marja' with millions of followers and, therefore, the most important person in Shiism."