Responding to a question about the legal status of the Bahaiis,
Ayatollah Hassan-Ali Montazeri, the deposed heir apparent of the late
Ayatollah Khomeini, has issued a historical fatwa which may prove to be
the most important statement in support of the Bahaiis thus far. The man
who established his career by his anti-Bahaii struggles before the 1979
revolution wrote: “The Bahaii sect does not have a revealed book like the
followers of Judaism, Christianity, or Zoroastrianism, and are not
considered a religious minority in the Constitution; but because they are
the residents of this country, they have territorial rights, and benefit
from the rights of citizenship, and they should benefit from the Islamic
gentleness which is so much emphasized by the Quran and our religious
leaders.”

This is the most favorable fatwa on Bahaiis. Lebanon’s Ayatollah Mohammad
Hussein Fadllollah also has issued a sympathetic fatwa. Two other fatwas
by the late Ayatollahs Broujerdi and Golapyegani just prevented Muslims
from mingling with the Bahaiis, although Broujerdi advised against hurting
them.

Ayatollah Montazeri’s fatwa is a watershed because it establishes a new
source of legitimacy for the religious minorities and those out of Islam:
territorial right. Considering that Iran acknowledges blood ties only as
the basis for nationality, to say that Bahaiis need to be protected by the
government because of their territoriality right is a landmark edict.
Moreover, it is quite a new approach in Shi’ite fight to recognize the
right of a group outside religious conviction.

To introduce the concept of citizenship as a new source of legitimacy is a
major step taken by a prominent Shi’ite leader. One may argue that this
is just the confirmation of the rights of “dhemmi” infidels. However,
Ayatollah Montazeri does not mention the rights of dhemmis in his fatwa,
rather, Bahaiis’ rights as citizens. This edict could potentially become a
new source of legitimacy for free thinking and secular Muslims, and
replacement of fate based rights with human rights.

Rasool Nafisi

Robert Dreyfuss, foreign affairs journalist for The Nation, Rolling Stone, Mother Jones, and several other publications, was one of the 13 Americans on a recent Peace Delegation to Iran to discuss US/Iranian relations and foster more peace between the countries in March 2008 along with Transcendence singer/songwriter Ed Hale, author Larry Beinhart, Carah Ong, Iran Program director for the Center for Arms Control and Nonproliferation, and fifty year veteran activist Stephen Chinlund. Dreyfuss just recently published an article on the trip in The Nation Magazine, reprinted below.  

Letter From Iran - by ROBERT DREYFUSS
This article appeared in the May 19, 2008 edition of The Nation.

Across the street from the sprawling shrine to Fatima al-Masumeh,
the revered sister of Imam Reza, the eighth Shiite imam, a group of
campaign workers on a rooftop are busy unfurling wall-sized election
posters for a conservative candidate in Iran’s March parliamentary
election. We’re in downtown Qom, a city of 1 million about 100 miles
southwest of Tehran. Qom is Iran’s religious capital, the wellspring
for a host of fundamentalist clerics who’ve ruled Iran since 1979,
and it is an eerie place. Unlike some other cities in Iran, where
urban professionals, merchants and the middle class try to push back
against onerous restrictions on freedom of expression and women’s
dress, there’s little evidence of that in Qom. Women are cloaked
head to toe in black garments, and turbaned mullahs on motorbikes
are a common sight.

Under a brilliant blue sky, mourners are lining up to enter the
shrine and pay their respects to Fatima, whose remains are entombed
inside an Oz-like green-mirrored vault. Among the mourners, in
formation behind a green banner, are a phalanx of grim-faced,
muscled militiamen, members of the Basij corps, wearing black T-
shirts and black headbands. The Basij is an estimated million-strong
volunteer paramilitary force that serves as an adjunct to the
Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and in 2005 the Basijis voted en
bloc to help elect hard-line Mahmoud Ahmadinejad president.

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