Real or Fake Sayyeds? -- part 3

This is part 3. Please click on the link for Part 1 and 2.

Just a reminder, I am not reproducing every pages from the article. I am only posting materials that have something to do with the topic at hand.


We already looked at the narratives from a few explorers. The author then started discussing the sustainability of the religious class when the revenue from the state is no longer there. The Afghan Qajar Sunni rule in Iran stopped paying stipends to the Shia Ulamas. The Qajar government, by the year 1740, has already usurped all the Shia endowments from the religious class.

Meanwhile, the Iraqi clerics who still possess their sources of revenues from Zakat and Khums, were in a better condition than their Persian counterparts.

These sources of income sustained the religious Shi'ite leaders in the Iraqi shrine cities throughout the late 1700s and formed the basis of their financial independence to pursue their religious and scholarly objectives.

The next discussion was on how the Usooli scholars gain momentum starting from the time of Qajar Persia.

The next few pages are not very relevant with the topic at hand.  Later on the discussion was about the sources of revenues of the religious class from state endowments (stipends, pensions, and functions)

Important ulama and sayyids received stipends and pensions as well as money and other presents during festivals. The leading ulama received large amounts of tithes, alms, and gifts from the believers. The amount of these payments was substantial.

Many of the religious professionals, particularly sayyids, begged or, rather, demanded alms, on the ground of their holy character. The demanding behavior, termed mulla bazi, was not limited to the lower levels of the religious class. In Isfahan the ulama demanded, and obtained by force if need be, one-third of the property if somebody died.

The ulama did this in their own quarter, and the imam-juma all over town (asking yakhasht, or one-eighth). The imam-jum 'a would send an agent who would seal all rooms in a house, even going so far as delaying the burial preparations. The justification for this behavior was that they claimed that the deceased during his life had not paid the khums and zakat tax and/or the sahm i Imam (the Imam's share). There were also religious scholars, such as Muhammad Madi Naraqi, who criticized the hereditary sayyid class for their assumption that piety is an innate quality obtained through lineage.

The sayyids drew so much attention to themselves because they were a kind of religious hereditary nobility, and entitled to part of the khums tax under Shi'i law. Consequently, "it is an act of greater savab (act of merit) to give to a drunken seyid than to the most deserving beggar."

Dieulofoy reported that by 1880 this custom had largely fallen into disuse, though in the large towns, such as Isfahan, where sayyids were numerous they continued to exert much influence and impose themselves in particular on small shopkeepers who did not have the clout to oppose them.

Sayyids therefore enjoyed prestige and this led to a proliferation of sayyids (fabricated or not) because of the material reward this position offered. Many true believers cheated the Imam out of his share by conniving with his descendants, who, for a fair remuneration, would hand out a signed statement that the religious obligatory payment had been truly effected.

To increase their fair share, many people also would dress up their children and/or relatives as beggars and would grant these fake poor their share of the bounty for the poor. If they were religious
professionals they could keep the rest for themselves. Sometimes rich persons, including
religious professionals, did not pay their full contribution either.

To be continued...