Marja': Difference between revisions

Shi'i authorities usually have a strong influence on their followers and even all the Shi'as, and thus, they can establish their social and political views.<ref>See: Naqībzāda & Amānī, ''Naqsh-i Rūḥānīyyat-i Shīʿa dar pīrūzī-yi inqilāb-i Islāmī'', p. 81-82.</ref> For example, after the fatwa of [[Sayyid Muhammad Mujahid]], a great number of the Shi'as went to war against the Russians<ref>Naqībzāda & Amānī, ''Naqsh-i Rūḥānīyyat-i Shīʿa dar pīrūzī-yi inqilāb-i Islāmī'', p. 99-100.</ref>; the fatwa of the tobacco ban by [[Mirza Shirazi]] led to the abolishment of the tobacco monopoly in Iran<ref>Naqībzāda & Amānī, ''Naqsh-i Rūḥānīyyat-i Shīʿa dar pīrūzī-yi inqilāb-i Islāmī'', p. 102.</ref>; and [[June 5, 1963 Demonstrations]] in Iran to protest the arrest of [[Ayatollah Khomeini]].<ref>Naqībzāda & Amānī, ''Naqsh-i Rūḥānīyyat-i Shīʿa dar pīrūzī-yi inqilāb-i Islāmī'', p. 103.</ref>

According to the Sunni scholar, [[Muhammad Rashid Rida]], no Sunni scholar has had the influence of Shiite mujtahids—especially those educated in the Islamic seminary of Najaf—neither alone nor collectively. He mentions as examples the boycott of elections in Iraq in the period of the King Faisal and the tobacco ban by Mirza Shirazi.<ref>Rashīd al-Riḍā, ''al-Khilāfa aw al-Imāma al-ʿuẓmā'', p. 90.</ref> Samuel Benjamin, a US envoy to Iran, said that the most important mujtahid in Tehran commutes with a mule and has only one servant, but he can end a king's throne with one word.<ref>Abrāhāmian, ''Tārīkh-i Īrān-i mudirn'', p. 41.</ref>