The Thread of Mu'awiya: The Making of a Marja' Taqlid (Transorientalia)

The marja€˜s or grand ayatollahs are the scholars who sit at the pinnacle of the Shi€˜a religious hierarchy. Normally learned and reclusive men, they nonetheless wield enormous authority through their religious prestige and the funds generated by religious taxes. From their modest homes in the Shi€˜ite shrines cities of Iraq and Iran, their influence reaches across the Shi€˜a world carried by networks of sons, sons-in-law, students, and local clerics. This book reveals the process by which a handful of religious scholars become recognized as grand ayatollahs, the way their influence is exercised, and how they relate to other Shi€˜a clerics and to ordinary believers. Based on scores of interviews with Shi€˜a clerics, this book gives a detailed and human portrait of the inner world of the Shi€˜ite clerical hierarchy. The late Linda Walbridge was an anthropologist of religion specializing in minorities in the Islamic world. Her other works include Without Forgetting the Imam: Shi€˜ism in an American Community, The Most Learned of the Shi€˜a: The Institution of the Marja€˜ Taqlid, and The Christians of Pakistan: The Passion of Bishop John Joseph.