The Hujjatiyyah Factor and the Iranian Regime Today

This text investigates the cult which Ahmadinejad is suspected of belonging to. In the Asia Times article “Shi’ite supremacists emerge from Iran’s shadows” we read that former Iranian president Muḥammad Khatamī railed against a “powerful organization” which currently runs the nation with “shallow-thinking traditionalists” and their “Stone-Age backwardness.” The purpose here is to sketch the views of this secret society with the aim of ascertaining their foreign policy implications. It is not a comprehensive history of the group. The interest here is not to debate particulars, but to present the facts gathered, and to analyze these facts with a scholastic understanding of Shī`ī millenarian theology. This understanding is what reports on the movement generally lack, thus often causing them to draw incorrect conclusions about Ḥujjatiyyah beliefs, or political orientation.