Abstract
For long, scholarship on political Islam has confronted the question: How does a revolutionary movement built on promises of justice, piety, and popular sovereignty transform into an entrenched authoritarian regime? Few cases illuminate this puzzle as vividly as the Islamic Republic of Iran, and few scholars are as well-positioned to explore it as Mehran Kamrava, Professor of Government at Georgetown University in Qatar and Director of the Iranian Studies Unit at the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies. In How Islam Rules in Iran: Theology and Theocracy in the Islamic Republic, Kamrava traces the Islamic Republic’s evolution from a revolutionary theocracy into a “full-blown theocratic dictatorship.”
Kamrava focuses on the paradoxes and contestations that have shaped the theological and political foundations of the Islamic Republic. Central to his analysis is the emphasis on the process of capturing of the state by the clerical establishment in 1979 by institutionalizing velayat-e faqih (guardianship of the jurist) and Islamizing politics. Yet, over time, the state captured the howzeh (seminary) and bureaucratized the clergy, eroding its independence. As Kamrava observes, this “clerical capture of the state was steady, methodical, and constitutionally codified,” and “the Iranian theocracy set its sights on the one politically autonomous institution that the clergy itself had, namely the seminary (howzeh)” (p. 11).
The book proceeds thematically and chronologically, tracing the intellectual, political, and theological evolution of post-revolutionary Iran: Khomeini’s radical politicization of Shi’a jurisprudence, the transformation of velayat-e faqih from a supervisory role to absolute clerical rule, the rise of reformist and democratic thought, the consolidation of power under Khamenei (“Khameneism”), and the growing crisis between a rigid, authoritarian state and a changing society. Kamrava employs a rich tapestry of sources—from constitutional debates to the writings of clerics, reformists, and dissidents—to illustrate not only how Islamic governance was theorized and operationalized but also how it became contested from within. In doing so, the book builds on the earlier studies to connect intellectual history with debates on theocratic governance and authoritarian resilience in the Middle East.
Kamrava succeeds in offering a sweeping intellectual and political history of the Islamic Republic, yet the book’s greatest strength lies in how it captures the contradictions of a system that sought to sacralize politics but ended up, as he writes, leading to the “self-secularization” of the state itself (p. 303). By integrating theological debates with institutional analysis, Kamrava shows that Iran’s theocracy has been anything but static; rather, it has been marked by tensions between absolutists and reformists, divine and popular sovereignty, Islamization and secularization, revolution and authoritarian entrenchment.
One of the book’s original contributions is its conceptualization of the dual capture thesis: The clerics captured the state after 1979, only for the state to subsequently capture the clerics. Kamrava argues that this process hollowed out the intellectual vitality of the Shi’a seminaries: “The howzeh’s bureaucratization has had several unintended consequences […] reduced creativity, individuality, and innovation by seminary students and teachers alike; and overwhelming dependence on the state” (p. 46). The paradox is stark: By embedding themselves in state power, the clerics lost both their autonomy and much of their moral authority.
Equally compelling is the book’s treatment of Khomeini’s jurisprudential revolution. Kamrava shows how Khomeini transformed Shi’a fiqh from a quietist tradition into an activist, state-centric ideology, culminating in the radical theory of absolute velayat-e faqih. Khomeini, he notes, was “the first Shia cleric to propose direct, and absolute, rule by a faqih” (p. 80), even asserting that “governance […] takes priority over all secondary injunctions, including even prayer, fasting, and hajj” (p. 98). This was not just a theological innovation but a political one, providing the Islamic Republic with unprecedented flexibility to prioritize state interests over religious injunctions—a move that critics later claimed “succeeded in secularizing Islam” rather than sacralizing politics (p. 103).
The book also excels in uncovering dissenting voices from within the clerical establishment. Figures like Ayatollah Montazeri, once Khomeini’s heir apparent, later lamented that “we should have made the leader subject to popular oversight […] power should not have been concentrated in the hands of a cleric” (p. 135). Such reflections reveal that Iran’s theocracy has always contained the seeds of its own critique, even if these were ultimately suppressed as the doctrine of divine legitimacy—championed by hardliners like Mesbah Yazdi and consolidated under Khamenei—became ascendant in the Islamic Republic’s political order.
Yet there are a few gaps in the book. It sometimes relies more on a top-heavy, intellectual history approach, privileging elite debates over the lived experiences of ordinary Iranians. While protests, dissent, and social change appear in the final chapter—where Kamrava observes that “the mismatch between a state […] guided by absolutist ideals […] and a society that yearns to engage its universe on its own terms […] cannot possibly be any more stark” (p. 298)—the discussions appear underdeveloped compared to the detailed exposition of clerical thought. Additionally, the narrative occasionally risks portraying the Islamic Republic as idealist, stable, and united when in practice factionalism, personal rivalries, and pragmatic compromises have often shaped outcomes as much as ideology.
Nonetheless, the concept of “Khameneism” is a powerful analytical frame. Under Khamenei, Kamrava argues, Iran has moved toward “a theocratic monarch ruling in the name of God with more extensive powers than any constitutional monarch or elected president in the world” (p. 233). This system, defended by ideologues like Mesbah Yazdi, who claimed “the velayat-e faqih has an absolute right to rule, and references to the people’s will has no bearing whatsoever on the legitimacy of his rule” (p. 293), has produced what reformist critics called a “religious autocracy” and a “totalitarian state with all the power and no accountability” (p. 285). The book persuasively shows that the Islamic Republic’s central irony is how a revolution promising moral governance and justice produced a state increasingly divorced from both its society and its own religious ideals.
Kamrava concludes by suggesting that the Islamic Republic faces an unsustainable contradiction between rigid theocratic rule and a dynamic, defiant society increasingly shaped by secularization, women’s rights movements, and demands for political freedom. As one observer notes, “the very project of Islamization self-destructively led to the substantive secularization of Iranian society” (p. 298). Future research could build on this insight by examining how social movements, generational change, and transnational influences are reshaping political Islam in Iran beyond the clerical elite.
Moreover, the book’s analysis invites comparative work: How does Iran’s trajectory resemble or diverge from other cases of religious authoritarianism, such as the Taliban’s Afghanistan? Does the concept of post-Islamism—“a process of transcending from the duty-centered and exclusive Islamist politics toward a more rights-centered and inclusive outlook” (p. 304)—signal a broader regional trend or a uniquely Iranian phenomenon? For Middle East studies, political theology, and authoritarianism research, How Islam Rules in Iran will likely become a key reference point. Its integration of intellectual history with political analysis provides a model for studying how ideas, institutions, and power interact. Even readers critical of its elite-centered focus will find its conceptual frameworks—dual capture, divine versus popular legitimacy, Khameneism, post-Islamism—indispensable for understanding the Islamic Republic’s past, present, and possible futures.
Ultimately, Kamrava’s book forces the readers to confront a paradox: A theocratic state that, in seeking to preserve its divine authority, has produced secularizing forces it can neither fully control nor indefinitely suppress. Whether this tension leads to gradual reform, sudden rupture, or deeper authoritarian entrenchment remains, as Kamrava concludes, a question “that only history will answer” (p. 304).
