WEBVTT

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Welcome and thank you so much for joining us

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for another Deep Dive. Yeah, we are absolutely

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thrilled to have you here today. We really are

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because if you are the kind of person who loves

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connecting historical dots. Oh, absolutely. If

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you, you know, live for those profound aha moments

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where the past suddenly just. brilliantly illuminates

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the present. Right. And if you want to understand

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the incredibly complex currents shaping our world

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without feeling completely overwhelmed by information

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overload, well then you have found exactly the

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right place to be. You're in good hands. Today

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we have a very specific mission. We are looking

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at a single, incredibly sweeping, and frankly

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fascinating piece of geopolitical and historical

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analysis. It's a massive text. It really is.

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We're unpacking an article by Iqbal Akhtar. It's

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titled, The Shia World's Kill -a -Fat Moment,

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The Killing of Ayatollah Khamenei and the End

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of Political Islam's Last State Project. Yeah.

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And it is essentially a masterclass in Middle

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Eastern geopolitics, Islamic history and political

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philosophy all rolled into one incredible narrative.

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It really is a phenomenal text to explore. Akhtar

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is doing something incredibly ambitious here.

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He's not just giving us a dry timeline of current

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events. Right. It's not a standard news recap.

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Exactly. He is offering a grand, overarching

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historical framework. He's asking us to look

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at the immediate, chaotic, often terrifying events

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of the present and see the deep, century -long

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structural patterns underneath them. I mean,

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it is the kind of analysis that requires us to

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synthesize very diverse fields. Yeah. History.

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Theology, economics, international relations.

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Pulling it all into one coherent picture. Right.

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But before we get any further, before we even,

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you know, start to pull on these threads. We

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have to pause and set some very strict mandatory

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ground rules for this deep dive. Yes, absolutely.

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This is crucial. I cannot emphasize enough how

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crucial this is. The source material we're examining

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today deals with highly charged, deeply sensitive

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and ongoing modern political events. It touches

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on military strikes, the Israeli -Palestinian

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conflict, the actions of the Iranian government.

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And the broader, often violent geopolitical struggles

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in the Middle East. These are issues that affect

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millions of lives. They involve deeply held religious

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beliefs and frankly, profound human suffering.

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Right. And because of that intense reality, we

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need to make something explicitly crystal clear

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to you. the listener, we as your hosts are strictly

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impartial in this discussion. Strictly impartial.

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We are absolutely not taking any sides. We're

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not endorsing any state's actions, nor are we

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validating, promoting, or defending the political

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viewpoints presented in the text by the author.

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Our sole mission today, our only goal, is to

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unpack the author's arguments and impartially

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report on the ideas contained in this original

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source material. We are here to act as your guides

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through the author's intellectual framework to

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help you understand what is being argued. Nothing

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more and nothing less. Precisely. We are analyzing

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the text as a piece of scholarship and political

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theory. We're looking at the mechanics of the

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argument. The historical parallels the author

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draws and the evidence he presents to back up

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his claims. We leave the political judgments

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and the moral conclusions entirely up to you.

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Okay, with that vital disclaimer firmly in place,

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let's drop the central shocking premise of the

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text right here at the start. Let's do it. This

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is the hook that drives this entire massive analysis.

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The author... Iqbal Akhtar argues that the dramatic

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geopolitical events culminating in the February

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2026 death of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei are not

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just another geopolitical headline. Right. He

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argues that they are structurally identical to

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one of the most profound world altering events

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of the entire 20th century. He's drawing a direct

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line to the 1924 abolition of the Ottoman Caliphate.

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Exactly. He is saying that what happened to Sunni

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political Islam 100 years ago. That total structural

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collapse of a transnational dream has just happened

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to Shia political Islam today. What's fascinating

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here is the sheer audacity and scale of that

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comparison. Massive. The author is taking an

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event that fundamentally shattered the political

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imagination of the Muslim world a century ago

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and saying, look closely at the architecture

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of what is happening right now. The exact same

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structural collapse is happening before our very

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eyes. Just in a different theological register.

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It forces us to ask a really heavy question.

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Which is? What actually happens to millions of

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people when a transnational religious political

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project completely evaporates? Okay, let's unpack

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this. Because to understand why this 2026 moment

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is so monumental, we can't just start in 2026.

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No, we have to start at the chronological beginning

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of the author's framework. We have to travel

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back a full century to March 1924. This is when

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Mustafa Kemal Ataturk makes a decision that sends

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absolute shockwaves across the globe. He officially

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dissolves the Ottoman Caliphate. Now, we all

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know from basic history that empires fall. Sure.

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But the text frames this as something much deeper

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than just a regime change. Why was this such

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a psychological earthquake? We really need to

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pause and appreciate the weight of that loss.

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The author relies heavily here on the work of

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historian Mona Hassan. She's written brilliantly

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on this concept of transregional collective loss.

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Transregional collective loss. Right. When Ataturk

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dissolved that institution, he wasn't just firing

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a political official or updating a constitution.

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constitutional clause in a newly formed Turkish

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republic. He was severing a symbolic thread that

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had existed for over 13 centuries. 13 centuries.

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That's almost unfathomable in modern political

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terms. It is. I mean, for over a millennium,

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the global Muslim community, the Ummah, had a

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living, breathing center of political and spiritual

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authority. Even when the caliphate was politically

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weak, as it frankly often was in its later centuries,

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it existed as a unifying symbol. It was the ultimate

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horizon of belonging. To put it in perspective,

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imagine if tomorrow an institution that had defined

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the overarching identity of your civilization

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since the Middle Ages was just... Erased. Erased

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by a stroke of a pen. I'm trying to wrap my head

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around that. It's like the anchor of your entire

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worldview is just cut loose. Completely. But

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reading through the notes, there was a part of

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Akhtar's argument that really surprised me. He

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brings in the research of Simel Aden, and Aden

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argues that... Our modern understanding of this

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idea of a unified Muslim world or pan -Islamism

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wasn't actually this ancient, timeless reality.

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It wasn't. I always assumed the Muslim world

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had always viewed itself as one giant, unified

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political bloc since the 7th century. It's a

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very common assumption, but Aidan's research

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shatters it. This is a crucial piece of context

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for the whole discussion. Right. Pan -Islamism

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as a coherent, organized political ideology was

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actually a remarkably modern construct. It really

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only emerged in the late 19th century. So it's

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basically a Victorian era invention. In terms

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of its modern political application, yes. And

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it didn't emerge in a vacuum. It was a highly

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reactive formation. Right. It was a direct defense

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mechanism against the encroaching, racializing

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logic of European imperialism. Think about what

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the world looked like in the late 1800s. European

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empires, the British, the French, the Dutch,

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the Russians were rapidly carving up the globe,

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subjugating incredibly diverse populations. And

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they were often categorizing these subjugated

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people on deeply racist, civilizational lines.

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Exactly. So they were looking at millions of

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diverse people from Morocco to Indonesia and

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just stamping them all as the Orientals or the

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Mohammedans. Yes. They were flattening the incredible

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diversity of these societies into a single subordinate

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racial category to justify ruling them. Wow.

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So Muslim intellectuals realized they needed

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a counter -narrative. The text points to a fascinating

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figure here, Jamal al -Din al -Afghani. Okay.

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He is really the quintessential architect of

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this modern pan -Islamic thought. What was his

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pitch? I mean, how do you unify such a massive,

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diverse group of people against the British Empire?

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Al -Afghani essentially looked at the geopolitical

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board and argued the Europeans are expanding

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territorially and their strategy is to dominate

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us by dividing us. They want us fighting over

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local borders or ethnic differences. Exactly.

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He said the only way to resist this modern industrialized

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imperial machinery is to forge our own modern

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transnational solidarity. And the only identity

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marker strong enough to link someone in Cairo

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with someone in Delhi was their shared faith.

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That makes so much sense when you frame it that

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way. It really does. It wasn't that they had

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always acted as one political unit for a thousand

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years. It's that in the face of a global empire.

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They needed a global resistance identity. They

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were trying to build an ideological fortress

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against colonialism. Precisely. The idea of the

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Muslim world as a unified political bloc was

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a defensive strategy forged in the crucible of

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late 19th century geopolitics. But here is where

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the text throws a massive historical curveball.

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When that fortress finally collapses in 1924,

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when the caliphate is abolished by Ataturk, you

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would naturally think the shockwaves would be

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felt most intensely right next door, right? In

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the Arab heartlands. Oh. Places like Egypt or

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Syria or the Arabian Peninsula where Islam originated.

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But the author points out that the loss was actually

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felt most acutely thousands of miles away. In

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South Asia. In India. Yes. Why did Indian Muslims

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care so deeply about a Turkish sultan losing

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his job? It is a brilliant historical anomaly

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and understanding it perfectly sets up the parallel

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Akhtar is going to draw later with the modern

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Iranian diaspora. So why South Asia? Well, if

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we look at the historical context, the Arab nations

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were already beginning to experiment with other

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ideas. They had pan -Arabism. They were developing

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local secular nationalisms. They had ideological

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alternatives ready to go. Exactly. But South

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Asian Muslims were in a uniquely vulnerable,

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almost precarious position. They existed as a

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minority population, completely subsumed under

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British colonial rule. And Akhtar mentions they

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had lost their own native political power long

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before this. He brings up the end of the Mughal

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dynasty. Yes. For centuries, the Mughal Empire

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had been this magnificent, powerful Muslim dynasty

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ruling over a Hindu majority, India. Right. But

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once the British fully dismantled the Mughal

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Empire in the mid -19th century, Indian Muslims

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found themselves fundamentally unmoored. They

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were suddenly without any native sovereign political

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leadership there were subjects of a distant european

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christian crown living as a minority among a

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massive hindu majority so they were feeling entirely

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squeezed out of history Entirely. So for them,

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the Ottoman Caliphate, however geographically

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distant it might have been, and even if they

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didn't speak Turkish or know much about Istanbul.

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It took on an outsized, incredibly idealized

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significance. It was the ultimate living proof

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that Muslims could still possess actual political

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sovereignty somewhere in the world. It's like

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a psychological safety net. Like we might be

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subjects here in Delhi, but the caliph in Istanbul

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is still standing tall. Exactly. It offered a

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horizon of belonging that transcended the artificial

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colonial borders drawn by the British. The pan

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-Islamists in India genuinely viewed those colonial

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borders as a deliberate European strategy of

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divide and rule. To them, loyalty to the caliphate

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was the ultimate anti -colonial statement. Which

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brings us to a massive historical phenomenon

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that the text highlights, and frankly, something

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I don't think gets talked about enough. The Kilofat

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Movement? Yes, the Kilofat Movement. This ran

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from 1919 to 1924. The author relies on the detailed

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historical research of Aisha Jalal and Gail Anol

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to explain this. And reading their accounts,

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this wasn't just a handful of intellectuals writing

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angry letters to the editor. No, this was a massive

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grassroots mobilization of millions of Indian

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Muslims. It was one of the largest political

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mobilizations of the era. And Asha Jalal's research

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is so vital here because she shows that. for

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these Indian Muslims. Figures like the famous

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Ali brothers or the scholar Abul Kalamazad. Right.

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For them, this wasn't just some abstract theological

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debate. It was a lived, desperate aspiration.

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The idea that Muslims could constitute a political

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community defined entirely by faith rather than

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by the oppressive colonial territory they lived

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in was the very core of their political identity.

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And the caliphate was the anchor holding that

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identity in place. And the political alliances.

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created were just wild. The text points out that

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Mahatma Gandhi, who was, of course, a devout

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Hindu and the leader of the Indian nationalist

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movement, actually formed the All India Kilafat

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Committee in 1919. He allied directly with these

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Muslim leaders who were protesting for a Turkish

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caliph. It sounds contradictory at first glance,

00:12:51.639 --> 00:12:53.899
doesn't it? It does. But if we connect this to

00:12:53.899 --> 00:12:57.110
the bigger picture. Gandhi was a master strategist.

00:12:57.149 --> 00:13:00.509
He recognized the immense mobilizing power of

00:13:00.509 --> 00:13:02.730
this pan -Islamic sentiment. By championing a

00:13:02.730 --> 00:13:05.149
cause that Indian Muslims cared about so deeply,

00:13:05.309 --> 00:13:08.029
saving the Ottoman caliphate from being carved

00:13:08.029 --> 00:13:09.909
up by the British and the French after World

00:13:09.909 --> 00:13:12.929
War I. He brought them completely into the fold

00:13:12.929 --> 00:13:15.710
of his broader non -cooperation movement against

00:13:15.710 --> 00:13:18.549
British rule in India. It's framed as perhaps

00:13:18.549 --> 00:13:21.529
the most remarkable example of anti -colonial

00:13:21.529 --> 00:13:24.269
Hindu -Muslim solidarity in South Asian history.

00:13:24.669 --> 00:13:26.710
You had Hindus and Muslims marching together,

00:13:26.889 --> 00:13:29.409
boycotting British goods together, going to jail

00:13:29.409 --> 00:13:31.830
together. All loosely tethered to this idea of

00:13:31.830 --> 00:13:33.950
preserving an Islamic institution in Turkey.

00:13:34.129 --> 00:13:36.850
It was a brief, shining moment of unified resistance,

00:13:37.250 --> 00:13:39.389
but it was entirely dependent on the survival

00:13:39.389 --> 00:13:42.529
of that distant symbol. And then 1924 happens.

00:13:42.750 --> 00:13:44.990
The symbol is destroyed. Not by the British,

00:13:44.990 --> 00:13:47.669
but by the Turks themselves. Ataturk pulls the

00:13:47.669 --> 00:13:50.330
plug. He abolishes the caliphate to modernize

00:13:50.330 --> 00:13:52.940
and secularize Turkey. And the text notes that

00:13:52.940 --> 00:13:55.299
the aftermath, the collapse of this beautiful

00:13:55.299 --> 00:13:58.759
pan -Islamic dream in India and elsewhere, was

00:13:58.759 --> 00:14:01.840
incredibly swift and chaotic. It was absolutely

00:14:01.840 --> 00:14:04.000
devastating for the movement. I mean, you can't

00:14:04.000 --> 00:14:06.460
protest the British to save the caliphate when

00:14:06.460 --> 00:14:08.539
the caliphate no longer exists. They tried to

00:14:08.539 --> 00:14:11.360
salvage it, of course. The text mentions a fascinating,

00:14:11.600 --> 00:14:15.340
somewhat tragic event. The 1926 Cairo Caliphate

00:14:15.340 --> 00:14:17.899
Congress. Right. They basically called an emergency

00:14:17.899 --> 00:14:20.700
global summit. They brought delegates from all

00:14:20.700 --> 00:14:23.360
over the world. Muslim world to Egypt to try

00:14:23.360 --> 00:14:25.299
and agree on a way to restore the institution.

00:14:25.559 --> 00:14:27.460
OK, the Turks don't want it. Who takes it next?

00:14:27.700 --> 00:14:29.899
But it was a complete failure. They couldn't

00:14:29.899 --> 00:14:32.620
agree on who should be the new caliph, where

00:14:32.620 --> 00:14:35.279
it should be based, or what actual executive

00:14:35.279 --> 00:14:37.980
power it should have. The underlying painful

00:14:37.980 --> 00:14:41.000
reality was exposed for everyone to see. The

00:14:41.000 --> 00:14:43.460
political energy of the Ummah had permanently

00:14:43.460 --> 00:14:46.259
fragmented. The era of the transnational empire

00:14:46.259 --> 00:14:49.600
was over. The dream of a borderless, unified

00:14:49.600 --> 00:14:52.980
political community was dead. And the author

00:14:52.980 --> 00:14:56.399
cites the scholar James Piscatori here. who formulated

00:14:56.399 --> 00:14:58.820
a really profound conclusion about what happened

00:14:58.820 --> 00:15:01.639
in the decades following 1924. Piscatori noted

00:15:01.639 --> 00:15:04.100
that instead of Islam replacing the nation state,

00:15:04.299 --> 00:15:06.399
which was the whole point of pan -Islamism, to

00:15:06.399 --> 00:15:09.240
transcend borders, the nation state simply became

00:15:09.240 --> 00:15:12.340
an Islamic value. That is the crucial pivot of

00:15:12.340 --> 00:15:15.019
the 20th century for the Middle East. Once the

00:15:15.019 --> 00:15:18.019
transnational option was definitively gone, Muslims

00:15:18.019 --> 00:15:20.440
everywhere had to channel their collective aspirations

00:15:20.440 --> 00:15:24.820
into the very nation -state system that pan -Islamism

00:15:24.820 --> 00:15:28.659
was originally designed to resist. The borders

00:15:28.659 --> 00:15:31.240
drawn by the colonial powers largely became permanent,

00:15:31.399 --> 00:15:33.779
and religion had to figure out how to exist within

00:15:33.779 --> 00:15:35.799
those national borders rather than transcending

00:15:35.799 --> 00:15:38.340
them. Okay, so I want you, the listener, to keep

00:15:38.340 --> 00:15:41.399
that entire historical arc in your mind. The

00:15:41.399 --> 00:15:44.559
idealized transnational dream, the sudden, shocking

00:15:44.559 --> 00:15:47.019
collapse of the central authority, the desperate

00:15:47.019 --> 00:15:49.679
failure to rebuild it, and the forced eventual

00:15:49.679 --> 00:15:52.200
acceptance of the nation -state. Because now,

00:15:52.299 --> 00:15:55.019
the author transitions us away from the 1920s

00:15:55.019 --> 00:15:56.820
and brings us into the contemporary timeline.

00:15:57.100 --> 00:15:59.159
We are fast -forwarding to the chaotic events

00:15:59.159 --> 00:16:01.960
culminating in 2026. And this brings us right

00:16:01.960 --> 00:16:04.840
to the core of Akhtar's argument about the Shia

00:16:04.840 --> 00:16:07.679
world's kilafat moment. The author is arguing

00:16:07.679 --> 00:16:09.940
that the Islamic Republic of Iran, established

00:16:09.940 --> 00:16:13.840
by the 1979 revolution, was essentially the last

00:16:13.840 --> 00:16:17.240
serious, heavily state -backed attempt to prove

00:16:17.240 --> 00:16:19.820
James Piscatori wrong. They wanted to prove that

00:16:19.820 --> 00:16:22.139
the transnational dream wasn't dead. Exactly.

00:16:22.320 --> 00:16:24.860
It was the last great effort to demonstrate that

00:16:24.860 --> 00:16:27.039
an Islamic political theology could successfully

00:16:27.039 --> 00:16:30.600
organize a modern state, ignore Westphalian borders,

00:16:30.919 --> 00:16:33.559
project its power across the region, and offer

00:16:33.559 --> 00:16:36.480
a genuine, viable alternative to the Western

00:16:36.480 --> 00:16:39.289
-dominated international order. Iran wasn't just

00:16:39.289 --> 00:16:41.210
trying to be a country. It was trying to be the

00:16:41.210 --> 00:16:43.690
vanguard of a global movement. But the author

00:16:43.690 --> 00:16:46.730
details a terrifyingly rapid cascade of events

00:16:46.730 --> 00:16:49.230
that dismantled that entire project. According

00:16:49.230 --> 00:16:52.950
to the text, between 2023 and 2026, we see the

00:16:52.950 --> 00:16:55.809
complete systematic collapse of what Iran called

00:16:55.809 --> 00:16:58.409
its axis of resistance. The timeline Okhtar presents

00:16:58.409 --> 00:17:01.220
is stark. It outlines the methodical destruction

00:17:01.220 --> 00:17:04.400
of Hamas in Gaza, the decimation of Hezbollah's

00:17:04.400 --> 00:17:06.920
leadership and infrastructure in Lebanon, and

00:17:06.920 --> 00:17:09.259
the neutralizing of the Houthi militias in Yemen.

00:17:09.460 --> 00:17:11.720
These weren't just allies. These were the forward

00:17:11.720 --> 00:17:13.900
operating bases of the Iranian transnational

00:17:13.900 --> 00:17:16.119
project. And the climax of this collapse, the

00:17:16.119 --> 00:17:18.859
absolute focal point of the article, is the February

00:17:18.859 --> 00:17:23.319
28th, 2026 joint American -Israeli strikes that

00:17:23.319 --> 00:17:25.880
resulted in the death of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

00:17:26.019 --> 00:17:28.720
If we connect this to the bigger picture. The

00:17:28.720 --> 00:17:30.839
historical parallel the author is drawing becomes

00:17:30.839 --> 00:17:34.359
incredibly, almost chillingly stark. Just as

00:17:34.359 --> 00:17:37.779
Ataturk's action in 1924 created a massive vacuum

00:17:37.779 --> 00:17:41.079
of Sunni political identity and authority. The

00:17:41.079 --> 00:17:44.059
events of February 2026 marked the collapse of

00:17:44.059 --> 00:17:46.319
the only state project that ever attempted to

00:17:46.319 --> 00:17:49.339
turn Shia Islam into a comprehensive, governing

00:17:49.339 --> 00:17:52.279
political ideology. So it's not just a geopolitical

00:17:52.279 --> 00:17:54.900
loss. It's an existential collapse. Precisely.

00:17:55.200 --> 00:17:57.359
The death of the supreme leader, the valier Fakih,

00:17:57.539 --> 00:17:59.460
under these circumstances isn't just a change

00:17:59.460 --> 00:18:01.759
in administration. It's not just a blow to Iranian

00:18:01.759 --> 00:18:04.500
national security. In the author's view, it is

00:18:04.500 --> 00:18:07.500
the definitive end of an era. The transnational

00:18:07.500 --> 00:18:10.400
structure is broken. Akhtar uses very strong,

00:18:10.500 --> 00:18:13.440
uncompromising language here. He says this event

00:18:13.440 --> 00:18:16.480
exposes the total bankruptcy of the entire Iranian

00:18:16.480 --> 00:18:19.380
state project. Politically, economically, and

00:18:19.380 --> 00:18:23.160
most importantly, morally. The post -1979 dream

00:18:23.160 --> 00:18:26.180
has essentially evaporated as a viable transnational

00:18:26.180 --> 00:18:29.339
force. So what does this all mean? I mean, how

00:18:29.339 --> 00:18:31.539
did a project that started with such incredible

00:18:31.539 --> 00:18:35.720
world shaking revolutionary fervor in 1979 end

00:18:35.720 --> 00:18:38.779
up completely bankrupt by 2026? To answer that,

00:18:38.839 --> 00:18:40.319
we have to look under the hood of the Iranian

00:18:40.319 --> 00:18:42.119
state. We can't just look at the missiles and

00:18:42.119 --> 00:18:44.460
the militias. No, we have to understand the specific

00:18:44.460 --> 00:18:46.839
theological machinery that powered the whole

00:18:46.839 --> 00:18:48.960
thing. This is where Akhtar's analysis becomes

00:18:48.960 --> 00:18:52.000
truly profound because he argues that the seeds

00:18:52.000 --> 00:18:55.200
of this 2026 collapse were actually planted in

00:18:55.200 --> 00:18:58.630
1979 in the very theology that created the state

00:18:58.630 --> 00:19:00.309
in the first place. Here's where it gets really

00:19:00.309 --> 00:19:02.710
interesting. We are pivoting from the geopolitical

00:19:02.710 --> 00:19:05.750
battlefield to a theological deep dive. And I

00:19:05.750 --> 00:19:07.549
have to admit, as someone who reads a lot of

00:19:07.549 --> 00:19:09.769
history, I was blown away by this section of

00:19:09.769 --> 00:19:11.990
the text. It's eye -opening. Because the entire

00:19:11.990 --> 00:19:14.970
system of the Islamic Republic rests on a doctrine

00:19:14.970 --> 00:19:18.990
introduced by Ayatollah Ru 'ala Khomeini in 1979.

00:19:19.710 --> 00:19:22.329
It's known as Velayat -e -Faqih, which translates

00:19:22.329 --> 00:19:24.809
roughly to the guardianship of the Islamic jurist.

00:19:24.849 --> 00:19:27.319
Right. I always assume this was just standard

00:19:27.319 --> 00:19:29.660
traditional Shia practice that Khomeini finally

00:19:29.660 --> 00:19:31.819
got the chance to implement. But the text says

00:19:31.819 --> 00:19:34.599
that's completely false. It is a massive misconception.

00:19:34.799 --> 00:19:38.180
And the text relies on the... deep jurisprudential

00:19:38.180 --> 00:19:41.640
analysis of scholars like Hamid Mavani and Norman

00:19:41.640 --> 00:19:45.920
Calder to unpack just how insanely radical Khomeini's

00:19:45.920 --> 00:19:48.319
concept actually was. Khomeini didn't just stand

00:19:48.319 --> 00:19:51.099
up and say, hey, as a cleric, I think religious

00:19:51.099 --> 00:19:53.700
values should guide our laws. He made a staggering,

00:19:53.839 --> 00:19:56.240
unprecedented theological claim. He asserted

00:19:56.240 --> 00:19:59.079
that the senior Islamic jurist, the supreme leader,

00:19:59.180 --> 00:20:03.019
possesses the exact same absolute ruling authority

00:20:03.019 --> 00:20:05.380
over society as the Prophet Muhammad and the

00:20:05.380 --> 00:20:07.619
12 imams of Shia. Okay, I want to make sure I

00:20:07.619 --> 00:20:09.599
understand the gravity of that. To a layperson,

00:20:09.920 --> 00:20:12.099
comparing yourself to a prophet might just sound

00:20:12.099 --> 00:20:14.400
like standard, over -the -top religious political

00:20:14.400 --> 00:20:17.619
rhetoric. But in the context of classical Islamic

00:20:17.619 --> 00:20:20.700
theology, how big of a leap is that? It is an

00:20:20.700 --> 00:20:23.579
astronomical leap. It's practically reinventing

00:20:23.579 --> 00:20:25.640
their religion. The text points out that historically,

00:20:25.980 --> 00:20:29.539
for over a thousand years, traditional Shia guardianship,

00:20:29.559 --> 00:20:32.140
the concept of wilaya, was strictly limited.

00:20:32.799 --> 00:20:36.160
It was incredibly mundane. Mundane how? I mean,

00:20:36.180 --> 00:20:39.569
what did a cleric actually do before 1979? They

00:20:39.569 --> 00:20:42.569
handled non -litigious matters. For centuries,

00:20:42.869 --> 00:20:45.950
the absolute consensus among Shia scholars was

00:20:45.950 --> 00:20:48.089
that in the absence of the hidden 12th Imam,

00:20:48.430 --> 00:20:50.990
the messianic figure who is believed to be an

00:20:50.990 --> 00:20:53.529
occultation and will return at the end of times.

00:20:53.809 --> 00:20:56.029
True. Perfect political authority is impossible.

00:20:56.490 --> 00:20:59.210
Therefore, religious scholars had a duty to guide

00:20:59.210 --> 00:21:01.589
the community in matters of faith, to answer

00:21:01.589 --> 00:21:03.750
questions about prayer and fasting. And they

00:21:03.750 --> 00:21:06.509
had legal guardianship over very specific vulnerable

00:21:06.509 --> 00:21:09.170
elements of society. Managing the affairs of

00:21:09.170 --> 00:21:11.390
orphans, protecting widows, and administering

00:21:11.390 --> 00:21:13.710
unclaimed property or endowments. That was it.

00:21:13.829 --> 00:21:15.450
Wait, so the historical role of the guardian

00:21:15.450 --> 00:21:17.809
was essentially acting as a high -level social

00:21:17.809 --> 00:21:20.970
worker and trust manager. Exactly. It was a duty

00:21:20.970 --> 00:21:24.289
of communal care. Absolutely not a mandate for

00:21:24.289 --> 00:21:26.769
executive political power, let alone commanding

00:21:26.769 --> 00:21:29.569
armies or dictating foreign policy. As Norman

00:21:29.569 --> 00:21:32.549
Calder showed in his foundational study, classical

00:21:32.549 --> 00:21:35.089
Shia jurisprudence had always maintained a very

00:21:35.089 --> 00:21:38.509
careful, pragmatic balance. It held on to its

00:21:38.509 --> 00:21:41.630
theological idealism, waiting for the true imam

00:21:41.630 --> 00:21:45.430
to return while making practical, quiet accommodations

00:21:45.430 --> 00:21:48.190
with whoever happened to hold secular political

00:21:48.190 --> 00:21:50.569
power at the time. Whether it was a shah or a

00:21:50.569 --> 00:21:53.240
sultan. Khomeini deliberately took a sled hammer

00:21:53.240 --> 00:21:56.400
to that centuries -old balance. He took a concept

00:21:56.400 --> 00:21:59.200
designed to protect orphans and stretched it

00:21:59.200 --> 00:22:02.500
to cover the absolute dictatorial rule of a modern

00:22:02.500 --> 00:22:05.799
industrialized nation -state. That is wild. And

00:22:05.799 --> 00:22:07.799
the text reveals a genuinely shocking detail

00:22:07.799 --> 00:22:10.660
about how he justified this massive power grab

00:22:10.660 --> 00:22:13.259
to the other clerics. When Khomeini presented

00:22:13.259 --> 00:22:15.220
the religious texts of the Hadith, which are

00:22:15.220 --> 00:22:17.279
the recorded sayings and traditions of the prophet

00:22:17.279 --> 00:22:19.319
and the imams to support this expansion of power,

00:22:19.440 --> 00:22:21.799
the text says those... specific hadith were actually

00:22:21.799 --> 00:22:23.920
considered weak. What does that mean in this

00:22:23.920 --> 00:22:26.740
context? This is a devastating point in the realm

00:22:26.740 --> 00:22:29.140
of Islamic jurisprudence. To understand this,

00:22:29.160 --> 00:22:31.160
we have to talk about the science of hadith.

00:22:31.259 --> 00:22:33.900
In Islamic scholarship, you can't just claim

00:22:33.900 --> 00:22:37.259
the prophet said something. Every single hadith

00:22:37.259 --> 00:22:40.140
has a chain of transmission attached to it called

00:22:40.140 --> 00:22:42.799
an isnad. It's like a highly formalized, centuries

00:22:42.799 --> 00:22:46.319
-long game of telephone. I heard from my teacher

00:22:46.319 --> 00:22:48.700
who heard from his father who heard from the

00:22:48.700 --> 00:22:50.880
companion of the prophet. So it's basically citing

00:22:50.880 --> 00:22:53.160
your sources all the way back to the 7th century.

00:22:53.299 --> 00:22:56.400
Yes. And Islamic scholars have spent lifetimes

00:22:56.400 --> 00:22:59.259
rigorously evaluating these chains. They look

00:22:59.259 --> 00:23:01.380
at the biographies of every single person in

00:23:01.380 --> 00:23:03.680
that chain. Was this person known to have a bad

00:23:03.680 --> 00:23:05.940
memory? Was this person known to exaggerate?

00:23:06.059 --> 00:23:08.660
Did this person actually live in the same city

00:23:08.660 --> 00:23:10.700
as the person they supposedly heard it from?

00:23:11.210 --> 00:23:14.089
If there is a break in the chain or an unreliable

00:23:14.089 --> 00:23:17.329
narrator, the hadith is classified as da 'if,

00:23:17.549 --> 00:23:21.009
meaning weak or unreliable. And you're saying

00:23:21.009 --> 00:23:23.769
the core text Khomeini used to build a modern

00:23:23.769 --> 00:23:26.700
superpower were rated as weak? The text notes

00:23:26.700 --> 00:23:29.039
that the chains of transmission for the specific

00:23:29.039 --> 00:23:32.380
handful of Abith Kameni relied upon to justify

00:23:32.380 --> 00:23:35.740
absolute political rule by clerics were largely

00:23:35.740 --> 00:23:38.900
classified as daith by traditional rigorous standards.

00:23:39.119 --> 00:23:41.400
They were not the strong universally accepted

00:23:41.400 --> 00:23:43.779
text that you would normally use to upend centuries

00:23:43.779 --> 00:23:47.240
of theology. So the very foundational bedrock

00:23:47.240 --> 00:23:49.900
of this entire political system was fundamentally

00:23:49.900 --> 00:23:53.140
shaky from day one. Which raises a massive question

00:23:53.140 --> 00:23:56.200
for me. If this system wasn't rooted in solid,

00:23:56.339 --> 00:23:59.359
traditional Shia theology, where on earth did

00:23:59.359 --> 00:24:01.980
Khomeini get the idea? This raises an important

00:24:01.980 --> 00:24:04.680
question, and Akhtar turns to historians and

00:24:04.680 --> 00:24:07.480
scholars like Hamid Dabashi and Vali Nasser for

00:24:07.480 --> 00:24:10.440
the answer. They argue that the 1979 system wasn't

00:24:10.440 --> 00:24:12.500
really an expression of traditional Shia piety

00:24:12.500 --> 00:24:15.200
at all. It was actually a highly modern, incredibly

00:24:15.200 --> 00:24:18.079
synthesized political ideology. Khomeini was

00:24:18.079 --> 00:24:20.440
essentially a theological hacker. He was borrowing

00:24:20.440 --> 00:24:23.180
heavily from sources far, far outside Islamic

00:24:23.180 --> 00:24:26.059
tradition. The text uses a phrase that made me

00:24:26.059 --> 00:24:28.910
do a double take. Plato and Marx meet Islam.

00:24:29.210 --> 00:24:31.950
Okay, let's unpack that. Marx in a fundamentalist

00:24:31.950 --> 00:24:34.509
Islamic republic. How does that work? It's an

00:24:34.509 --> 00:24:37.589
incredible ideological patchwork. Let's start

00:24:37.589 --> 00:24:40.750
with Plato. Vali Nasser points out that Khomeini's

00:24:40.750 --> 00:24:43.950
vision of a society ruled by an elite class of

00:24:43.950 --> 00:24:46.569
specially trained, morally superior, ascetic

00:24:46.569 --> 00:24:49.950
jurists looks a whole lot less like early Islamic

00:24:49.950 --> 00:24:52.559
history in Medina. and a whole lot more like

00:24:52.559 --> 00:24:54.559
Plato's Republic. The concept of the philosopher

00:24:54.559 --> 00:24:56.900
king. Exactly. It's the philosopher king and

00:24:56.900 --> 00:24:59.660
the guardian class just dressed in clerical robes

00:24:59.660 --> 00:25:02.059
and turbans. Plato argued that only those who

00:25:02.059 --> 00:25:04.160
truly understand the forms of goodness should

00:25:04.160 --> 00:25:07.559
rule. Khomeini just substituted Islamic jurisprudence

00:25:07.559 --> 00:25:09.779
for Platonic philosophy. And the Marxist element.

00:25:10.059 --> 00:25:12.960
Hamid Dabashi notes that the revolutionary fervor

00:25:12.960 --> 00:25:16.519
of 1979, the aggressive anti -imperialist rhetoric,

00:25:16.779 --> 00:25:19.380
the framing of the entire global struggle as

00:25:19.380 --> 00:25:22.230
the oppressed masses, the mustazafin rising up

00:25:22.230 --> 00:25:25.170
against the corrupt capitalist elite, the mustakbirans.

00:25:25.170 --> 00:25:27.769
That entire vocabulary was heavily lifted from

00:25:27.769 --> 00:25:30.309
20th century Marxist and third -worldist revolutionary

00:25:30.309 --> 00:25:32.630
theory. Because that was the dominant revolutionary

00:25:32.630 --> 00:25:36.009
language of the 1970s. Right. Leftist Marxist

00:25:36.009 --> 00:25:38.150
movements were highly active in Iran leading

00:25:38.150 --> 00:25:41.049
up to the revolution. Yeah. Khomeini was brilliant

00:25:41.049 --> 00:25:44.240
at co -opting their energy. He took Plato's rigid,

00:25:44.500 --> 00:25:47.680
elitist structure of governance, took Marx's

00:25:47.680 --> 00:25:50.779
explosive revolutionary energy and language of

00:25:50.779 --> 00:25:53.500
class struggle, and grafted it all onto a very

00:25:53.500 --> 00:25:57.079
specific, stretched, weak, Hadith -based interpretation

00:25:57.079 --> 00:26:00.920
of Shia law. It's basically a political Frankenstein's

00:26:00.920 --> 00:26:03.319
monster. And because it was so contrived, it

00:26:03.319 --> 00:26:05.680
immediately ran into practical problems. I want

00:26:05.680 --> 00:26:07.700
to ask you about this massive constitutional

00:26:07.700 --> 00:26:10.099
paradox the text highlights, which occurred in

00:26:10.099 --> 00:26:13.460
1989. Because this seems like the moment the

00:26:13.460 --> 00:26:16.859
ideology truly broke. 1989 is a critical turning

00:26:16.859 --> 00:26:19.319
point. This is the year Ayatollah Khomeini dies.

00:26:19.680 --> 00:26:22.480
The system now faces its first succession crisis.

00:26:22.839 --> 00:26:25.000
According to the constitution they wrote in 1979,

00:26:25.519 --> 00:26:28.299
the supreme leader had to be a marja. A marja

00:26:28.299 --> 00:26:30.839
being a top -ranking cleric. Yes, a source of

00:26:30.839 --> 00:26:33.440
emulation. The absolute highest level of jurist,

00:26:33.480 --> 00:26:36.099
someone universally recognized for their unparalleled

00:26:36.099 --> 00:26:38.960
mastery of Islamic law. The logic was, if the

00:26:38.960 --> 00:26:40.819
ruler has the same authority as the prophet,

00:26:41.160 --> 00:26:43.019
they better be the most learned person alive.

00:26:43.359 --> 00:26:45.259
But there was a huge problem. The person they

00:26:45.259 --> 00:26:47.500
politically wanted to take over, Ali Khamenei,

00:26:47.579 --> 00:26:50.799
wasn't a marja. Not even close. He was a mid

00:26:50.799 --> 00:26:53.599
-ranking cleric. He had strong political credentials,

00:26:53.900 --> 00:26:56.220
he was loyal to the revolution, but he absolutely

00:26:56.220 --> 00:26:59.119
did not have the scholarly chops required by

00:26:59.119 --> 00:27:00.900
their own constitution. So what did they do?

00:27:00.980 --> 00:27:03.700
Did they find a better scholar? No. They simply

00:27:03.700 --> 00:27:05.900
changed the rules of the game. They quickly amended

00:27:05.900 --> 00:27:08.319
the Constitution. They removed the strict requirement

00:27:08.319 --> 00:27:10.740
that the Supreme Leader had to be a top -ranking

00:27:10.740 --> 00:27:13.799
jurist. The scholar, said Amir Arjumand, points

00:27:13.799 --> 00:27:16.960
out the profound, glaring irony here, which defined

00:27:16.960 --> 00:27:19.299
the next four decades of the Islamic Republic.

00:27:19.519 --> 00:27:22.650
They continually expanded the absolute... dictatorial

00:27:22.650 --> 00:27:25.470
political power of the supreme leader, while

00:27:25.470 --> 00:27:28.029
simultaneously diminishing the actual scholarly

00:27:28.029 --> 00:27:30.809
and theological qualifications required to hold

00:27:30.809 --> 00:27:33.049
that office. They basically admitted that the

00:27:33.049 --> 00:27:35.329
theology didn't matter anymore. It was entirely

00:27:35.329 --> 00:27:37.970
about maintaining political control. Precisely.

00:27:37.990 --> 00:27:40.809
The mask slipped. And because of all of this,

00:27:40.910 --> 00:27:44.029
the weak texts, the platonic borrowing, the constitutional

00:27:44.029 --> 00:27:46.849
hypocrisy, the author emphasizes that the project

00:27:46.849 --> 00:27:49.730
was always deeply theologically contested from

00:27:49.730 --> 00:27:51.920
the inside. This isn't just Western analysts

00:27:51.920 --> 00:27:54.559
saying this doesn't make sense. Top -tier Shia

00:27:54.559 --> 00:27:56.960
scholars have been rejecting this since 1979.

00:27:57.519 --> 00:28:00.680
The text introduces the research of Mohsen Kadivar.

00:28:00.880 --> 00:28:03.359
He's a calm, trained scholar, a brilliant mind

00:28:03.359 --> 00:28:05.980
now at Duke University. What did Khadivar find?

00:28:06.339 --> 00:28:08.500
Khadivar did something remarkable. He conducted

00:28:08.500 --> 00:28:11.940
a systematic, exhaustive review of all the revered

00:28:11.940 --> 00:28:15.140
classical Shia texts and centuries of Islamic

00:28:15.140 --> 00:28:18.299
legal rulings. His findings are a total devastating

00:28:18.299 --> 00:28:21.539
refutation of the Iranian state's ideology from

00:28:21.539 --> 00:28:23.700
within its own tradition. He demonstrated that

00:28:23.700 --> 00:28:25.359
within the classical texts, you can actually

00:28:25.359 --> 00:28:28.319
find jurisprudential support for nine distinct

00:28:28.319 --> 00:28:30.950
forms of government. Nine. different ways to

00:28:30.950 --> 00:28:33.289
run a state according to Shia Islam. Yes, ranging

00:28:33.289 --> 00:28:36.069
from consultative assemblies to conditional monarchies.

00:28:36.210 --> 00:28:38.710
But Khadiver found that the one specific form

00:28:38.710 --> 00:28:41.289
of government that is not validated by the traditions

00:28:41.289 --> 00:28:43.670
of the prophet or the imams. The one that has

00:28:43.670 --> 00:28:46.130
no solid basis in the history of the faith. Is

00:28:46.130 --> 00:28:49.049
absolute validefaki. The exact system ruling

00:28:49.049 --> 00:28:52.890
Iran. Yes. The state's foundational, unshakable

00:28:52.890 --> 00:28:55.710
doctrine is, in reality, a massive theological

00:28:55.710 --> 00:28:59.210
outlier. It's a modern invention masquerading

00:28:59.210 --> 00:29:01.710
as ancient tradition. OK, so let's summarize

00:29:01.710 --> 00:29:03.990
where we are. You have a system built on weak

00:29:03.990 --> 00:29:06.549
traditions. It's borrowing heavily from Greek

00:29:06.549 --> 00:29:09.130
philosophy and Marxist rhetoric. It's constantly

00:29:09.130 --> 00:29:11.930
altering its own constitutional rules just to

00:29:11.930 --> 00:29:14.490
maintain power for its political insiders. And

00:29:14.490 --> 00:29:17.630
it is fundamentally rejected by its own top theologians.

00:29:17.670 --> 00:29:19.490
It's no wonder the author calls it a bankrupt

00:29:19.490 --> 00:29:22.309
project. And that brings us to the actual ledger

00:29:22.309 --> 00:29:26.480
of this bankruptcy. Akhtar asks us to look past

00:29:26.480 --> 00:29:29.220
the rhetoric and look at the hard numbers, the

00:29:29.220 --> 00:29:32.019
actual human and economic costs of this four

00:29:32.019 --> 00:29:34.240
-decade experiment in transnational revolution.

00:29:34.720 --> 00:29:37.039
Let's start with the external costs. The sheer

00:29:37.039 --> 00:29:39.859
scale of Iran's investment in its axes of resistance

00:29:39.859 --> 00:29:42.619
is staggering. The figures cited in the text

00:29:42.619 --> 00:29:45.180
represent a massive, generation -defining diversion

00:29:45.180 --> 00:29:47.740
of national wealth. Optar notes that we are talking

00:29:47.740 --> 00:29:50.859
about an estimated $30 to $50 billion spent over

00:29:50.859 --> 00:29:53.319
four decades. Just pause on that number. Up to

00:29:53.319 --> 00:29:56.180
$50 billion. And that money wasn't spent on domestic

00:29:56.180 --> 00:29:59.000
infrastructure. It was entirely dedicated to

00:29:59.000 --> 00:30:01.920
building, arming, and funding proxy militias

00:30:01.920 --> 00:30:04.420
across the Middle East. The text traces the origins

00:30:04.420 --> 00:30:07.259
of this all the way back to 1982, right? Which

00:30:07.259 --> 00:30:09.700
is incredible because Iran was in the middle

00:30:09.700 --> 00:30:12.619
of a brutal existential war with Saddam Hussein's

00:30:12.619 --> 00:30:15.000
Iraq at the time. Yes, the Iran -Iraq war was

00:30:15.000 --> 00:30:17.119
raging. Hundreds of thousands of Iranians were

00:30:17.119 --> 00:30:19.599
dying. The economy was under immense strain.

00:30:19.920 --> 00:30:22.700
Yet despite that domestic crisis, the Iranian

00:30:22.700 --> 00:30:26.180
Revolutionary Guard Corps, the IRGC, dispatched

00:30:26.180 --> 00:30:29.480
1 ,500 highly trained instructors to Lebanon's

00:30:29.480 --> 00:30:32.539
Beka Valley. To do what? to essentially build

00:30:32.539 --> 00:30:35.259
Hezbollah from scratch. They found disparate

00:30:35.259 --> 00:30:38.119
Shia militias, unified them, trained them, funded

00:30:38.119 --> 00:30:40.579
them, and infused them with Khomeini's ideology.

00:30:40.859 --> 00:30:42.859
They prioritized exporting the revolution to

00:30:42.859 --> 00:30:45.299
the Mediterranean over securing their own borders.

00:30:45.619 --> 00:30:47.640
And the text points out this pattern never stopped.

00:30:48.339 --> 00:30:50.680
Decades later, when the Assad regime in Syria

00:30:50.680 --> 00:30:52.420
was on the brink of collapse during the Syrian

00:30:52.420 --> 00:30:55.200
civil war, Iran didn't just send money. They

00:30:55.200 --> 00:30:58.799
sacrificed... 2 ,100 of their own soldiers, IRGC

00:30:58.799 --> 00:31:01.700
and regular army, and spent billions more just

00:31:01.700 --> 00:31:04.460
to keep a brutal, secular dictator in power.

00:31:04.619 --> 00:31:06.960
Because he was a crucial link in their proxy

00:31:06.960 --> 00:31:09.250
network. If we connect this to the bigger picture,

00:31:09.410 --> 00:31:12.569
the author is making a profound point about state

00:31:12.569 --> 00:31:14.930
priorities and the nature of this project. The

00:31:14.930 --> 00:31:17.849
entire strategic orientation of the Islamic Republic,

00:31:18.089 --> 00:31:21.170
its vast oil wealth, its military capability,

00:31:21.630 --> 00:31:24.109
its diplomatic capital was never directed toward

00:31:24.109 --> 00:31:26.990
the productive, creative flourishing of Iranian

00:31:26.990 --> 00:31:29.539
society. It wasn't about building a strong economy,

00:31:29.720 --> 00:31:32.359
modernizing schools, or improving the lives of

00:31:32.359 --> 00:31:34.839
everyday citizens. It was entirely obsessively

00:31:34.839 --> 00:31:37.299
oriented outward. It was dedicated to the destruction

00:31:37.299 --> 00:31:39.880
of Israel, the destabilization of Arab rivals,

00:31:40.039 --> 00:31:42.519
and the projection of this revolutionary anti

00:31:42.519 --> 00:31:44.900
-Western ideology. They treated their own country

00:31:44.900 --> 00:31:47.259
like a resource extraction mechanism to fund

00:31:47.259 --> 00:31:50.000
a foreign empire. And what was the return on

00:31:50.000 --> 00:31:53.319
that massive $50 billion investment? According

00:31:53.319 --> 00:31:55.799
to the timeline in the text, the return has been

00:31:55.799 --> 00:31:58.400
catastrophic. Let's look at the external collapse

00:31:58.400 --> 00:32:01.180
first. The author cites a brilliant analysis

00:32:01.180 --> 00:32:04.180
by Chatham House, specifically by Sanam Vakil

00:32:04.180 --> 00:32:07.339
in 2024. What did her research conclude? Vakil's

00:32:07.339 --> 00:32:10.220
analysis was incredibly prescient. She concluded

00:32:10.220 --> 00:32:12.660
long before the final collapse that this entire

00:32:12.660 --> 00:32:15.759
axis of resistance was always built on incredibly

00:32:15.759 --> 00:32:18.519
fragile foundations. It looked intimidating on

00:32:18.519 --> 00:32:21.519
paper, a ring of fire around Israel, missiles

00:32:21.519 --> 00:32:24.359
in Yemen, militias in Iraq. But Vakil argued

00:32:24.359 --> 00:32:27.140
it was a mirage of power projection, not genuine,

00:32:27.180 --> 00:32:30.630
sustainable strategic depth. It relied on a level

00:32:30.630 --> 00:32:33.470
of continuous funding and ideological zeal that

00:32:33.470 --> 00:32:35.609
simply couldn't survive intense pressure. And

00:32:35.609 --> 00:32:37.670
we see that fragility brutally exposed in the

00:32:37.670 --> 00:32:40.130
timeline the author provides. The unraveling

00:32:40.130 --> 00:32:42.269
doesn't happen overnight. It's a cascading failure.

00:32:42.509 --> 00:32:44.930
It begins with the brutal Gaza war in October

00:32:44.930 --> 00:32:48.750
2023, which fundamentally destabilizes the region.

00:32:48.970 --> 00:32:50.730
It accelerates dramatically with the fall of

00:32:50.730 --> 00:32:54.089
the Assad regime in Syria in December 2024. Which

00:32:54.089 --> 00:32:56.549
was a massive, irreplaceable loss of a state

00:32:56.549 --> 00:32:59.230
ally and a vital logistical... land bridge to

00:32:59.230 --> 00:33:01.569
Lebanon. But the real proof of the hollowness,

00:33:01.609 --> 00:33:04.390
the moment the mirage vanishes, comes during

00:33:04.390 --> 00:33:08.029
what the text calls the June 2025 war. When the

00:33:08.029 --> 00:33:10.390
pressure was finally applied to the entire network,

00:33:10.650 --> 00:33:13.769
what happened? The entire proxy network went

00:33:13.769 --> 00:33:16.390
silent. That's the stunning part. After decades

00:33:16.390 --> 00:33:18.730
of rhetoric about unity and resisting together,

00:33:19.009 --> 00:33:21.849
the architecture collapsed. Hezbollah and Hamas

00:33:21.849 --> 00:33:24.190
were unable to act in a coordinated way, having

00:33:24.190 --> 00:33:26.700
been systemically decimated. And the Houthis

00:33:26.700 --> 00:33:28.980
in Yemen and the Shia militias in Iraq looked

00:33:28.980 --> 00:33:31.559
at the situation and were simply unwilling to

00:33:31.559 --> 00:33:34.099
risk their own domestic survival for Tehran's

00:33:34.099 --> 00:33:37.059
grand strategy. The axis proved to be transactional,

00:33:37.059 --> 00:33:39.500
not unbreakable. When it was finally tested in

00:33:39.500 --> 00:33:41.779
a total conflict, it shattered. The external

00:33:41.779 --> 00:33:44.299
projection failed entirely. But the author argues

00:33:44.299 --> 00:33:46.240
that the internal catastrophe, what happened

00:33:46.240 --> 00:33:48.680
within Iran itself, is perhaps even more damning

00:33:48.680 --> 00:33:51.000
to the legacy of the Islamic Republic. Because

00:33:51.000 --> 00:33:53.529
we often hear about the protests. But the text

00:33:53.529 --> 00:33:56.049
pivots to the domestic front and reveals some

00:33:56.049 --> 00:33:59.170
truly stunning hard statistics about what four

00:33:59.170 --> 00:34:01.849
decades of theocracy have actually produced in

00:34:01.849 --> 00:34:04.210
the hearts and minds of Iranian society. This

00:34:04.210 --> 00:34:06.569
is where the deepest paradox of political Islam

00:34:06.569 --> 00:34:09.590
is most evident. It is the ultimate cautionary

00:34:09.590 --> 00:34:12.800
tale. The author argues that by forcing religion

00:34:12.800 --> 00:34:15.780
into every single aspect of state control, by

00:34:15.780 --> 00:34:18.500
making it the law, the police, the economy, the

00:34:18.500 --> 00:34:22.739
censor, the theocracy, actually produced massive

00:34:22.739 --> 00:34:26.500
widespread secularization by coercion. Because

00:34:26.500 --> 00:34:28.380
if you hate the government and the government

00:34:28.380 --> 00:34:30.719
says it speaks for God, you end up resenting

00:34:30.719 --> 00:34:33.780
God. Exactly. When the state is religion, rejecting

00:34:33.780 --> 00:34:35.780
the corruption and oppression of the state inherently

00:34:35.780 --> 00:34:37.940
means rejecting the religion it claims to champion.

00:34:38.320 --> 00:34:40.699
The data the text provides here is mind -blowing.

00:34:40.820 --> 00:34:43.500
It cites the sociologist Misa Parsa and the Goman

00:34:43.500 --> 00:34:45.760
Polling Institute. We aren't talking about a

00:34:45.760 --> 00:34:48.179
recent shift. The text notes that by the year

00:34:48.179 --> 00:34:51.300
2000, 75 % of Iranians had stopped performing

00:34:51.300 --> 00:34:53.780
the obligatory daily prayers. Think about that

00:34:53.780 --> 00:34:55.860
for a second. In a state that claims to be a

00:34:55.860 --> 00:34:58.019
divine republic, governed by God's representatives

00:34:58.019 --> 00:35:00.699
on earth, three -quarters of the population gave

00:35:00.699 --> 00:35:02.880
up the most basic pillar of Islamic practice

00:35:02.880 --> 00:35:05.920
decades ago. Furthermore, the text points out

00:35:05.920 --> 00:35:08.039
that today over half of the country's mosques

00:35:08.039 --> 00:35:10.960
are completely inactive or abandoned. They are

00:35:10.960 --> 00:35:13.760
empty structures. And when Gammon conducts anonymous,

00:35:13.900 --> 00:35:17.539
secure polling, approximately 73 % of the population

00:35:17.539 --> 00:35:20.300
openly favors the complete secular separation

00:35:20.300 --> 00:35:23.500
of religion and state. They aren't asking for

00:35:23.500 --> 00:35:25.960
a milder version of theocracy. They have lived

00:35:25.960 --> 00:35:28.760
the reality of clerical rule, and an overwhelming

00:35:28.760 --> 00:35:31.280
majority want it permanently ended. And then

00:35:31.280 --> 00:35:33.159
there's a statistic that genuinely made me pause.

00:35:33.280 --> 00:35:35.760
It's perhaps the most jarring symbol of this

00:35:35.760 --> 00:35:38.570
disconnect. The text states that Iranian citizens

00:35:38.570 --> 00:35:41.570
are spending an estimated $12 billion annually

00:35:41.570 --> 00:35:45.309
on alcohol. $12 billion. Now put that in context.

00:35:45.550 --> 00:35:48.269
This is a country struggling with crippling sanctions

00:35:48.269 --> 00:35:50.670
and inflation. And more importantly, alcohol

00:35:50.670 --> 00:35:53.570
is strictly, severely forbidden by the state

00:35:53.570 --> 00:35:55.969
religion. The penalty for a first offense of

00:35:55.969 --> 00:35:58.949
drinking is 80 lashes with a whip. Yet there's

00:35:58.949 --> 00:36:02.030
a $12 billion underground industry. What's fascinating

00:36:02.030 --> 00:36:04.769
here is what that number represents sociologically.

00:36:05.340 --> 00:36:07.239
It's not just about a desire for consumption

00:36:07.239 --> 00:36:09.820
or partying. In the context of the Islamic Republic,

00:36:10.019 --> 00:36:13.719
it's a massive multibillion dollar daily act

00:36:13.719 --> 00:36:16.760
of societal defiance. Every sip is a rejection

00:36:16.760 --> 00:36:20.440
of the state's moral authority. It shows a population

00:36:20.440 --> 00:36:23.500
that is completely irrecoverably alienated from

00:36:23.500 --> 00:36:26.099
the moral dictates of the regime. The state tries

00:36:26.099 --> 00:36:29.000
to micromanage piety. And the population responds

00:36:29.000 --> 00:36:32.340
by building massive underground networks to bypass

00:36:32.340 --> 00:36:34.800
the state entirely. You summarize it perfectly

00:36:34.800 --> 00:36:37.800
in our prep notes for this deep dive. A regime

00:36:37.800 --> 00:36:40.260
that claimed to govern in God's name ultimately

00:36:40.260 --> 00:36:43.119
produced a population fleeing God's house. The

00:36:43.119 --> 00:36:46.139
ideological exhaustion inside Iran is total.

00:36:46.559 --> 00:36:48.739
The people are done. Done with the ideology,

00:36:49.019 --> 00:36:50.920
done with the proxies, done with the clerics.

00:36:51.059 --> 00:36:53.219
So internally, the project is a hollow shell

00:36:53.219 --> 00:36:56.159
and externally the proxies are gone. The state

00:36:56.159 --> 00:36:59.039
is bankrupt on every ledger. But here is where

00:36:59.039 --> 00:37:01.460
Akhtar introduces a completely fascinating new

00:37:01.460 --> 00:37:03.579
dimension to the analysis, something I hadn't

00:37:03.579 --> 00:37:06.079
considered at all. He says that to truly understand

00:37:06.079 --> 00:37:09.079
the emotional and historical impact of this 2026

00:37:09.079 --> 00:37:11.500
collapse, we can't just look inside Iran. We

00:37:11.500 --> 00:37:13.559
have to zoom out and look at the global Shia

00:37:13.559 --> 00:37:17.789
diaspora. Yes, the text introduces a great, highly

00:37:17.789 --> 00:37:20.650
descriptive term here, the global Iranification

00:37:20.650 --> 00:37:24.250
of Shia Islam. The author draws on his own extensive

00:37:24.250 --> 00:37:26.829
anthropological research regarding the Koja Shia

00:37:26.829 --> 00:37:29.309
communities in East Africa, as well as looking

00:37:29.309 --> 00:37:32.630
at massive populations in Pakistan and even communities

00:37:32.630 --> 00:37:34.829
right here in the U .S., like in Dearborn, Michigan.

00:37:34.989 --> 00:37:37.730
What does Iranification actually mean in practice?

00:37:38.380 --> 00:37:41.599
It means that the 1979 Iranian revolution didn't

00:37:41.599 --> 00:37:44.440
just stay within Iran's borders. It fundamentally,

00:37:44.519 --> 00:37:47.340
aggressively reshaped the religious practice,

00:37:47.539 --> 00:37:50.059
the communal identity, and the political orientation

00:37:50.059 --> 00:37:53.099
of Shia Muslims all over the world, even those

00:37:53.099 --> 00:37:55.400
who had no ethnic or linguistic connection to

00:37:55.400 --> 00:37:57.199
Iran. So it wasn't just organic inspiration.

00:37:57.539 --> 00:38:00.199
Tehran was actively pushing this. Highly active.

00:38:00.280 --> 00:38:02.239
They didn't just hope people would be inspired

00:38:02.239 --> 00:38:04.460
by Khomeini. They built a massive, well -funded

00:38:04.460 --> 00:38:07.599
machinery to export the ideology. The text mentions

00:38:07.599 --> 00:38:10.000
institutions like the Bilal Muslim Mission in

00:38:10.000 --> 00:38:13.500
East Africa. Tehran utilized massive clerical

00:38:13.500 --> 00:38:16.420
networks, funded publications, and crucially,

00:38:16.460 --> 00:38:18.900
they strategically distributed thousands of seminary

00:38:18.900 --> 00:38:21.559
scholarships to bring foreign students from Pakistan,

00:38:21.880 --> 00:38:24.579
Africa, and the West to study in the holy city

00:38:24.579 --> 00:38:28.099
of Qom in Iran. So they train the next generation

00:38:28.099 --> 00:38:30.900
of global clerics in the theology of the revolution

00:38:30.900 --> 00:38:33.840
and send them back home. Exactly. And through

00:38:33.840 --> 00:38:36.260
these institutions, drawing on the work of scholars

00:38:36.260 --> 00:38:39.000
like Lawrence Loehr and Toby Matheson, the text

00:38:39.000 --> 00:38:41.400
shows how Tehran successfully shifted the entire

00:38:41.400 --> 00:38:44.300
global discourse of what it meant to be a Shia

00:38:44.300 --> 00:38:48.000
Muslim. What was it like before 1979? Before

00:38:48.000 --> 00:38:50.480
the revolution, Shia identity in these diaspora

00:38:50.480 --> 00:38:53.079
communities was often highly quietest. It was

00:38:53.079 --> 00:38:55.079
focused on local community building, traditional

00:38:55.079 --> 00:38:58.480
piety, mourning the historical martyrs, and generally

00:38:58.480 --> 00:39:00.920
staying out of high -stakes geopolitics. Tehran

00:39:00.920 --> 00:39:03.320
reframed all of that. They made modern Shia identity

00:39:03.320 --> 00:39:05.280
inherently political. They made it inherently

00:39:05.280 --> 00:39:08.480
oppositional, deeply anti -Western, and intimately

00:39:08.480 --> 00:39:11.059
tied to the success of the Iranian state. They

00:39:11.059 --> 00:39:14.300
exported the revolutionary literature, modernized

00:39:14.300 --> 00:39:16.739
the celebration of martyrdom narratives, and

00:39:16.739 --> 00:39:19.539
effectively turned a diverse global religious

00:39:19.539 --> 00:39:23.320
community into a sympathetic, mobilized audience

00:39:23.320 --> 00:39:26.280
for the Iranian regime's foreign policy. But

00:39:26.280 --> 00:39:29.400
here's the devastating irony that the text analyzes.

00:39:29.539 --> 00:39:32.980
And honestly, it is the emotional core of Akhtar's

00:39:32.980 --> 00:39:35.750
entire argument. The diaspora communities who

00:39:35.750 --> 00:39:37.989
were often the most enthusiastic cheerleaders

00:39:37.989 --> 00:39:40.309
for the Iranian revolution, the ones who hung

00:39:40.309 --> 00:39:42.610
pictures of Khomeini in their homes, and most

00:39:42.610 --> 00:39:44.949
deeply internalized this oppositional identity.

00:39:45.250 --> 00:39:47.239
They never actually had to live under it. This

00:39:47.239 --> 00:39:49.460
raises an incredibly important question about

00:39:49.460 --> 00:39:52.320
the nature of ideological commitment. It's easy

00:39:52.320 --> 00:39:55.019
to be a revolutionary from afar. These diaspora

00:39:55.019 --> 00:39:57.099
communities bought the ideology without ever

00:39:57.099 --> 00:39:59.420
having to suffer its daily reality. Right. They

00:39:59.420 --> 00:40:01.500
could celebrate the anti -imperialist rhetoric,

00:40:01.820 --> 00:40:04.219
the speeches defying America from the safety

00:40:04.219 --> 00:40:07.159
of functioning democracies or relatively stable

00:40:07.159 --> 00:40:09.360
states. They could feel a sense of pride that

00:40:09.360 --> 00:40:11.840
a Shia state was standing up to the world. But

00:40:11.840 --> 00:40:14.650
they never had to deal with the... 50 % inflation,

00:40:14.849 --> 00:40:17.590
the collapsing currency, the brutal morality

00:40:17.590 --> 00:40:20.849
police beating women in the streets, the rampant

00:40:20.849 --> 00:40:23.849
corruption of the IRGC, or the sheer stifling

00:40:23.849 --> 00:40:26.610
oppression that actual Iranians inside the country

00:40:26.610 --> 00:40:29.489
were enduring every single day. The text notes

00:40:29.489 --> 00:40:32.989
an incredibly poignant reality. The pro -Iranian

00:40:32.989 --> 00:40:36.170
revolutionary sentiment was often far more fervent

00:40:36.170 --> 00:40:38.809
in places like Pakistan or Dearborn than it was

00:40:38.809 --> 00:40:41.610
in Tehran. The citizens of Iran had grown deeply,

00:40:41.710 --> 00:40:43.969
bitterly disillusioned with the mullahs decades

00:40:43.969 --> 00:40:46.409
ago. They knew the reality. While some of the

00:40:46.409 --> 00:40:48.369
diaspora were still tightly holding on to the

00:40:48.369 --> 00:40:52.150
romanticized, pure 1979 ideal that had been sold

00:40:52.150 --> 00:40:54.510
to them. So when the geopolitical collapse finally

00:40:54.510 --> 00:40:57.590
comes in 2026, when the supreme leader is killed

00:40:57.590 --> 00:40:59.869
and the state project shatters, the emotional

00:40:59.869 --> 00:41:03.340
experience is totally bifurcated. Exactly. For

00:41:03.340 --> 00:41:05.820
the people inside Iran, the fall of the Velayah

00:41:05.820 --> 00:41:08.360
-e -Faqih is a moment of profound relief. It's

00:41:08.360 --> 00:41:10.539
the end of a corrupt, suffocating government

00:41:10.539 --> 00:41:13.260
they had endured for generations. It's the lifting

00:41:13.260 --> 00:41:15.500
of a crushing weight. But for the diaspora who

00:41:15.500 --> 00:41:17.599
had anchored their religious and political identity

00:41:17.599 --> 00:41:20.519
to the idea of this invincible, righteous state.

00:41:20.820 --> 00:41:23.519
It is the evaporation of an idea they cherished.

00:41:23.699 --> 00:41:27.059
It is a profound, disorienting crisis of identity.

00:41:27.460 --> 00:41:30.969
And this. This is where the genius of the author's

00:41:30.969 --> 00:41:33.210
framework becomes clear, because this brings

00:41:33.210 --> 00:41:35.210
us right back to the central hook of the article,

00:41:35.349 --> 00:41:38.449
right back to the South Asian Muslims of 1924.

00:41:38.690 --> 00:41:41.469
The parallel is absolutely perfect. It is a stunning

00:41:41.469 --> 00:41:43.710
historical rhyme. Think about those Indian Muslims

00:41:43.710 --> 00:41:45.510
in the Kilifat movement we talked about earlier,

00:41:45.650 --> 00:41:49.400
Gandhi's allies. They were fiercely idealizing

00:41:49.400 --> 00:41:51.820
an Ottoman rule that they never actually lived

00:41:51.820 --> 00:41:54.659
under. They invested the distant Turkish caliphate

00:41:54.659 --> 00:41:57.860
with a symbolic spiritual perfection that far

00:41:57.860 --> 00:42:00.300
exceeded the messy, corrupt, failing political

00:42:00.300 --> 00:42:03.179
reality of the late Ottoman Empire. And when

00:42:03.179 --> 00:42:05.880
Ataturk finally abolished it, The grief, the

00:42:05.880 --> 00:42:08.719
psychological shock was most profound precisely

00:42:08.719 --> 00:42:11.019
among those Indian Muslims who had idealized

00:42:11.019 --> 00:42:13.119
it the most, not the Turks who lived it. The

00:42:13.119 --> 00:42:15.599
author is arguing that the 2026 Shia diaspora

00:42:15.599 --> 00:42:17.920
is experiencing the exact same psychological

00:42:17.920 --> 00:42:21.800
trauma as the 1924 Sunni diaspora in India. The

00:42:21.800 --> 00:42:24.500
dream is dead. And the hardest pill to swallow

00:42:24.500 --> 00:42:26.980
is the realization that the reality of the dream

00:42:26.980 --> 00:42:28.699
was never what they thought it was in the first

00:42:28.699 --> 00:42:31.519
place. The transnational anchor is gone. So the

00:42:31.519 --> 00:42:34.119
grand project has failed. The state is bankrupt,

00:42:34.420 --> 00:42:37.539
the proxies are destroyed, the theology is exposed

00:42:37.539 --> 00:42:40.880
as a modern invention, and the global diaspora

00:42:40.880 --> 00:42:43.820
is in a state of shock. This brings us to the

00:42:43.820 --> 00:42:46.900
final and perhaps most crucial section of our

00:42:46.900 --> 00:42:51.000
deep dive. The post -Islamist horizon. The dust

00:42:51.000 --> 00:42:54.659
is settling. What on earth comes next? To frame

00:42:54.659 --> 00:42:57.199
what comes next, Akhtar introduces the foundational

00:42:57.199 --> 00:43:00.449
theories of two prominent scholars. Olivia Roy

00:43:00.449 --> 00:43:03.110
and Asaf Bayat. These are thinkers who saw this

00:43:03.110 --> 00:43:05.909
coming a long time ago. Roy wrote a highly influential

00:43:05.909 --> 00:43:09.010
book way back in 1994 called The Failure of Political

00:43:09.010 --> 00:43:11.650
Islam. 1994, that's incredibly early to call

00:43:11.650 --> 00:43:14.530
it. It was. But Roy argued three decades ago

00:43:14.530 --> 00:43:16.650
that Islamist movements, despite their massive

00:43:16.650 --> 00:43:18.710
revolutionary energy and ability to mobilize

00:43:18.710 --> 00:43:21.349
the masses in opposition, had fundamentally failed

00:43:21.349 --> 00:43:23.650
in their core goal. They could not create genuinely

00:43:23.650 --> 00:43:26.840
Islamic states, economies, or societies. He predicted

00:43:26.840 --> 00:43:28.960
that once these movements actually seized power

00:43:28.960 --> 00:43:31.340
and had to run a country collecting garbage,

00:43:31.579 --> 00:43:34.780
managing currency, dealing with trade, they would

00:43:34.780 --> 00:43:37.599
inevitably succumb to the exact same mundane

00:43:37.599 --> 00:43:40.699
governance failures, corruption, and real politic

00:43:40.699 --> 00:43:43.480
as the secular autocrats they had replaced. The

00:43:43.480 --> 00:43:45.199
religious veneer would just become a tool of

00:43:45.199 --> 00:43:47.280
oppression. Which is exactly what we just described

00:43:47.280 --> 00:43:49.679
happening in Iran. And then there's SF Bayat,

00:43:49.699 --> 00:43:53.440
who coined the term... post -Islamism in 1996.

00:43:54.039 --> 00:43:56.519
What does post -Islamism actually mean? Is it

00:43:56.519 --> 00:43:59.139
just secularism? Not exactly secularism. Bayat

00:43:59.139 --> 00:44:01.840
described post -Islamism as a specific social

00:44:01.840 --> 00:44:04.739
and political condition. It emerges when the

00:44:04.739 --> 00:44:07.280
Islamists themselves and the societies they govern

00:44:07.280 --> 00:44:10.219
become intensely aware of the anomalies and the

00:44:10.219 --> 00:44:12.920
utter inadequacies of their own political discourse.

00:44:13.300 --> 00:44:15.239
The spell breaks. They realize the system simply

00:44:15.239 --> 00:44:17.960
doesn't work. The economy is ruined. The youth

00:44:17.960 --> 00:44:20.579
are alienated. So society begins seeking ways

00:44:20.780 --> 00:44:23.420
to transcend the fundamentalist project. They

00:44:23.420 --> 00:44:26.079
try to find a way to fuse religiosity with democratic

00:44:26.079 --> 00:44:28.820
rights rather than using religion as a weapon

00:44:28.820 --> 00:44:31.659
to deny rights. The author argues that the total

00:44:31.659 --> 00:44:35.860
collapse in 2026 is the most dramatic, undeniable,

00:44:35.860 --> 00:44:39.139
empirical confirmation of both Roy's and Bayat's

00:44:39.139 --> 00:44:42.039
theories that we have ever seen. Political Islam

00:44:42.039 --> 00:44:45.539
as a comprehensive state -building project is

00:44:45.539 --> 00:44:47.800
exhausted. It's done. It has run its course.

00:44:47.940 --> 00:44:51.460
So if the revolutionary state -led Islamist model

00:44:51.460 --> 00:44:55.360
is dead, what are the alternatives? Nature of

00:44:55.360 --> 00:44:58.480
whores of vacuum. The text lays out two major

00:44:58.480 --> 00:45:00.699
competing visions that are now vying for the

00:45:00.699 --> 00:45:02.760
future of the Muslim world's relationship with

00:45:02.760 --> 00:45:04.800
modernity, governance, and the global order.

00:45:05.039 --> 00:45:08.239
Let's look at vision one first. the Abraham Accords

00:45:08.239 --> 00:45:10.679
model. This is the model heavily championed by

00:45:10.679 --> 00:45:12.840
states like the United Arab Emirates and increasingly

00:45:12.840 --> 00:45:15.099
Saudi Arabia under its current leadership. It

00:45:15.099 --> 00:45:17.679
is a deeply pragmatic, almost aggressively post

00:45:17.679 --> 00:45:20.139
-ideological vision. It proposes that Muslim

00:45:20.139 --> 00:45:22.820
majority states can and must integrate fully

00:45:22.820 --> 00:45:25.860
into the Western -led global economy. They argue

00:45:25.860 --> 00:45:27.900
for normalizing relations with Israel, focusing

00:45:27.900 --> 00:45:30.340
entirely on national prosperity, artificial intelligence,

00:45:30.760 --> 00:45:33.219
tourism, and technological advancement. It's

00:45:33.219 --> 00:45:36.260
the Let's build gleaming cities, host international

00:45:36.260 --> 00:45:39.000
sporting events and create sovereign wealth funds

00:45:39.000 --> 00:45:41.760
approach, leaving the dusty revolutionary rhetoric

00:45:41.760 --> 00:45:44.860
and the proxy wars behind. It's highly appealing

00:45:44.860 --> 00:45:47.519
from an economic standpoint. It is. But Akhtar

00:45:47.519 --> 00:45:50.780
points out a massive glowing vulnerability in

00:45:50.780 --> 00:45:53.960
this model. It suffers from a severe, potentially

00:45:53.960 --> 00:45:56.780
fatal legitimacy deficit. What do you mean by

00:45:56.780 --> 00:45:59.119
that? If we look at the actual data, the author

00:45:59.119 --> 00:46:01.539
cites Arab barometer polling, which is frequently

00:46:01.539 --> 00:46:03.980
referenced by scholars like Mark Lynch and Cole

00:46:03.980 --> 00:46:06.980
Bunzel. This data consistently shows that overwhelming

00:46:06.980 --> 00:46:10.860
majorities of Arab publics deeply, viscerally

00:46:10.860 --> 00:46:13.739
reject normalization with Israel. And the sheer

00:46:13.739 --> 00:46:16.300
brutality of the Gaza war in the preceding years

00:46:16.300 --> 00:46:19.300
has made that gap between what the wealthy elite

00:46:19.300 --> 00:46:21.900
autocrats want and what the popular sentiment

00:46:21.900 --> 00:46:24.320
on the street feels even wider and more volatile.

00:46:24.559 --> 00:46:27.320
So the Abraham Accords model offers sleek economic

00:46:27.320 --> 00:46:30.079
integration, but it operates in direct, almost

00:46:30.079 --> 00:46:32.539
arrogant defiance of the emotional and political

00:46:32.539 --> 00:46:35.079
sympathies of its own citizens. It's a top -down

00:46:35.079 --> 00:46:37.860
mandate. Exactly. It might look stable from the

00:46:37.860 --> 00:46:40.380
windows of a skyscraper in Dubai, but underneath,

00:46:40.659 --> 00:46:44.340
it's brittle. It lacks organic, grassroots legitimacy.

00:46:44.980 --> 00:46:47.719
Which brings us to Vision 2, which the text calls

00:46:47.719 --> 00:46:50.519
the Sistani model. We talked earlier about how

00:46:50.519 --> 00:46:52.659
the Iranian project was contested from within

00:46:52.659 --> 00:46:55.780
Shia theology by scholars like Kadivar. Well,

00:46:55.820 --> 00:46:58.280
here is the institutional alternative, the other

00:46:58.280 --> 00:47:01.400
center of gravity, Grand Ayatollah Ali al -Sistani,

00:47:01.679 --> 00:47:04.539
based in the ancient holy city of Najaf in Iraq.

00:47:04.960 --> 00:47:07.559
The Sistani model is the absolute epitome of

00:47:07.559 --> 00:47:10.019
the quietest tradition we discussed earlier regarding

00:47:10.019 --> 00:47:12.639
classical Shia thought. It is the tradition that

00:47:12.639 --> 00:47:15.619
survived Khomeini's revolution, watched the chaos

00:47:15.619 --> 00:47:17.739
of the Islamic Republic from across the border,

00:47:17.880 --> 00:47:20.739
and has persisted quietly and powerfully in Najaf.

00:47:20.880 --> 00:47:24.239
How does Sistani view the role of a cleric? Sistani's

00:47:24.239 --> 00:47:26.440
formulation is remarkably clear and traditionally

00:47:26.440 --> 00:47:29.400
grounded. Religion is absolutely vital for guiding

00:47:29.400 --> 00:47:32.119
the ethics, the personal morality and the spiritual

00:47:32.119 --> 00:47:34.980
life of society. Clerics should speak out against

00:47:34.980 --> 00:47:38.139
injustice and corruption. But clerics must emphatically

00:47:38.139 --> 00:47:40.260
stay away from the trappings of executive state

00:47:40.260 --> 00:47:42.760
power. Let me try to use an analogy here. It's

00:47:42.760 --> 00:47:45.699
like the difference between a spiritual advisor

00:47:45.699 --> 00:47:49.219
who gives you profound life advice, helps you

00:47:49.219 --> 00:47:51.920
navigate moral dilemmas and holds you accountable.

00:47:52.400 --> 00:47:54.500
versus a spiritual advisor who suddenly demands

00:47:54.500 --> 00:47:56.980
the keys to your car, control of your bank account,

00:47:57.179 --> 00:47:59.059
and the right to tell you who you can marry.

00:47:59.239 --> 00:48:01.840
That is an excellent analogy. Sistani is the

00:48:01.840 --> 00:48:04.460
former. He believes the jurist is a moral guide,

00:48:04.639 --> 00:48:07.639
a stabilizing force in times of crisis, like

00:48:07.639 --> 00:48:10.739
when he rallied Iraqis against ISIS. But he is

00:48:10.739 --> 00:48:13.019
absolutely not a president, a prime minister,

00:48:13.139 --> 00:48:15.840
or a supreme leader. He rejects Vali Adafaki.

00:48:16.119 --> 00:48:17.900
The text makes a really interesting structural

00:48:17.900 --> 00:48:20.659
contrast here. When the Sunni world lost the

00:48:20.659 --> 00:48:23.360
caliphate in 1924, they were completely unmoored.

00:48:23.480 --> 00:48:26.000
They didn't really have an alternative, universally

00:48:26.000 --> 00:48:28.579
recognized, independent center of religious authority

00:48:28.579 --> 00:48:31.159
to fall back on. But the post -Khamenei Shia

00:48:31.159 --> 00:48:35.039
world in 2026 does have Najaf. Najaf is still

00:48:35.039 --> 00:48:38.400
there, intact, deeply respected, and offering

00:48:38.400 --> 00:48:40.860
a completely different, non -state -obsessed

00:48:40.860 --> 00:48:44.500
path. And this leads to the critical, suspenseful

00:48:44.500 --> 00:48:47.539
question the author poses for the future. We

00:48:47.539 --> 00:48:50.699
have this massive global Shia diaspora that has

00:48:50.699 --> 00:48:53.440
just watched its oppositional, politicized identity

00:48:53.440 --> 00:48:55.780
collapse. They have a massive amount of political,

00:48:56.019 --> 00:48:58.280
financial, and spiritual energy. Where does that

00:48:58.280 --> 00:49:02.519
energy go now? Can the quiet, ethical, non -political

00:49:02.519 --> 00:49:06.380
framework of Anash absorb that energy? Can Sistani's

00:49:06.380 --> 00:49:09.000
model guide those disillusioned diaspora communities

00:49:09.000 --> 00:49:12.880
back to a more traditional spiritual focus, acting

00:49:12.880 --> 00:49:15.940
as a shock absorber for this trauma? Or, Akhtar

00:49:15.940 --> 00:49:18.440
suggests a darker alternative. Does the sudden

00:49:18.440 --> 00:49:21.820
vacuum of power and identity create a new, uncontrollable

00:49:21.820 --> 00:49:24.269
wave of radicalization? Just think about history.

00:49:24.429 --> 00:49:27.369
The post -1924 vacuum in the Sunni world eventually

00:49:27.369 --> 00:49:30.090
birthed highly politicized, often militant movements

00:49:30.090 --> 00:49:32.909
like the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and Madhudi's

00:49:32.909 --> 00:49:36.030
Jamaat Islami in South Asia. Will the 2026 vacuum

00:49:36.030 --> 00:49:38.510
produce a new, perhaps even more volatile, decentralized

00:49:38.510 --> 00:49:41.610
mutation of Shia political grievance, a movement

00:49:41.610 --> 00:49:43.570
that doesn't even need a state to cause chaos?

00:49:43.849 --> 00:49:46.650
It is the ultimate open question. We are watching

00:49:46.650 --> 00:49:49.679
history unfold in real time. But the author's

00:49:49.679 --> 00:49:51.960
overarching conclusion about what this all means

00:49:51.960 --> 00:49:55.199
structurally is definitive. He calls this collapse

00:49:55.199 --> 00:49:58.420
the Muslim world's Westphalian moment. That is

00:49:58.420 --> 00:50:01.320
a powerful historical framing. So what does this

00:50:01.320 --> 00:50:03.880
all mean? For those who might need a quick refresher,

00:50:03.940 --> 00:50:06.420
the Westphalian moment refers to the Treaty of

00:50:06.420 --> 00:50:10.219
Westphalia in 1648. That treaty essentially ended

00:50:10.219 --> 00:50:13.320
the horrific... decades -long religious wars

00:50:13.320 --> 00:50:15.840
in Europe between Catholics and Protestants.

00:50:15.860 --> 00:50:17.900
He established the modern system of sovereign

00:50:17.900 --> 00:50:21.179
nation states, basically agreeing that transnational

00:50:21.179 --> 00:50:23.920
religious empires could no longer dictate the

00:50:23.920 --> 00:50:26.579
borders of Europe. The state became supreme over

00:50:26.579 --> 00:50:28.760
the church. Exactly. And Akhtar is saying that

00:50:28.760 --> 00:50:31.619
after a century of delay, after all the pan -Islamic

00:50:31.619 --> 00:50:33.420
aspirations, after the kill -a -fat movement

00:50:33.420 --> 00:50:36.880
in India, and after the bloody exhaustive four

00:50:36.880 --> 00:50:39.719
-decade Iranian revolutionary project. The nation

00:50:39.719 --> 00:50:41.699
-state has definitively won in the Middle East

00:50:41.699 --> 00:50:44.900
as well. It has absorbed, domesticated, and ultimately

00:50:44.900 --> 00:50:47.460
broken transnational religious politics. The

00:50:47.460 --> 00:50:50.840
era of the religious empire is closed. Yes, the

00:50:50.840 --> 00:50:53.219
post -Islamist fusion of faith and freedom that

00:50:53.219 --> 00:50:56.059
Asa Bayat predicted isn't arriving through careful,

00:50:56.179 --> 00:50:59.820
enlightened reform. It's arriving because every

00:50:59.820 --> 00:51:02.800
other alternative, every attempt to build a utopian

00:51:02.800 --> 00:51:05.800
religious state has simply exhausted itself into

00:51:05.800 --> 00:51:08.260
total collapse. The century -long battle is over.

00:51:08.400 --> 00:51:11.420
The borders hold. Which leaves us with a final

00:51:11.420 --> 00:51:14.159
provocative thought to mull over. We always like

00:51:14.159 --> 00:51:16.000
to leave you with a concept to explore on your

00:51:16.000 --> 00:51:18.019
own, something that builds on our discussion

00:51:18.019 --> 00:51:20.539
today, but... pushes it a little further. If

00:51:20.539 --> 00:51:23.579
we accept Akhtar's premise that the secular nation

00:51:23.579 --> 00:51:26.300
state has definitively won this century -long

00:51:26.300 --> 00:51:28.699
battle against transnational religious empires

00:51:28.699 --> 00:51:31.360
and caliphates, it raises a fascinating, perhaps

00:51:31.360 --> 00:51:34.480
terrifying new problem. What happens when those

00:51:34.480 --> 00:51:36.860
victorious secular nation states fail? Which

00:51:36.860 --> 00:51:38.960
many of them are doing right now. Exactly. If

00:51:38.960 --> 00:51:41.119
the nation state is now the only game in town,

00:51:41.179 --> 00:51:43.239
but it chronically fails to deliver economic

00:51:43.239 --> 00:51:46.079
prosperity, fails to provide social stability,

00:51:46.260 --> 00:51:48.800
or fails to offer a sense of justice and dignity

00:51:48.800 --> 00:51:52.480
to its citizens, where do people turn? That eternal,

00:51:52.639 --> 00:51:56.460
deep -seated human desire for a broader borderless

00:51:56.460 --> 00:51:59.659
collective identity hasn't vanished just because

00:51:59.659 --> 00:52:03.059
the Ayatollahs failed? Will humanity simply seek

00:52:03.059 --> 00:52:06.579
out a new kind of transnational ideology to fill

00:52:06.579 --> 00:52:08.940
that void? That's a fascinating thought. If not

00:52:08.940 --> 00:52:11.079
religion, then what? Perhaps a transnational

00:52:11.079 --> 00:52:13.659
identity driven entirely by technology, digital

00:52:13.659 --> 00:52:16.219
communities that ignore physical borders entirely.

00:52:16.699 --> 00:52:19.099
Or perhaps an ideology based on global economic

00:52:19.099 --> 00:52:22.179
classes uniting against inequality, completely

00:52:22.179 --> 00:52:24.460
bypassing national governments. The religious

00:52:24.460 --> 00:52:27.219
caliphate. may be gone, but the fundamental human

00:52:27.219 --> 00:52:30.099
need for a grander belonging, for a purpose larger

00:52:30.099 --> 00:52:32.739
than a national passport, is surely waiting to

00:52:32.739 --> 00:52:34.679
be filled by something else. The vacuum is still

00:52:34.679 --> 00:52:36.920
there. A truly profound, slightly unsettling

00:52:36.920 --> 00:52:38.829
question to leave you with. Thank you so much

00:52:38.829 --> 00:52:41.110
for joining us on this incredibly intense, rewarding,

00:52:41.309 --> 00:52:43.809
and deep intellectual journey today. We hope

00:52:43.809 --> 00:52:45.809
this deep dive has helped illuminate the deep

00:52:45.809 --> 00:52:47.909
historical currents that are quietly shaping

00:52:47.909 --> 00:52:50.829
the loud headlines of our modern world. Keep

00:52:50.829 --> 00:52:52.869
asking questions, keep looking for the historical

00:52:52.869 --> 00:52:55.670
rhymes, keep connecting the docks, and we will

00:52:55.670 --> 00:52:56.429
see you next time.