Introduction

Charity in the form of zakat (alms) is a pillar of the Muslim faith, while the khums is a more substantial tax specific to Shi'ism that is also used for charitable purposes. The relationships of authority that are cemented along the chain of charity are the social manifestation of the religious economy of Shi'ism. In the absence of the Twelfth Imam, the prerogative to collect khums and voluntary donations from believers on the one hand, and to redistribute these funds in the form of patronage on the other, falls to the mujtahids, generally the maraji'. If the amount of money at the disposal of a source of emulation is related to the degree of his prominence, this financial power, once converted into services for the community, confers more authority on him and consequently boosts his capacity to build his following, and therefore to receive khums. An intermediate link in the chain between a marja’ and his muqallids (emulators) are the wukala’. These are clerics or laymen entrusted with the responsibility to collect the khums, forward part of this money back to the ayatullah they represent or to another of his agents and reallocate the rest among their communities. As service providers on the ground, a role also sometimes assumed by authorised charitable organisations, they earn local recognition among beneficiaries, a process that reinforces the marja'iyya's transnational authority network as a whole. The charitable economy of Shi'ism is not limited to the patronage distributed by maraji'. In particular, Shi'i political organisations are inclined, like their Sunni counterparts, to promote their prime mission through the fulfilment of a philanthropic function. Charity has such inherent power that all segments of the clerical community are likely to make it their priority in order to advance their individual or institutional leadership claims.

Charity is a field of social engagement for the ‘ulama’ to establish connections and negotiate their influence within the Shi'i community. More precisely, the types of services they provide, and for whom, are indicators of the goals the distribution of patronage aims to support. Catering for the needs of the community of learning in the shrine cities of Iraq and Iran, but also elsewhere, is the responsibility of the higher clerical leadership to ensure the reproduction of the clerical class.