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International audience ; In their relationship with the political powers in place, Shiite ulemas have adopted an attitude of reserve, or even of protest, because they consider that the Iman is the only one who can exercise spiritual and political authority over the community of believers. In the 11th century, they started to develop doctrines that allowed them to widen their religious authority. This culminated in the creation of the marja'iyya, which, since the end of the 19th century, has developed into a more or less centralized organization that is above the State and transnational, and whose independence vis à vis the State rests in the financial autonomy of the clerics. The latter constitute a religious elite preoccupied with remaining cohesive and reproducing. However, the popularization of knowledge promoted, in part, by the Islamic Republic of Iran, has introduced new players. As for the marja'iyya, it is the subject to debates trying to organize it. ; Face aux pouvoirs politiques en place, les oulémas chiites ont adopté une attitude de réserve, voire de contestation, car ils considèrent que seul l'imam est à même d'exercer l'autorité spirituelle et politique sur la communauté des croyants. À partir du XIe siècle, ils élaborèrent des doctrines leur permettant d'élargir leur autorité religieuse, jusqu'à l'institution de la marja'iyya. Depuis la fin du XIXe siècle, celle-ci s'est développée et organisée en une autorité religieuse supra-étatique et transnationale, plus ou moins centralisée, dont l'indépendance par rapport à l'État repose sur l'autonomie financière des clercs. Ceux-ci constituent une élite religieuse soucieuse d'assurer sa cohésion et sa reproduction. Cependant, la vulgarisation du savoir, promue notamment par la République islamique d'Iran, a amené de nouveaux acteurs. Quant à la marja'iyya, elle fait l'objet de débats qui tendent à l'organiser.

Shiis perform a number of rituals on the first 10 days of the Islamic month of Muḥarram to mourn the killing of the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad, Husayn, in Karbala in southern Iraq in 680CE. Among the most controversial rituals is the practice of blood-letting self-flagellation (taṭbīr). This article provides a comprehensive discussion of debates around this ritual among prominent Shii clerical figures of the 20th and 21st centuries. While the vast majority of senior clerics is either sympathetic to taṭbīr or retains an indifferent attitude, clerical interventions critical of it are informed by the discursive parameters of Islamic modernism and emphasize the universal moral and socio-political message of Husayn's revolt. These debates also point at concerns over inter-sectarian relations between Sunnis and Shiis and efforts to discard Shii ritual practices that could antagonize Sunni Muslims. Finally, these debates contain an important political dimension reflecting contestations around Iran's aim to exercise hegemony over Shii communities across the world. The 1994 fatwa by the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic 'Ali Khamenei (b. 1939) in which he declared taṭbīr prohibited (ḥarām) has hardened existing cleavages between those supporting and those rejecting this practice, as this article illustrates.