well-defined mechanism to allow for the smooth transition from one ayatollah to another in todays highly technicalized world.
A further complication in determining the marja al-taqlid has arisen since the Iranian government gave a formal enactment to the position of the marja al-taqlid under "the governance of the jurist" in the Iranian national constitution. Whether the Iranian government admits it or not, the determination of the marja al-taqlid has become part and parcel of Iranian national politics. There is no doubt that this enact‌ment was prompted by the fact that the Iranian government has a direct stake in the determination of the mujtahid who assumes the supreme religious authority of the Shiite faith. In the Iranian context, the institution of the marja al-taqlid has been responsible for providing the necessary Islamic legitimacy for the Shiite nation-state of Iran. In addition, the institution is, in large measure, responsible for providing cohesion in maintaining the related spiritual-moral and social-political identities of the Iranian Shiites. It is precisely this nationalistic orientation of the marja al-taqlid that is at odds with the generally held belief among Shiite Muslims that it is a uni‌ versally acclaimed position in the Islamic law, the Sharia. The Iranian endeavors to obtain worldwide Shiite acknowledgment of its version of "the governance of the jurist" is not supported by other leading mujtahids and their followers among the Shiite community at large.
Consequently, since al-Khuis death, the question for the Shiite community around the world is not merely whether to determine who is next in line as marja al‌ taqlid. Rather, it is a more practical concern: How should the community avoid be‌ coming entangled in the national politics of Iran, or for that matter Iraq, in deciding the most-qualified source of their spiritual-moral emulation? Historically, the com‌munity, with its long experience of living under unfriendly governments and at times as a persecuted minoritiy, has safeguarded its religious autonomy without having to bow to any pressures to get a particular ayatollah acknowledged. Shiites, whether in Iran, Iraq, or elsewhere, are fully aware that the selection of the marja al-taqlid is an individual religious duty imposed on a believer as a matter of conscience, rather than an obligation that can be enjoined by the collective decision of the government or community leaders. Accordingly, it is a vexing question for a believer to recog‌nize a right marja al-taqlid.
With the formalization of the supreme religious office of the mujtahid in the na‌tional constitution of Iran, as far as the marja al-taqlrd is concerned in matters of Islamic law, both the Iranian government and the Shiite community arc left with the inadequate and mostly unwritten traditional system of transference of the religious authority to the next mujtahid. Whereas the problem of such inadequacy may not cripple the everyday religious lives of the Shiite community at large, for a country like Iran it is an urgent national issue. In the absence of traditionally recognized cri‌teria for assuming the supreme juridical office of the marja al-taqlid, Iran has ac‌ knowledged, albeit tacitly, the constitutionally promulgated position of the re!igious‌ ideological "guide" in addition to the traditional and mostly ceremonial position, as far as the governments day-to-day functioning is concerned, occupied by the marja al-taqlid. The emergence of al-Khui s disciple Sayyid Ali al-Husayni al-Sistani as the marja al-taqlid of the majority of the Shiites outside, and probably within, Iran,