Historically, ayatollahs throughout the Shi‘i diasporic communities have maintained financial autonomy from the ruling elites through the collection of a religious tithe (khums) directly from their Shi‘i followers. Which ayatollah receives this khums tithe is the choice of the individual believer, ostensibly based upon the perceived trustworthy character and intellectual acumen of the ayatollah. The ayatollah should then distribute this money back into the Shi‘i community in the most efficacious way possible. This distribution can occur through religious educational institutions as well as other social service organizations such as clinics or subsidized housing. This symbiotic client-patronage system created by khums reception and redistribution forms the underpinning of the ayatollah’s authority and development of an individual constituency within local and transnational Shi‘i communities. The ayatollahs’s sources of income has had significant socio-economic and political implications, in that they often have rendered the ‘ulama financially, and therefore juristically and intellectually independent, and potentially immune to political manipulation by the ruling elites. Historically, Shi‘i religious authorities have discouraged one ayatollah from following the opinions of another, ensuring intellectual diversity. This financial and intellectual independence of local Shi‘i religious hierarchies distinguishes them from government patronage of the Sunni ‘ulama establishments in Egypt and Saudi Arabia during the contemporary period. However, since the Islamic Revolution of 1979, the combination of political and religious authority in the Islamic Republic of Iran has blurred the boundaries of independent intellectual inquiry to the point that the khums is now subsumed under the taxation laws of the state. The effects of the collection and redistribution of the khums by the state, albeit voluntarily, has led to a certain level of uniformity in the Iranian Shi‘i religious leadership that differs from the diversity of opinions on legal and social issues characteristic of the ayatollahs in the Arabic-speaking Shi‘i communities. This paper will contrast the role of khums-collection and distribution in the development of institutional authority and socio-political independence among the ayatollahs of the Arabic-speaking Shi‘i communities and in Iran through a close historical analysis of the writings of ayatollahs Khomeini, Khamenei, Sistani, Fadlallah, Khu’i, Hakim, Montazeri and other lesser-known authorities. By contrasting their theoretical writings with events taking place in their various locales and the system of khums-collection in place, a clearer picture of the socio-political role of khums collection and redistribution will emerge.