The 1979 revolution not only changed Iran’s structure of political domination, but it fundamentally altered the relationship between religion and politics. As several scholars have pointed out, the emergence of theocratic rule ended the dual structure of political authority and religious authority that characterized the post-Safavid era. However, the post-revolutionary structure has maintained its own contradictions which manifest in the formation of parallel institutions and the dual structure of Supreme Leader versus Popular sovereignty. In a sense, there are dual governments, as one set of institutions is based on the legitimacy of the Supreme religious authority and another set of formal institutions derives legitimacy from elections. In other words, the revolution ended the dual structure of authority, but it has led to a structure of dual sovereignty. Since February 1979, impressive amounts of research have been devoted to analyzing and illustrating the institutionalization of clerical establishment in post-revolutionary Iran. Yet, ironically enough, our knowledge of the clerical elite in Iran remains limited to a few leading figures (e.g., the Supreme Leader and the leading clerics in Tehran and Qom). Scholars know very little about the characteristics of the middle and lower clerical elites, and three decades after the clergy became the state elite par excellence, no comprehensive empirical study exists that examines the recruitment, composition, and circulation of the clergy in the governmental and parallel institutions. To understand the nature of one such parallel institution, this paper will analyze the institution of Friday Prayer that is part of the Supreme Leader’s network in various cities and provinces. It examines the structure of this institution and the social background of more than eight hundred Friday Prayer Imams. The study will address the following group of questions: What are the social backgrounds of the Friday Prayer Imams? What percentage of the Friday Prayer Imams comes from urban areas as compared to rural areas? How frequently are these clerics appointed by the Supreme Leader? What percentage of the Friday Prayer Imams studied in the main seminaries? The paper maintains that, contrary to popular belief, many Friday Prayer Imams are from rural backgrounds and that their appointments were rarely the result of the traditional mode of mujtahed-student relationships. It, also, illustrates that, former Revolutionary Guard members and war veterans are a new generation of younger provincial clerics who rose to prominence as a result of their service in the course of the Iran-Iraq War.