during the first russo-persian war (1804–1813), fath ali shah's son and heir, abbas mirza, who was conducting the campaign, turned to the new ulama and obtained from shaykh ja'far kashif al-ghita' and other eminent clerics in najaf and isfahan a declaration of jihad against the russians, thus implicitly recognizing their authority to issue such a declaration – one of the functions of the hidden imām. kashif al-ghita used the opportunity to extract from the state acknowledgment of the ulama's right to collect the religious taxes of khums."