​Most studies dealing with the activities of Shi'i religious actors tend to classify them as falling within the binaries of politicized and non-politicized, or reformists and traditionalists. Often these binaries have ignored the importance of the different forms of religious activism and practices. This study is concerned with the importance of religious activism and its relationship to socio-political variables in shaping the movement of religious actors, focusing on the examples of Muhammad al-Sadr and Ali al-Sistani, who competed over the Marja’iyya at similar times. The paper argues that while Sadr developed his version of religious activism by blending the social and religious movement with the Islamization project, Sistani tended to separate between political and religious practice, and his presence in the public sphere was not framed with a specific ideological template.