Iraqi ayatollahs

Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 29. Chapters: Iraqi grand ayatollahs, Ali al-Sistani, Grand Ayatollah Muhammad Hussain Najafi, Mohammad Baqir al-Sadr, Mohammad Hussaini Shirazi, Five Martyrs of Shia Islam, Ayatollah Sheikh Basheer Hussain Najafi, Abu al-Qasim al-Khoei, Mohammad Baqir al-Hakim, Muhsin al-Hakim, Mohammad Mohammad Sadeq al-Sadr, Sadiq Hussaini Shirazi, Ayatollah Mohammad Hussein al-Ansari, Mohammad Bahr al-Ulloum, Aqa Bozorg Tehrani, Mohammed Reza Shirazi, Muhaqqiq al-Hilli, Haydar al-Sadr, Mirza Mohammed Hassan Husseini Shirazi, Fazel Maleki, Mujtaba Hussaini Shirazi, Mahmoud Hassani Sorkhi, Mohammad Ebrahim Ansari, Mohammad Ali Tabatabaei Hassani, Hussein Esmaeel al-Sadr, Allaedin Ghoraifi, Mohammad Mehdi Khalesi, Mohammad Ali Shirazi, Kazem al-Haeri, Mohammad Taher Khaqani, Ahmad Hassani Baghdadi, Sadr al-Din al-Sadr, Saleh Taei, Qasem Taei, Shamsodin Vaezi, Mohammad Yaqoobi, Morteza Hosseini Fayaz, Morteza Hosseini Shirazi, Mohammad Shahroudi, Ali Hassani Baghdadi, Mohammad Taqi al-Modarresi, Mohammad Yaqubi, Mohammad Saeed Al-Hakim. Excerpt: Grand Ayatollah Sayyid Ali al-Husayni al-Sistani (Arabic: ¿ Persian: , born August 4, 1930) is the highest-ranking Twelver Shia marja in Iraq and the leader of the Hawza of Najaf. Sistani was born in Mashhad, Iran, to a family of religious scholars who traced their roots to Isfahan. During the Safavid period, Sistani's ancestor Sayyid Mohammad was appointed by King Hussain to the office of Sheikh ul-Islam (Leading Authority of Islam) presiding over the Sistan province, where he then traveled with his children and settled, an event which accounts for the usage of the title "al-Sistani" in the Ayatollah's own name today. Sistani began his religious education as a child, first in Mashhad and continuing later in Qom. In 1951, Sistani traveled to Iraq to study in Najaf under Grand Ayatollah Abu al-Qasim al-Khoei. Sistani rose to the rank of Marja in 1960. At the unusually young age of thirty-one, Ayatollah Sistani reached the senior level of accomplishment called Ijtihad, which entitled him to pass his own judgments on religious questions. The top maraji of Najaf Hawzah: (from left to right) Mohammad Ishaq al-Fayyad, Ali al-Sistani, Mohammad Saeed Al-Hakim and Bashir al-Najafi. Ali al-Sistani and Abu al-Qasim al-Khoei.When Grand Ayatollah Khoei died in 1992, Sistani ascended to the rank of Grand Ayatollah through traditional peer recognition of his scholarship. His role as successor to Khoei was symbolically cemented when he led funeral prayers for Khoei, he also inherited Khoei's network and following. During the years of Saddam Hussein's rule of Iraq through the Ba'ath Party, Sistani survived the violent Ba'athist repression and persecution which killed many Shia clerics. After the deaths of several leading ayatollahs in Iraq, including Grand Ayatollah Mohammad Mohammad Sadeq al-Sadr, Sistani emerged as the preeminent Shia cleric, although Sistani's mosque was shut down in 1994, and did not reopen until the United States-led 2003 invasion of Iraq. Since the overthrow o