Grand Ayatollah Sayyed Ali Al-Sistani Biography by Maualna Ali raza Rizvi
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ali_al-Sistani
Early life
Sistani was born in 1930 to a family of religious clerics; his father was Muhammad Baqir al-Sistani. Sistani himself claims to have been born in Mashhad, Iran,[4] however there are disputes as to whether or not he was born in Mashhad or in Sistan and then moved to Mashhad as a child due to Iran not issuing birth certificates in its eastern provinces (now known as Region 5) until decades later.[citation needed]
Sistani began his religious education as a child, first in Mashhad in his father's hawzah, and continuing later in Qom. In Qom he studied under Grand Ayatollah Houssein Broujerdi. Later in 1951, Sistani traveled to Iraq to study in Najaf under Grand Ayatollah Abu al-Qasim al-Khoei. Sistani rose to the Usooli clerical rank of 'mujtahid' in 1960.[5] At the unusually young age of thirty-one, Sistani reached the senior level of clerical accomplishment, or ijtihad, which entitled him to pass his own judgments on religious questions.[6]
He has a son called Muhammad Rida al-Sistani.[7]
Grand Ayatollah
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.
Ba'ath Party
During the years of Saddam Hussein's rule of Iraq through the Ba'ath Party, Sistani was untouched during the violent Ba'athist repression and persecution that killed many clerics including Mohammad Mohammad Sadeq al-Sadr in 1999, for which Saddam denied any involvement. His predecessor, Khoei, sat down with Saddam on state TV.[8] After the death of Grand Ayatollah Khoei in 1992, Sistani emerged as the prominent Shia cleric to guide the Shia people under Saddam's rule, although Sistani's mosque was shut down in 1994 and did not reopen until the US-led 2003 invasion of Iraq.
Role in contemporary Iraq
Since the overthrow of the Ba'ath Party, Sistani has played an increasingly prominent role in regional religious and political affairs and he has been called the "most influential" figure in post-invasion Iraq.[9][10]
Shortly after the US invasion began, Sistani issued a fatwa advising Shia clergy to become engaged in politics in order to better guide the Iraqi people toward "clearer decisions," and to fight "media propaganda."[citation needed] As the summer of 2003 approached, Sistani and his followers began to petition the occupying forces for a constitutional convention. Later, Sistani called for a democratic vote of the people for the purpose of forming a transitional government. Observers described the move as being a path leading directly to Shia political dominance over Iraq's government, as Shia Muslims make up approximately 65% of the total Iraqi population.[citation needed] Subsequently, Sistani criticized plans for an Iraqi government for not being democratic enough.[citation needed]
In early August, 2004, Sistani experienced serious health complications related to a previously diagnosed heart condition. He traveled to London to receive medical treatment. It was, reportedly, the first time that Sistani had left Iraq in decades, and may have been due, in part, to growing concerns for his safety from sectarian violence. Though still recovering, Sistani returned later in the month to broker a military truce at the Imam Ali Mosque in Najaf where Muqtada al-Sadr and the Mahdi Army had been cornered by American and Iraqi forces. Sadr, who rose rapidly to prominence through a series of independent military actions beginning in 2004, has since actively challenged Sistani's more progressive influence over Shia in the region.[11]
Sistani's edicts reportedly provided many Iraqi Shia cause for participating in the January 2005 elections—he urged, in a statement on October 1, 2004, that Iraqis recognize the election as an "important matter," additionally, Sistani asked that the elections be "free and fair. . . with the participation of all Iraqis." Soon after, Sistani issued a fatwa alerting Shia women that they were religiously obligated to participate in the election, even if their husbands had forbidden them from voting.[12] In an issued statement Sistani remarked that, "truly, women who go forth to the polling centers on election day are like Zaynab, who went forth to Karbala."[13]
He has consistently urged the Iraqi Shia not to respond in kind to attacks from Sunni Salafists, which have become common in Sunni-dominated regions of Iraq like the area known as the "Triangle of Death," south of Baghdad. Even after the destruction of the Shia Al-Askari Mosque in Samarra in February 2006, his network of clerics and preachers continued to urge calm and told their followers that "it was not their Sunni neighbors who were killing them but foreign Wahhabis."[14] Sistani's call for unity after the bombing of the mosque helped to control a potentially dangerous situation, preventing the country to enter in a bloody sectarian war. Sistani did the same when the same mosque was bombed again in 2007.[15]
An alleged plot to assassinate Sistani was foiled on January 29, 2007, when three Jund al-Samaagunmen were captured at a hotel near his office. It is believed to have been part of a larger attack against a number of targets in Najaf.[16]
In an online open poll, 2005, Ali al-Sistani was selected as the 30th topmost intellectual person in the world on the list of Top 100 Public Intellectualsby Prospect (UK) and Foreign Policy (US).[17]
On June 13, 2014 Sistani appealed that Iraqis should support the government against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant militant group which had taken over Mosul and Tikrit and was threatening Baghdad.[18] Later in June 2014, Sistani revised his statement and issued a fatwa calling for "Citizens to defend the country, its people, the honor of its citizens, and its sacred places," against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant terrorist group.[19]
Shia patronage
As the leading Ayatollah in Najaf, Sistani oversees sums amounting to millions of US dollars. Sistani's followers offer him a fixed part of their earnings (tithe), which is used for educational and charitable purposes. Sistani's office has reported that it supports 35,000 students in Qom, 10,000 in Mashhad, and 4,000 in Isfahan.[20] It also oversees a network of representatives (wakil) "who promote his (Sistani's) views in large and small ways in neighborhoods, mosques, bazaars, and seminaries from Kirkuk to Basra."[21]
Additionally, Sistani has a substantial following within Shia communities all over the world and is the current Grand Marja of the Twelver sect of Shia Muslims. In Iran, as a result of the post-invasion opening of the Iraqi cities of Najaf and Karbala to Iranians, many Iranians are said to return from pilgrimage in Iraq as supporters of Sistani.[22]
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