Morteza Ansari

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Morteza Ansari (also transliterated Mortaza Ansari and Murtada Aansari) (~1781-1864), was a Shia jurist who "was generally acknowledged as the most eminent jurist of the time." [1] Ansari has also been called the "first effective" model or Marja of the Shia[2] or "the first scholar universally recognized as supreme authority in matters of Shii law," and the first to develop the theory of Vilayat-e Faqih, later made famous by the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini as a political ideology.[3]

Sheikh Morteza Ansari was born in southwestern Iran around 1781, the time the Qajar dynasty was establishing its power in Iran. He studied first at Najaf, "the home of the revived jurisconsult school in southern Iraq" and after becoming an advanced student toured Iran visiting and studying "with prominent Iranian mullahs." In about 1833 he returned to Najaf and "set the seal on the intellectual leadership" there.[4] While Ansari was celebrated for his piety and generosity, he "more than that of any mullah leader of the past two centuries, his leadership celebrated his learning." "The new jurisconsult school admitted the uncertainty of much of the sacred law and emphasized that only jurisconsults could manipulate reason and tradition with the authority necessary to produce a `best guess`. The rest of the believers, called `imitators,` were free to choose among these best guessers, but not to guess for themselves."

In 1849, with the death of "the most prominent scholar of the generation senior to Ansari," Ansari became the universally recognized `most learned` jurisconsult, the first "full-fledged" marja not only in Iran and Mesopotamia, but throughout the Shia world.[5] perhaps 200,000 Tomans a year of Sahm-e Imam, or portion of the imam self-tithing of Shia, poured into Ansari's base in Najaf "from all over the Islamic world". Ansari lived humbly generously provided stipends to Talebeh (Islamic students) with these funds, which resulted in a confirmation of Najaf's standing as center of Shiah learning.[6]

Ansari's greatest work of scholarship was not on the Islamic laws of worship or ritual purity but commerce.[7] He developed the theory of Guardianship of the Islamic Jurists (Vilayat-e Faqih), were jurists were to become legal guardians of orphans, the mentally incompetent, etc.[8]

Despite his enormous influence he "remained a pure scholar", never exerting his authority in the Shia community, and seldom judging cases or giving fatawa.[9]

[edit] See also

[edit] Reverences

  • Mottahedeh, Roy, The Mantle of the Prophet : Religion and Politics in Iran, One World, Oxford, 1985, 2000

[edit] Footnotes

  1. ^ The Qajar class structure, by Ahmad Ashraf & Ali Banuazizi
  2. ^ Mottahedeh, The Mantle of the Prophet, (2000), p.210
  3. ^ Esposito, John, The Oxford Dictionary of Islam, (2003) p.21
  4. ^ Mottahedeh, The Mantle of the Prophet, (2000), p.210
  5. ^ Mottahedeh, The Mantle of the Prophet, (2000), p.213
  6. ^ Mottahedeh, The Mantle of the Prophet, (2000), p.213-4
  7. ^ Mottahedeh, The Mantle of the Prophet, (2000), p.212
  8. ^ Esposito, John, The Oxford Dictionary of Islam, (2003) p.21
  9. ^ Mottahedeh, The Mantle of the Prophet, (2000), p.214