Seyyed Hossein Borujerdi
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Muslim jurist |
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| Name: | Seyyed Hossein Borujerdi |
| Title: | معظم له |
| Birth: | 1875 |
| Death: | March 30, 1961 (aged 86) |
| Region: | Iran and Iraq |
| Maddhab: | Twelver Shia Islam |
| Main interests: | Fiqh |
| Influenced: | Morteza Motahhari |
Grand Ayatollah Seyyed Hossein Borujerdi (1875-1961) (Persian: آیت الله العظمی سید حسین بروجردی) was a Twelver Shi'a Marja and the leading Marja in Iran from roughly 1947 to his death in 1961.[1]
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[edit] Education and academic specialties
Borujerdi was born in the city of Borujerd in the province of Lorestan in Iran, hence the surname.
In his youth, Borujerdi studied under a number of Shi'ite masters of Islamic jurisprudence such as Mohammad-Kazem Khorasani and Aqa Zia Iraqi, and specialized in fiqh. He studied the fiqahat of all the Islamic schools of thought, not just his own, along with the science of rijal. Though he is known for citing masoomeen to support many of his deductions, Borujerdi is known for elucidating many aspects himself and is an influential fiqh jurist in his own right. He has had a strong influence on Islamic scholars like Morteza Motahhari and Ayatollah Shaikh Husain Montazeri.
[edit] Tenure as Ayatollah and Marja
Borujerdi revived the hawza of Qom in 1945 (1364 AH), which had waned after the death in 1937 of its founder, Shaykh Abdul Karim Ha'iri. When Sayyid Abul Hassan Isfahani died the following year, the majority of Shi'a accepted Ayatullah Borujerdi as Marja'-e-Taqlid. Scholar Roy Mottahedeh reports that Borujerdi was the sole marja "in the Shia world" from 1946-6 until his death in 1961.[2]
[edit] Efforts toward Islamic unity
Borujerdi was the first Marja' to look beyond Iraq and Iran. He sent Sayyid Muhaqqiqi to Hamburg, Germany, Aqa-e-Shari'at to Karachi, Pakistan, Al-Faqihi to Madinah and Sayyid Musa Sadr to Lebanon.
He established cordial relations with Shaykh Mahmud Shaltut, the grand Shaykh of Al-Azhar. Together, the two scholars established the "House for Bringing Muslim Sects Nearer" in Cairo. Shaltut issued a famous fatwa accepting the Shi'a faith as one of the recognised sects of Islam.
[edit] Political leanings
Unlike many clergy and temporal rulers, Borujerdi and Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, are said to have had cordial and mutually beneficial relations, starting with a visit by the not-yet-Shah to Borujerdi's hospital room in 1944. Borujerdi is said to have generally remained aloof from politics and given the Shah his "tacit support," while the Shah did not follow his father's harsh anti-clericalism (for example he exempted clergy from military service), and until Borujerdi's death occasionally visited the cleric. [3]
Borujerdi's belief in quietism, or separation of church from state, extended to keeping silent in public on such issues as Israel's treatment of the Palestinians, the overthrow of Mohammed Mossadeq and the end of his campaign to nationalize and control the British-owned oil industry in Iran, and the Baghdad Pact alliance with the US and UK.[4] It is thought that as a reward for this support the Shah ensured more religious instruction in state schools, tightened control of cinemas and other offensive secular entertainment during Moharram.
Ayatollah Borujerdi passively opposed the Pahlavi regime's agrarian reforms, which he called "agrarian destruction."[5] In his view, the confiscations of large concentrations of landholdings of aristocrats and clergy by the Pahlavi shahs disrupted the fabric of rural life and eroded religious institutions.
Future revolutionary Ruhollah Khomeini was an underling of Borujerdi and Borujerdi forbade him to take part in political activities, a ban which only ended with Borujerdi's death.
[edit] Death
Borujerdi died in Qom on March 30, 1961.[6] The Shah proclaimed three days of mourning and attended a memorial service in his honor.[7]
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ Mottahedeh, Roy, The Mantle of the Prophet : Religion and Politics in Iran, One World, Oxford, 1985, 2000, p.231
- ^ Mottahedeh, The Mantle of the Prophet, (1985, 2000), p.231
- ^ Mottahedeh, The Mantle of the Prophet, (1985, 2000), p.230
- ^ Mottahedeh, The Mantle of the Prophet, (1985, 2000), p.237-8
- ^ Sayyid Husain Borujirdi
- ^ "Bourjerdi dies in Iran," The New York Times, March 31, 1961, p. 27.
- ^ Mottahedeh, The Mantle of the Prophet, (1985, 2000), p.240
