Mohammad-Taqi Mesbah-Yazdi

Mohammad Taghi Mesbah Yazdi
Born	(1934-01-31) 31 January 1934 Yazd, Iran
Religion	Twelver Shi'a Islam
Website	Official website

Ayatollah Mohammad Taghi Mesbah Yazdi (Persian: محمد تقی مصباح‌ یزدی‎‎; born 31 January 1934) is an Iranian Twelver Shi'i cleric. He is also a member of Iran's Assembly of Experts,^[1][2] the body responsible for choosing the Supreme Leader, where he heads a minority faction.^[3] He has been called "the most conservative" and the most "powerful" clerical oligarch" in Iran's leading center of religious learning, the city of Qom.^[4]

In Qum, from 1952 to 1960, he participated in the courses taught by Imam Khomeini and Muhammad Husayn Tabataba'i. He also attended, for approximately fifteen years, Mohammad-Taqi Bahjat Foumani.^[5]

Mesbah Yazdi advocates Islamic philosophy and in particular Sadra Mutahillin's transcendent school of philosophy (Hikmat-e Muta`aliya). He believes Iranian are moving away from religion and values of Islamic revolution and opposes democratic rule of western country^[6] and the west-oriented reform movement.^[7][8]

Education

Mesbah Yazdi completed his primary and secondary education in Yazd, and then moved to Qom, where he continued his education in fiqh (Islamic Jurisprudence). He studied works of Avicenna and Mulla Sadra. In the 1950s he joined pro-Khomeini students in Qom. His teachers included prominent figures such as Ayatollah Khomeini and Ayatollah Mohammad Taghi Bahjat Foumani. He was also among the students of Ayatollah Allameh Tabatabaei, the author of Tafsir al-Mizan, the influential shi'a exegesis of Quran. He graduated in 1960. Before the Islamic revolution, he assisted the other clerics, i.e., Mohammad Beheshti and Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, in publishing two journals called "Mission of Prophet Muhammad" and "Revenge", while he was responsible for all the publishing activities in the latter.^[9]

Political activity

Perhaps Mesbah Yazdi In 1997, after the election of president, Mohammad Khatami, Mesbah Yazdi encouraged Iran's Revolutionary Guards and Hezbolli to put a stop to the reform agitation by any means, including violence.^[4] After decline of the reform movement in 2003, his supporters made gains in local and parliamentary elections. In 2005, Mesbah Yazdi supported Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's presidential bid and subsequently gained "direct influence" in the Iranian government through the appointment of loyal supporters "to high posts" after Ahmadinejad's victory.^[10] By 2011, however, he was sharply critical of Ahmadinejad saying that he was behaving “unnaturally” and needed to be “saved.”^[11] After Ahmadinejad fired intelligence minister Heydar Moslehi without consulting Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, Mesbah Yazdi stated, "That a human being would behave in a way that angers his closest friends and allies and turns them into opponents is not logical for any politician."^[12]

According to some sources, Mesbah-Yazdi is rumored to have ambitions to succeed Khamenei as Supreme Leader.^[3][13] Some clerics and some newspapers feared Mesbah-Yazdi was trying to expand his power by "packing" the Assembly of Experts with "loyalists." In October 2006, an acolyte of Mesbah-Yazdi, Mojtaba Samareh Hashemi, was appointed head of the election commission, supervisor of the poll for the Assembly of Experts,^[14] and many of the candidates in the 2006 Assembly of Experts elections were Mesbah-Yazdi loyalists (though they ran as independent candidates to avoid revealing their affiliation to him).^[10] However, his group failed to achieve a majority in that election, leaving the assembly in the hands of pragmatic-conservatives.^[15] Mesbah-Yazdi himself won a seat but finished only in sixth-place in Tehran municipality where he ran,^[16] and now heads the minority faction in the assembly^[3]

He has been named by Akbar Ganji as "having encouraged or issued fatwas, or religious orders" for the 1998 chain murders assassinations of five Iranian dissidents.^[17]

2009 Presidential Election

Mesbah-Yazdi supported Ahmadinejad in 2009 and declared his election a miracle and a gift from the Hidden Imam.^[18]

On 22 June, a few days after security forces broke up one of the biggest election protests, Mesbah-Yazdi "addressed a gathering" of Revolutionary Guards and told them:

"Do not be worried about the events and earthquakes that have occurred. Know that God created this world as a test, ... The supreme leader holds a great many of the blessings God has given us and at a time of such uncertainties our eyes must turn to him."^[19]

According to Alarabiya news Mesbah Yazdi issued a fatwa calling for the murder of Mir-Hossein Mousavi following the election.^[20] The fatwa itself has, however, not been provided as evidence.

Career

Mesbah Yazdi believed that the educational system of hawza should be changed and his proposal was approved by Seyyed Hossein Borujerdi^[21] so he and Mohammad Beheshti establish the Haghani School (also Haqqani) in Qom to train the future cadres of Iran.Mesbah-Yazdi has been described as close to Ayatollah Mohammad Beheshti, Khomeini's first designated heir who was assassinated in Hafte Tir bombing,1981 (despite being considered a moderate),^[22] and is (or was) a member of the school's board of directors.^[23] The Haghani School is very influential and has been described as "a kind of Ecole Nationale d'Administration for the Islamic Republic" whose alumni "form the backbone of the clerical management class that runs Iran's key political and security institutions."^[24]

Mesbah-Yazdi is the author of many books on fiqh, Quran exegesis, divinity and general issues of Islam. His "Amuzesh-e Falsafeh" is used widely in the philosophy classes of Qom's hawza. It broadly covers the same ground as Allameh Tabatabaei's Arabic-language works in philosophy "Bidayat al-Hikmah" and "Nihayat al-Hikma". Mesbah-Yazdi's "Amuzesh-e Falsafeh" has been published in English translation by Gary Legenhausen and Azim Sarvdalir as "Philosophical Instructions," Binghamton University 1999.^[25]

He publishes the weekly Parto-Sokhan,^[26] is the director of the Imam Khomeini Education and Research Institute in Qom, founded in 1995,^[25][27] and a member (since 1990) of the Iranian Assembly of Experts.

After the presidential election of June 1997 in the relatively more open political atmosphere in that time, Mesbah Yazdi's students played an important role as the critics of the former president Mohammad Khatami. As a result, Mesbah Yazdi's name appeared more often in the media and became more well known. He supported Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's presidential bid,^[28]In December 2006, he was reelected to the Assembly of Experts.^[2]

Views

Mesbah Yazdi has been described as "a theoretician of the radicals" in Iran,^[29] "is opposed to western culture" and "the first senior figure" in Iran to have "publicly endorsed a military nuclear programme."^[30] He advocates suicide bombings, the killing of "any person who insults Islam," and the carrying out of the fatwa to kill author Salman Rushdie. He considers "the Zionists" to be the fundamental source of evil on earth. ^[29]

In an article by the Associated Press, quoting from an 2005 book written by Yazdi, the AP asserted that Yazdi made a "rare public call for the producing the 'special weapons' that are monopoly of a few nations -- a veiled reference to nuclear arms."^[31]

In a lecture posted on his website, Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi warns of Muslim of the "thugs of falsehood and the followers of the damned Satan" who have formed a

coalition of the forces of infidelity and hypocrisy, the servants of dollars and euros/gold and silver, and influential oppressors and traitors to uproot Islam, to fight Muslims, to dominate their countries, wealth, and resources, to deny their glories and excellence, to destroy their relics and teachings, to wipe out their culture, to alter their identity, to put them in miserable conditions, and to force them into wretchedness in this world and God’s punishment in the hereafter.^[32]

Mesbah-Yazdi supports a return to what he sees as the values of the 1979 Iranian revolution.^[28] He believes an "Islamic republic" is a contradiction in terms, as a truly Islamic government would not hold elections as an opportunity for voters to make choices between representatives and policies, but to express their allegiance to the supreme faqih.^[7] He believes that "the republican component" was established in Iran as a concession to secular forces^[8] and should be "stripped" away to leave the true essence of the "Islamic system."^[7] He has been quoted as saying, "It doesn't matter what the people think. The people are ignorant sheep."^[8]

Mesbah-Yazdi is also a firm opponent of the Reformist movement in Iran which he believes an Islamic government must "combat ... because injecting misleading ideas [of reform] is like injecting the Aids virus!". He also claims that young Iranians who questioned the regime after studying abroad did so only because they had been trained in 'psychological warfare' by foreign universities.^[28] President Khatami once called him the theoretician of violence.^[29]

In 2005 he issued a fatwa urging Iranians to vote for Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a former student and "protege", whom he is "considered a ideological and spiritual mentor" of, and with whom he reportedly meets weekly.^[29] Following Ahmadinejad's election Mesbah Yazdi declared that Iran now had its first true Islamic government and there was no need for any more elections, which were incompatible with theocracy.

Mesbah Yazdi believes that a trial is not needed to convict and execute offenders. "If anyone insults the Islamic sanctity, Islam has permitted for his blood to be spilled, no court needed either". He has called for the execution of Dr Hashem Aghajari for insulting Islam based on the blasphemy laws of the Islamic Republic of Iran. This idea is considered by many, as an open avocation of terrorism.

On the issue of slavery Mesbah Yazdi said

Today, too, if there’s a war between us and the infidels, we’ll take slaves. The ruling on slavery hasn’t expired and is eternal. We’ll take slaves and we’ll bring them to the world of Islam and have them stay with Muslims. We’ll guide them, make them Muslims and then return them to their countries.^[33][34]

In a lecture that was released on 15 February 2006, Mohsen Ghorourian who is a well-known student of Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi said that using atomic bomb has religious legitimacy.^[35]

Like many prominent Shia clergies, he supports non-literal interpretations of various verses of the Qur'an and narrations attributed to the Prophet and his followers.^[36] Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi opposes bida'a or innovations in religion which he believes includes new interpretations of the Sunna and Qur'an. He has been quoted as saying: "If someone tells you he has a new interpretation of Islam, sock him in the mouth."^[28]

In August 2009 he is reported to have warned Iranian opposition groups against undermining supreme leader Ali Khamenei, stating,

"When the president is endorsed by the leader, obeying him is similar to obedience to God."^[37]

Controversy

Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi has been described as "affiliated" with the Hojjatieh group.^[38] Ayatollah denies this and denounced the rumor, saying that if anyone finds a connection between him and Hojjatieh, he will renounce everything he stands for.^[39] Ayatollah Khomeini actually frowned on the Hojjatieh and the group was nominally dissolved in 1983.

Quotes by Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi

• "If someone tells you he has a new interpretation of Islam, sock him in the mouth."^[40]
• "The real and precious knowledge is the one that culminates in God fearing."
• "If it is impossible to uncover the hypocrites faces other than through sacrificing our souls, therefore we are supposed to do so."(In Persian)
• "We should know that 1,400 years ago the Koran said that the enemies of Islam will always fight while chanting peace-seeking slogans.^[28]"
• "Islam cannot accept that a group of people congregate and decide to initiate laws for themselves" (Ettela'at, 1 Oct. 1993)
• " ...when protecting Islam and the Muslim `Ummah depends on martyrdom operations, it not only is allowed, but even is an obligation...^[41]

See also

• Abbasali Amid Zanjani
• History of fundamentalist Islam in Iran

References

External links

• Quotations related to Mohammad-Taqi Mesbah-Yazdi at Wikiquote