Grand Ayatollah Shobeiri Zanjani passes away at 98

Grand Ayatollah Shobeiri Zanjani, a senior Shia cleric and source of religious emulation, passed away on Monday at the age of 98, his office announced. The announcement said his soul had "joined God" and quoted a Quranic verse: "Those whom the angels take in death while they are good, they say, 'Peace be upon you; enter Paradise for what you used to do.'"

The late marja had been admitted to a hospital in the holy city of Qom on Friday evening after a pulmonary complication and remained under intensive care for two days before his passing. Funeral and burial arrangements will be announced later, his office said. The office offered condolences to the Islamic seminaries, the people of Iran, and followers of the marja'iyya across the world. It described his life as one of "deep reflection, continuous scholarly struggle, sincere effort to preserve and elevate authentic jurisprudence, the spread of Islamic teachings, the safeguarding of Shia Islam and goodwill toward the people."

Grand Ayatollah Shobeiri Zanjani was born on March 2, 1928, in Qom, three months after his father, the late Ayatollah Sayyid Ahmad Shobeiri Zanjani, settled beside the shrine of Hazrat Fatima Masoumeh (peace be upon her). He was named Musa in honor of that sacred proximity. His father was a prominent jurist, a close associate of the founder of the Qom seminary, Sheikh Abdul-Karim Haeri Yazdi, and a companion of Imam Khomeini in the scholarly circles of the city.

He began seminary studies as a child and later attended the advanced lessons of leading masters in Qom and Najaf, including Grand Ayatollahs Sayyid Hossein Borujerdi, Sayyid Mohammad Mohaqeq Damad, Sayyid Abolqasem Khoei, Sayyid Mohsen Hakim, Sayyid Abd al-Hadi Shirazi, and Imam Khomeini. He became one of the foremost authorities in ilm al-rijal, the science of evaluating hadith narrators, and taught advanced fiqh in Qom for more than four decades, according to Press TV. After the passing of Grand Ayatollah Mohammad Ali Araki in 1994, the Society of Seminary Teachers of Qom named him among the seven jurists qualified for marja'iyya. According to Mehr News, funeral and burial arrangements will be announced later.