Mohammad Fazel Lankarani

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Born:	1931
Birth Location:	Qom, Iran
Died	June 16, 2007
Official Website	Lankarani

Grand Ayatollah Mohammad Fazel Lankarani (1931 in Qom, Iran — June 16, 2007 in London, England) was the son of the late Ayatollah Fazel Lankarani, and a student of Grand Ayatollah Borujerdi. He was an ethnic Azeri.^[1]

1 Clerical activities
2 See also
3 References
4 External links

[edit] Clerical activities

Grand Ayatollah Fazel Lankarani was declared as the most knowledgeable specialist in the field of the Islamic law (Marja al-taqlid) by the central Shi'a school of religious studies in Qom, Hawza 'Ilmiyyah, after the death of Ayatollah Khomeini. Lankarani taught in the areas of the science of Islamic law (fiqh) and Usul al-fiqh for the last 25 years of his life. He received his ijtihad, the permission of independent interpretation of the legal sources (the Qur'an and the Sunnah), from Ayatollah Boroujerdi at the age of 25. He led the prayer in the haram of Bibi Masouma A.S in Qum.

Fazel Lankarani was a strong supporter of the Ayatollah Khomeini, being jailed several times and exiled once prior to the Iranian revolution.^[2]

After the Iranian Revolution, he was a member of the Assembly of Experts, Iran's leading religious body.^[2]

His Resalah, the book including his interpretation of Islamic laws on different topics, is available in Arabic, English, Persian, Turkish, Urdu, and other languages.

Fazel Lankarani called on Islamic believers to kill Salman Rushdie under the fatwa issued by the Ayatollah Khomeini following the publication of The Satanic Verses in 1989.^[2] He also called, in 1998, for the Iranian government to do "its utmost" to protect Afghan Shiites, then reportedly endangered by the Taliban.^[3]

In November 2006 Lankarani issued a fatwa calling for the deaths of Rafiq Tağı, an Azeri writer, and Tagi's editor, Samir Sədaqətoğlunu, who were accused of criticizing Islam.^[4] Tagi's writings sparked recent demonstrations outside the Azerbaijani embassy in Teheran. According to Iranian and Islamic law, these sentences are only applicable if either individual freely and willfully enters Iran and submit themselves to the authorities.

He also believed that women do not have the right to watch male soccer players at stadiums.^[5]

He moved to Tehran from the holy city of Qom to receive medical treatment but after his treatment proved unsatisfactory and his general health conditions deteriorated, he died on Saturday June 16, 2007.