Abdul Karim Haeri Yazdi

Grand Ayatollah Hajj Sheikh Abdolkarim Haeri Yazdi (Persian: عبدالكريم حائري يزدي; Arabic: عبد الكريم الحائري اليزدي; ArTranslit|‘Abd al-Karī̄m al-Ḥa’irī̄ al-Yazdī̄) (1859 — January 30, 1937) was a Twelver Shia Muslim cleric and marja. He was known for the founded of an important Islamic seminary (hawza) in Qom, Iran, and for his "studied disinterest in politics". Among his students was Ruhollah Khomeini.

Haeri was born in a village near Yazd, in southeastern Iran. After completing his elementary education there he went to Najaf to study. He studied with Grand Ayatollah Mirza Hassan Shirazi and complete his training with Mohammad-Kazem Khorasani. In about 1900 he returned to Iran to teach at a madrasah in the provincial town of Arak. In 1906 he reportedly became disenchanted with the politicization from the Iranian Constitutional Revolution and moved back to Najaf. When Najaf became political he moved to Karbala until political excitement cooled in 1913 when he moved back to Arak. By 1921 he was known as a "well-known and respected teacher" and "good administrator" and he accepted an invitation of Mullahs in Qom "to act as doyen" to the circles of learning in that Shrine town. [Mottahedeh, Roy, "The Mantle of the Prophet : Religion and Politics in Iran", One World, Oxford, 1985, 2000, p.228-9]

Under Haeri, Qom moved from a respectable provincial Madrasah to a major center of learning close to the level of Najaf. Although "some of his contemporaries outshone" him as jurisconsults, Haeri became the marja for "many religious Iranians."

Haeri's quietism was reflected in his willingness to meet cordially with both Shah Ahmad Shah Qajar and Prime Minister Reza Khan. [Mottahedeh, Roy, "The Mantle of the Prophet : Religion and Politics in Iran", One World, Oxford, 1985, 2000, p.229]

Notes

ee also

*Ruhollah Khomeini
*List of Islamic studies scholars

ources

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