Ayatollah Ayatollah ( ; fa, آیت‌الله, āyatollāh) is an honorific title for high-ranking Twelver Shia clergy in Iran and Iraq that came into widespread usage in the 20th century. Etymology The title is originally derived from Arabic word p ...

Mohammad Momen (13 January 1938 – 21 February 2019) was a Faqih (a cleric qualified to judge based on

Islamic law Sharia (; ar, شريعة, sharīʿa ) is a body of religious law that forms a part of the Islamic tradition. It is derived from the religious precepts of Islam and is based on the sacred scriptures of Islam, particularly the Quran and the ...

) and a very influential member of the Guardian Council of the

Islamic Republic of Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...

Influence in government

He simultaneously sat on the

Expediency Discernment Council The Expediency Discernment Council of the System ( fa, مجمع تشخیص مصلحت نظام ''Majma'-e Taškhīs-e Maslahat-e Nezām'') is an administrative assembly appointed by the Supreme Leader and was created upon the revision to the Co ...

and the

Assembly of Experts The Assembly of Experts ( fa, مجلس خبرگان رهبری, majles-e khobregân-e rahbari), also translated as the Assembly of Experts of the Leadership or as the Council of Experts, is the deliberative body empowered to appoint the Supreme ...

, representing the Islamic holy city of Qom in the latter and winning in the

2006 Iranian Assembly of Experts election The fourth Iranian Assembly of Experts election was held on 15 December 2006. The Assembly of Experts is a Council of 86 ''Ijtihad#Qualifications of a Shi'a mujtahid, mujtahids'' that elect the Supreme Leader of Iran, Supreme Leader, and oversee ...

. He gained a very large percentage of the vote. His opponent, Ayatollah Mohammad Taqi Mesbah-Yazdi, was a strong supporter and spiritual mentor of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and his victory has been interpreted by some as a sign of dissatisfaction with Ahmedinejad's policies. Because of his political influence in the government, '' Siyasat'', a conservative weekly periodical, had been touted, along with the hard-line conservative

Morteza Moghtadai Ayatollah Morteza Moghtadai (مرتضی مقتدایی) (born 12 October 1935 in Isfahan, Iran) is an Iranian Shia scholar, and deputy chairman of Society of Seminary Teachers of Qom. He was re-elected to the fourth Assembly of Experts. He cur ...

, to be a possible replacement for Judiciary Chief

Mohammad Yazdi Mohammad Yazdi ( fa, محمد یزدی, 2 July 1931 – 9 December 2020) was an Iranian conservative and principlist cleric who served as the head of Judiciary System of Iran between 1989 and 1999. In 2015, he was elected to lead Iran's Assembl ...

Political position

He was a moderate conservative,Financial Times
/ref> and was considered to be an excellent student of the

Qur'an The Quran (, ; Standard Arabic: , Quranic Arabic: , , 'the recitation'), also romanized Qur'an or Koran, is the central religious text of Islam, believed by Muslims to be a revelation from God. It is organized in 114 chapters (pl.: , s ...

. He was a notable figure among fundamentalists in Iran. Some considered him to be more of a theologian than a politician.

References

1938 births 2019 deaths Iranian ayatollahs Members of the Expediency Discernment Council Members of the Guardian Council Members of the Assembly of Experts People from Qom Society of Seminary Teachers of Qom members Islamic Republican Party politicians {{Iran-politician-stub