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Hawzah
A hawza () or ḥawzah ʿilmīyah () is the collective term (plural hawzat) for a ''madrasa'' (i.e. seminary) where Marja', Shi'a Muslim scholars are educated. The word ''ḥawzah'' is Arabic, and has been adopted into Persian as a loan word. In Arabic, the word means "to hold something firmly". Accordingly, ''ḥawzah ʿilmīyah'' would mean a place where the firm knowledge (of the Muslim religion) is acquired. In the Persian language, ''ḥawzah'' refers to the middle part of a place or an area. ''Ḥawzah ʿilmīyah'' in Persian, therefore, means "the place of knowledge". Another meaning of the word is "circle of knowledge". Several senior Grand Ayatollahs constitute the hawza. The institutions in Najaf, Iraq and Qom, Iran, are the preeminent seminary centers for the education of Shi'a scholars. However, several smaller hawzas exist in other cities around the world, such as at Karbala, Iraq, Isfahan and Mashhad in Iran, Beirut, Lebanon, Lucknow, India, Lahore, Pakistan, Eur ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bashir Al-Najafi
Grand Ayatollah Sheikh Basheer Hussain Najafi () (born 1942) is a Pakistani Twelver Shia Marja' and one of the Big Four (Najaf), Four Grand Ayatollahs of Najaf, Iraq. He was born in Jalandhar, a city in then-British India. He resides in Najaf, Iraq now. Migration to Pakistan After the Partition of India, partition of British India into the Dominion of India and Dominion of Pakistan in 1947, his family moved to Pakistan and settled in the city of Gujranwala, Punjab (Pakistan), Punjab. In Gujranwala he had his initial education in religion. He was then able to move to Iraq for studies in the early 1960s. He is one of many individuals from South Asia and one of the few Pakistanis to have ever been elevated to the highest rank of Grand Ayatollah in Shia Islam. He was one year senior to Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani. Al Najafi was attacked on 6 January 1999 by a group of armed men, reportedly members of Fedayeen Saddam, while he and members of his seminary were performing religious du ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Qom Seminary
The Qom Seminary (') is the largest and one of the foremost Shia Islam, Shia hawzas (Islamic seminaries), located in the city of Qom, Iran. It is the largest seminary in Iran, established in 1922 by Grand Ayatollah Abdul-Karim Haeri Yazdi in Qom to train Usuli scholars. The Hawza is composed of several structured institutions and systems developed to govern itself. Its curriculum includes Arabic grammar, rhetoric, Quranic studies, Qur'anic sciences, Aqidah, theology, and traditional sciences. Along with Kufa and Baghdad, the Qom hadith school is among the three earliest centers of hadith transmission in Shia intellectual history. The seminary's history dates back to the founding of Shia Qom, when the Ash'ari family—a Shia clan—migrated from Kufa to Qom and contributed to the development of the city. Once they gained control over Qom, the propagation of Shiism and teaching of hadith and the Qur'an began. This continued with the arrival of agents and descendants of the Imams of Sh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Seminary
A seminary, school of theology, theological college, or divinity school is an educational institution for educating students (sometimes called seminarians) in scripture and theology, generally to prepare them for ordination to serve as clergy, in academics, or mostly in Christian ministry. The English word is taken from , translated as 'seed-bed', an image taken from the Council of Trent document which called for the first modern seminaries. In the United States, the term is currently used for graduate-level theological institutions, but historically it was used for high schools. History The establishment of seminaries in modern times resulted from Roman Catholic reforms of the Counter-Reformation after the Council of Trent. These Tridentine seminaries placed great emphasis on spiritual formation and personal discipline as well as the study, first of philosophy as a base, and, then, as the final crown, theology. The oldest Catholic seminary in the United States is ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Judicial System Of The Islamic Republic Of Iran
The Islamic Republic Iran was founded after the 1979 overthrow of the Pahlavi dynasty by the Islamic Revolution, and its legal code is based on Islamic law or sharia, although many aspects of civil law have been retained, and it is integrated into a civil law legal system. According to the constitution of the Islamic Republic, the judiciary in Iran "is an independent power". The entire legal system—"from the Supreme Court to regional courts, all the way down to local and revolutionary courts"—is under the purview of the Ministry of Justice, but in addition to a Minister of Justice and head of the Supreme Court, there is also a separate appointed Head of the Judiciary.Abrahamian, Ervand, ''History of Modern Iran'', Cambridge U.P., 2008, p.177 Parliamentary bills pertaining to the constitution are vetted by the Council of Guardians. The original nationwide judicial system in Iran was implemented and established by Abdolhossein Teymourtash under Reza Shah, with further chan ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shi'a Islam
Shia Islam is the second-largest branch of Islam. It holds that Muhammad designated Ali ibn Abi Talib () as both his political successor (caliph) and as the spiritual leader of the Muslim community (imam). However, his right is understood to have been usurped by a number of Muhammad's companions at the meeting of Saqifa where they appointed Abu Bakr () as caliph instead. As such, Sunni Muslims believe Abu Bakr, Umar (), Uthman () and Ali to be ' rightly-guided caliphs' whereas Shia Muslims only regard Ali as the legitimate successor. Shia Muslims assert imamate continued through Ali's sons Hasan and Husayn, after whom different Shia branches have their own imams. They revere the , the family of Muhammad, maintaining that they possess divine knowledge. Shia holy sites include the shrine of Ali in Najaf, the shrine of Husayn in Karbala and other mausoleums of the . Later events such as Husayn's martyrdom in the Battle of Karbala (680 CE) further influenced th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Safavids
The Guarded Domains of Iran, commonly called Safavid Iran, Safavid Persia or the Safavid Empire, was one of the largest and longest-lasting Iranian empires. It was ruled from 1501 to 1736 by the Safavid dynasty. It is often considered the beginning of History of Iran, modern Iranian history, as well as one of the gunpowder empires. The Safavid List of monarchs of Persia, Shāh Ismail I, Ismā'īl I established the Twelver denomination of Shia Islam, Shīʿa Islam as the Safavid conversion of Iran to Shia Islam, official religion of the empire, marking one of the most important turning points in the history of Islam. An Iranian dynasty rooted in the Sufi Safavid order founded by sheikhs claimed by some sources to be of Kurds, Kurdish origin, it heavily intermarried with Turkoman (ethnonym), Turkoman, Georgians, Georgian, Circassians, Circassian, and Pontic Greeks, Pontic GreekAnthony Bryer. "Greeks and Türkmens: The Pontic Exception", ''Dumbarton Oaks Papers, Vol. 29'' (1975), ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shi'a
Shia Islam is the second-largest branch of Islam. It holds that Muhammad designated Ali ibn Abi Talib () as both his political successor ( caliph) and as the spiritual leader of the Muslim community ( imam). However, his right is understood to have been usurped by a number of Muhammad's companions at the meeting of Saqifa where they appointed Abu Bakr () as caliph instead. As such, Sunni Muslims believe Abu Bakr, Umar (), Uthman () and Ali to be ' rightly-guided caliphs' whereas Shia Muslims only regard Ali as the legitimate successor. Shia Muslims assert imamate continued through Ali's sons Hasan and Husayn, after whom different Shia branches have their own imams. They revere the , the family of Muhammad, maintaining that they possess divine knowledge. Shia holy sites include the shrine of Ali in Najaf, the shrine of Husayn in Karbala and other mausoleums of the . Later events such as Husayn's martyrdom in the Battle of Karbala (680 CE) further influence ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mohammad Ishaq Al-Fayyad
Grand Ayatollah Muhammad Is'haq Fayadh (also spelt Fayad), (, ) is one of the Big Four, among the most senior Shi'a marja living in Iraq after Ali Sistani. Biography Born in Jaghori Soba village in Ghazni province, Afghanistan to Hazara ethnic group, he holds Afghan citizenship. His family was farmers and he started learning the Qur'an from the village cleric when he was five. When he was 10 his family moved to Najaf, where he studied various Islamic studies including Arabic language, rhetoric, logic, Islamic philosophy, the Hadith and Islamic jurisprudence, eventually studying under Grand Ayatollah Abu al-Qasim al-Khoei. When al-Khoei died in 1992 he supported Ali al-Sistani as the chair of the marjaiya in Najaf.Grand Ayatullah Muhammad Ishaq Fayyad , ''Encyclopedia of Modern Middl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ayatollah Sistani
Ali al-Husayni al-Sistani (; born 4 August 1930) is an Islamic scholar and the dean of the Hawza of Najaf in Iraq. A Grand Ayatollah, Sistani is considered one of the leading religious leaders of Twelver Shia Muslims. After the invasion of Iraq and the subsequent overthrow of the authoritarian Baathist regime, Sistani advocated for democratization instead of the system of Wilayat al-Faqih. He has been a vocal critic of foreign interference in Iraqi affairs and has warned foreign actors against imposing their will on the Iraqi people. Born in Mashhad, Iran to a Sayyid family, Sistani studied in Qom under Hossein Borujerdi and later in Najaf under Abu al-Qasim al-Khu'i. An Usuli, Sistani rose to the rank of ''mujtahid'' in 1960 and succeeded Abd al-A'la al-Sabziwari as Grand Ayatollah. Sistani was included in top positions of ''The Muslim 500: The World's Most Influential Muslims'' from 2004 to 2024 and named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by ''Time'' m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shaykh Tusi
Shaykh Tusi (), full name ''Abu Ja'far Muhammad ibn al-Hasan al-Tusi'' (), known as Shaykh al-Ta'ifah () was a Persian scholar of the Twelver school of Shia Islam. He is the author of two of the Four Books of hadith; namely, '' Tahdhib al-Ahkam'' and ''al-Istibsar'', and is believed to have founded the Hawza of Najaf. In addition, he was a scholar of '' ʾUṣūl al-Fiqh'' and is widely acknowledged as one of the most influential thinkers in Shi’i history. Life Shaykh Tusi was born 995 AD in Tus, Iran, and by 1018 AD he was living under the rule of the Buyid dynasty. Tusi's birth is considered a miracle, as he was born after the twelfth Imam of Shia, al-Mahdi's, supplications. He started his education in Tus, where he mastered many of the Islamic sciences of that period. He later studied in Baghdad, which was taken by Tughril-bek in 1055 AD. There he entered into the circles of Shaykh Al-Mufid as a paramount teacher. He started writing some of his earlier works in his twen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Imam Ali Shrine
The Sanctuary of Imām 'Alī (), also known as the Mosque of 'Alī (), located in Najaf, Iraq, is a mausoleum which Shia and Sunni Muslims believe contains the tomb of 'Alī ibn Abī Tālib, a cousin, son-in-law and companion of the Islamic Prophet Muhammad. The Shī'as consider 'Alī as their first Imām and the first of the twelve caliphs of Muhammad, and the Sunnis regard him as the fourth Sunni Rashid Caliph. According to Shī'ite belief, buried next to 'Alī within this mosque are the remains of Adam and Nuh (Noah). Each year, millions of pilgrims visit the Shrine and pay tribute to Imām 'Alī. The shrine monument has been built and rebuilt numerous times throughout history. History The Abbasid caliph Harun al-Rashid built the first structure over the tomb of Imām 'Alī in 786, which included a green dome. The Abbasid caliph al-Mutawakkil flooded the site in 850, but in the 10th century Abu'l-Hayja, the Hamdanid ruler of Mosul and Aleppo, rebuilt the shrine in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ayatollah Al-Khoi And Ali Al-Sistani
Ayatollah (, ; ; ) is an honorific title for high-ranking Twelver Shia clergy. It came into widespread usage in the 20th century. Originally used as a title bestowed by popular/clerical acclaim for a small number of the most distinguished ''marja' at-taqlid'' ''mujtahid'', it suffered from "inflation" following the 1979 Iranian Revolution when it came to be used for "any established mujtahid".Momen, ''An Introduction to Shi'i Islam'', 1985, p.205-6 By 2015 it was further expanded to include any student who had passed their Mujtahid final exam, leading to "thousands" of Ayatollahs. The title is not used by the Sunni community of Iran. In the Western world – especially after the Iranian Revolution – it was associated with Ruhollah Khomeini, who was so well known as to often be referred to as "The Ayatollah". Etymology The title is originally derived from the Arabic word post-modified with the word ''Allah'', making (). The combination has been translated to English a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
