Yousef Saanei

Mohammad Ali's father Hajjmulla Yousef Yingabadi (1867–1899) was an Isfahan-trained cleric known for his strong sense of social justice, and was active in the Isfahan-area activities of Ayatollah Shirazi's tobacco movement in the early 1890s.

At age six he began his education at the local maktab, later studying at home with his father after the latter noticed his intellect, studying the Quran and other basic texts of the period.

In Isfahan, his most noted teacher was the historian Allamah Mirza Mohammed Ali Habib Abadi (1890–1976).

He was the third of four children (a fifth child died in infancy) of Hujjud-al-Islam Mohammed Ali Saanei (1892–1974) and his wife Sharbonoo (1899–1947).

His father, despite having lost his own father at the age of six, and being partially sighted rose from untrained village mullah to study in hawza in his thirties, going on to serve his community for fifty years.

Grand Ayatollah Yousef Saanei (16 October 1937 – 12 September 2020) was an Iranian Twelver Shi'a Marja' and politician, a member of the Islamic Republic of Iran's powerful Guardian Council from 1980 to 1983 and also Attorney-General of Iran from 1983 to 1985.

Whether he was a Marja' (Grand Ayatollah) was disputed.

Shortly before his tenth birthday, in the autumn of 1947, together with his father and brother Hassan (who also became a cleric and political official) he left for hawza in Isfahan, studying at that city's Kasseh Garan Madrassa (his father later returned to Nikabad).

He taught regularly in the hawza of Qom beginning in the 1950s.

Saanei completed his preliminary studies (the equivalent of secondary school) in 1951, whereupon he went to Qom to continue his studies.

1955 saw Saanei place well in the first-level examinations (equivalent to a bachelor's degree) thus awarded the commendation of Grand Ayatollah Borujerdi.

While at Qom he was a student of the leading theologians of his day, among them Mohammad Mohaghegh Damad, Abbas Ali Shahroudi, Mohammad Ali Araki, and Borujerdi himself for about a year.

His most lasting education came from the seven years he spent being taught by Khomeini until the latter's exile in 1964.

At the age of 22, he was granted the degree of Ijtihad allowing him to formulate religious judgements for his own use.

In September 1964, Ayatollah Saanei married Khanum Shafiei (d. 2012) and has two sons and a daughter.

One son, Fakruddin (Saeed) is also a cleric, with the honorific of Hujjud-al-Islam.

In 1975, Saanei became a teacher at the Haghani School of Divinity.

Later he became Grand Ayatollah.

In 1980, he was appointed chairman of the Guardian Council.

Ayatollah Yousef Saanei said clerical authorities have quietly expressed opposition to the development of weapons of mass destruction for many years, and he described it as the reason that Iran never retaliated with chemical weapons when Saddam Hussein used them to kill Iranian troops and Iran-backed Kurds during the 1980– 88 Iran-Iraq war.

"You cannot deliberately kill innocent people," he said.

He has declared that women have equal status in Islam.

Saanei held that a woman can lead a man in prayer, although a man leading is mustahab.

Like Zohreh Sefati, he believed that women can even become a marja' in Islam, i.e. that men and women can follow a female Islamic jurists' ijtihad.

Saanei retired from the council in 1983 and has not held any political office since.

According to the CBS GlobalPost, Saanei has been considered "the successor" of Grand Ayatollah Hussein-Ali Montazeri and as "the spiritual leader" of the Iranian political opposition movement.

After the urging of many students and scholars, Saanei published his risalah in 1993, thus becoming a Marja', or source of imitation on matters of religious law to others.

Ayatollah Saanei fell at his Qom home on the night of 10 September, fracturing his pelvis and arm.

Due to preexisting conditions (he suffered from Diabetes-related kidney problems, as well as cirrhosis of the liver), he died during dialysis treatment before surgery could be safely performed to repair his injuries.

His calls for radical political reform in Iran were very controversial and in 2010 the government-sponsored "Qom Theological Lecturers Association" (Jame-e-Modarressin) declared him no longer qualified for emulation as a Grand Ayatollah.

However, many of his followers continued to consider him their Marja, and this was acknowledged by several influential Maraji such as Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Naser Makarem Shirazi, Abdul-Karim Mousavi Ardebili, and Hossein Noori Hamedani.

Saanei was born in the Persian month of Aban 1318 SH and in the month of Shaban 1458 AH in the semi-desert farming village of Yingabad (now Nikabad), 60 km (37 mi) southwest of Isfahan.

He died shortly after the time of Fajr prayer on 12 September 2020.

Due to COVID-19 pandemic precautions, no public funeral was held.

The Ayatollah was buried in Sheikhan Cemetery located near Fatima Masumeh Shrine in Qom.

He was survived by his three children.

Tributes were paid to him from many parts of the clerical establishment and wider society, including the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khemanei and the Society of Seminary Teachers of Qom.

He held in the area of inheritance that:

The foster parent of an adopted child should treat the child in all respects as their own, including the mother not having to observe hijab around a male child; however this does not extend to inheritance absent the permission of the Quranic heirs.

In an interview with The San Francisco Chronicle, Grand Ayatollah Yousef Saanei said: