Shobeiri Zanjani: The quiet ayatollah who bridged Iran’s political divide

When Grand Ayatollah Mousa Shobeiri Zanjani died at 98 on 20 September, he left behind a rare position in Iran ’s religious establishment: a cleric who kept his distance from political power, yet whose influence reached across the Islamic Republic’s deepest political divides. His students included former reformist President Mohammad Khatami and, according to a source in the Qom Seminary, Mojtaba Khamenei, the current supreme leader. For decades, politicians and clerics on opposing sides of Iran’s political spectrum turned to Shobeiri because his authority rested outside politics. That independence made him an important figure at moments when Iran’s political and religious establishments collided.