Latest reports about the assassination of Ayatollaah al-Odhmaa Sayyed Mohammad Shirazi

Iranian Secret Service assassinates Ayatollaah al-Odhmaa Sayyed Mohammad Shirazi.

To cover up, the secret service snatches his body and buries it in a secure premises.

The Martyr Ayatollaah al-Odhmaa Shirazi was distinguished from the other Maraaje’[1] by his humbleness and simplicity; anyone could see him at almost anytime. There were several fixed times, during the day and night, during which he met the people; and would also, readily, receive visitors outside those hours. Even in the middle of the night, he permitted people to visit him who could not come to his office during the day, fearing the Iranian secret services. He would answer their questions, give them guidance and often public speeches, ranging in time from five minutes to a full hour, depending on those present.

Saturday night, the eve of Eid al-Fetr was no exception. He had received visitors from sunset until two O’clock Sunday morning, and had given two public speeches that night.

Shortly after he returned to his residence, next to his office, he had convulsions and vomited blood several time, and was immediately taken to Golpaygaani hospital.

Those who accompanied him to the hospital said that he was conscious all along, his convulsions had almost disappeared, he could move his body, and that he even pulled the blanket that was on his legs up to his chest when he was taken out of the ambulance at the hospital.

Family members who were with him say that when he was taken to the Intensive Care Unit at the hospital, a doctor gave him an injection, after which he went into a coma.

At the hospital he was not given any oxygen, and when his companions insisted on using oxygen, the hospital said: We do not have any oxygen at this time!! Several hours later, the hospital suddenly found some!!

After hearing news of his condition, followers flocked the hospital, and the hospital allowed a closed circuit television be installed in the ICU so that visitors could see him in waiting rooms and hospital halls. Among the well-wishers who went to the hospital were a number of Maraaje’ and representatives of other Maraaje’.

A group of doctors and assistants were put in charge, two of whom were known by the late Ayatollaah al-Odhmaa’s office.

At first, doctors had not given his family much hope, and marked the possibility of his recovery at one percent. However, as time went by, his condition improved and his chances moved up to twenty percent according to the same doctors. He even moved his hands, and managed to set up several times.

Suddenly, on Monday morning, one of the doctors who was in the ICU and was himself a follower of the late Ayatollaah al-Odhmaa, was sent outside the unit. The closed circuit TV camera was then turned off. Minutes later the doctors announced his death.

News of his death came as a shock, especially when his condition was improving, and questions were immediately raised as to whether Ayatollaah al-Odhmaa Sayyed Mohammad Shirazi had died by natural causes, or by Khamenei’s malicious measures. Why did he suddenly started vomiting blood when he was showing no sign of any illness, but full of energy and vitality?! Was it because he was given poison?! What was the injection he was administered shortly after he entered the ICU, after which he lost consciousness?! Why was not he given oxygen for hours?! Is it plausible that the biggest and best equipped hospital in Qom did not have any oxygen?! Why was the doctor, who was a follower of the late Ayatollaah al-Odhmaa sent outside the ICU shortly before his death was announced?! Why was the closed circuit TV camera turned off shortly before he died?! Why did he die while his condition was improving?! What was the injection mark on his back?!…

Shortly after his death on Monday morning the regime, in a surprising move, sent a number of mediators and representatives to see his family and offered them a place for burial inside the holy shrine of Sayyedah Ma'soomah. And because many people have been buried there throughout the centuries, there is very little space available, and it is fully reserved for very important friends of the regime.

This unexpected generosity towards the leader of the religious opposition, who had just been assassinated, meant that those who had ordered his death were desperate to cover up their crime by burying him in a place which is under their complete control, insuring that he is not exhumed for a postmortem that would identify the exact cause of death.

But his family repeatedly rejected the offer. Not least because Ayatollaah al-Odhmaa Sayyed Mohammad Shirazi had stipulated in his will to be buried in the prayer hall of his office. Furthermore he had instructed his family to bury him temporarily until when it becomes possible to move him to his final resting place in the holy city of Karbala-Iraq.

However, as far as Khamenei was concerned, to bury the Ayatollaah al-Odhmaa anywhere else would be disastrous, as one day they feared the body may be exhumed and cause of death found. They had to make sure that the body is in their hands. Thus, in contradiction to his expressed instructions, the authorities forcefully buried him inside the shrine, and, in another contradiction to his will, they did not bury him as Amaanah (temporary burial) which would have made it possible for his family to move him to his final resting place in Karbala-Iraq, after the fall of the Ba'thist regime.

In addition, the authorities buried him in the lower part of a two level grave, over which another corpse will be buried, to prevent any exhumation, for an autopsy or for moving him to Karbala, during Khamenei's rule or after it!!

After his death, his body was taken to his office were it was washed and shrouded in Kafan[2]. And on Tuesday morning was the Tashyee’[3]. People from all over Iran and around the world traveled to the holy city of Qom to participate in the ceremonies.

The body was placed in a strong Taaboot[4] and the Taaboot was put inside an Emaari[5] and carried over the hands to the holy shrine of Sayyedah Ma’soomah for a final visit. An estimated six hundred thousand mourners, including a number of Maraaje’, followed the Emaari.

Knowing the regime’s intention to bury the body in a narrow hall way in one of the crowded entrances of the shrine, under people’s feet, hiding it from the eyes and making it impossible for visitors to pay their respects, rather than allowing it to be buried in his office, where it would become a shrine for pilgrims, his family decided to make a change in the usual order of the Tashyee’. Thus they took the body inside the shrine to be circumambulated around the gravesite of the Sayyedah before performing the Prayer-of-the-Deceased in the open space of the shrine.

The plan would have made it impossible for the secret service to trap the body inside the shrine, and quickly burry it there, away from the cameras and hundreds of thousands of mourners. Because the secret service could not bury the body before the Prayer, therefore they had to take the body to the open space. And once the body came to the open space of the shrine, it was thought that the regime would not hurt its image and try to grab the Taaboot in front of countless witnesses and cameras.

Therefore when the Tashyee’ reached the holy shrine, the Taaboot was removed from the Emaari and taken inside by a group of mourners for the farewell visit around the gravesite of Sayyedah Ma’soomah, and other mourners stayed in the open spaces of the shrine and the surrounding streets. Ignoring the loud speakers of the shrine, controlled by the secret service, that kept announcing the start of the Prayer-of-the-Deceased.

The secret service places two large pictures of Khomeini and Khamenei near the Martyr's coffin and attempts to disrupt the Prayer-of-the-Deceased

After the circumambulation, mourners brought the Taaboot to the open space, where, the Martyr’s successor, Ayatollaah al-Odhmaa Sayyed Saadiq Shirazi, was ready to perform the Prayer-of-the-Deceased. Suddenly a number of secret service agents put two giant-sized pictures of Khomeini and Khamenei to the left Taaboot, and aimed their cameras to record the scene, showing that –now- everything is fine between the regime and leaders of the religious opposition in Iran. Of course that would have been a false message, with irrecoverable consequences, and that is why Ayatollaah al-Odhmaa Sayyed Saadiq Shirazi insisted that they remove the pictures, and threatened that he would not perform the prayer unless his demand was met. When the crowds waiting to participate in the prayer started to ask what was causing the delay, the order came to remove the pictures and avoid embarrassment. So they did, and the Prayer-of-the-Deceased was performed.

Meanwhile the agents had put metal barriers behind the Taaboot, encircling Ayatollaah al-Odhmaa Sayyed Saadiq Shirazi along with a small number of mourners and a large number of secret agents from behind, cutting them off from thousands of other mourners in that open space.

During the Prayer, the open spaces and surrounding streets were filled with the sound of mourners crying. However, hundreds of secret service agents inside the barriers around the Taaboot, dressed in plain clothes and carrying radios, were trying hard to disturb the Prayer by pushing and shoving, when everyone should stand still and not move. Even the government-controlled TV channels that aired seconds of the Prayer-of-the-Deceased, could not hide the pushing and shoving.

The secret service steals the Martyr's body and attempts to bury it contrary to his will

As the Prayer finished, a large number of secret agents who had gathered around the Taaboot, picked it up and forced their way inside the shrine. A group of mourners followed them inside the shrine before the doors were closed, locking the rest of them outside.

Inside the shrine, secret agents ran towards a grave that was already dug in a narrow hall way, and put the Taaboot besides it, but remarkably could not open it in order to take the body out for burial. A group of angry mourners who had managed to follow the agents inside before doors were closed, came and took the Taaboot from Khamenei’s soldiers. They hurried towards some of the entrances, but they were all locked.

Suddenly, one of the doors that was originally closed and had been locked for a long time, opened. No one knew who and how they had managed to open the locks. Even security guards were stunned. The crowds rushed outside, and witnesses heard secret service agents screaming into their radios: They took the body out of the shrine.. I repeat: They have the body.. They are going towards the office.. The command responded: We will carry out the order and send you reinforcements.. Stay in your positions.. We will return the body!!

The secret service uses the shrine's loudspeakers to assume control of the crowds, spread its propaganda, tell lies on behalf of the deceased's family...

The secret service continued its attempt to assume control of the Tashyee' and the crowds, through the loud speakers of the shrine, and interfere with the Tashyee' program; using lies such as: "Please take the body inside the shrine to be buried according to the will of the deceased".. "The family of the decease respectfully ask you to leave the open spaces of the shrine".. "The family of the deceased urge you to keep calm".. "The family of the deceased request you to disperse from the entrances to the shrine so that they can all go inside and participate in the burial ceremonies".. Secret agents also repeatedly mentioned the names of Khomeini and Khamenei, praising them, and spreading government propaganda during the Tashyee' in the open space.

Angry with these actions, mourners started to repeat dangerous chants such as: "Mourning, Mourning is today, the day of mourning is today, our oppressed Sayyed is with God today".. "O Hojjat ibn al-Hasan, root out all injustice".. And the agents behind the microphones tried very hard to change the slogans to neutral ones but to no avail.

The secret service attempts to kill the Martyr's successor Ayatollaah al-Odhmaa Sayyed Saadiq Shirazi

While the body was inside the shrine, Ayatollaah al-Odhmaa Sayyed Saadiq Shirazi along with a number of relatives and friends entered a special section in the open space which is protected by metal rails and guarded by security officers; but that did not stop the secret service agents from carrying out their second mission. In a surprising move, the security guards who were there to protect that section, suddenly, removed the metal rails, and secret service agents, estimated to be more than one thousand, started to push against those inside, in an attempt to kill Ayatollaah al-Odhmaa Sayyed Saadiq Shirazi, and claim that he had died because of the pressure of the crowds.

In the abandoned section, the new Marja’ and his companions were badly crushed between the wall and Khamenei's soldiers. The few who were protecting the Marja’ were no match for the large numbers of secret service agents crushing them against the wall, and could not completely sheild their heavy pressure. Eventually when he escaped and returned home, he collapsed and doctors were brought in.

The secret service snatches the Martyr's body for the second time, and breaks it open with axes

When the funeral procession was returning from the shrine towards the Martyr’s office, mourners saw large numbers of riot police, estimated around one thousand five hundred, with their microbuses line up the length of the street. As the Taaboot came, large numbers of Iranian special forces, penetrated the crowds and hurried towards it. They beat up mourners, men, women and children as they closed in on the Taaboot, and handed those who resisted or objected over to the riot police who handcuffed them and placed them in their minibuses along the way.

In the clashes, the Taaboot fell down to the ground, on three separate occasions, and was partly broken. When mourners picked it up for the third time, the special forces staged their final and hardest attack for it. The crowds were severely beaten, with batons, on their heads and shoulders. Many lost consciousness, and the special forces seized the Taaboot, taking it towards one of the microbuses.

There, eyewitnesses report that the special forces broke open the rest of the Taaboot with axes, in front of grieving mourners who were now beating themselves, and took it inside one of the microbuses. The riot police had already cleared up a narrow route for the microbus in the crowds, and it drove through the mourners back towards the shrine.

Sixteen mourners were hospitalized with critical conditions. And around two hundred others, with lesser injuries, were taken to an unknown destination. Broken bones such as broken arms and ribs formed most of the injuries; there was also one broken pelvic. Most cameras and videotapes were promptly confiscated.

In one of the open spaces in the shrine, the body stayed in the microbus, while secret service agents, inside the shrine, formed a human barrier twenty five meters on each side of the grave which had already been dug in a narrow hall way in one of the entrances, and quickly pushed people out. Then several rows of agents stood facing the crowds stopping them from penetrating the area around the grave. But knowing that the body will be buried there, many people attempted to break the barrier, and were severely beaten, arrested and taken away.

One journalist ignored the beating and insisted to go near the grave to check whether the body, which was about to be buried, was actually the late Ayatollaah al-Odhmaa’s body; and when secret service agents kept refusing, mourners began to shout slogans against the regime and its ruler Khamenei.

After about half an hour, the body was brought into the shrine, for the third time, and the crowds could no longer control itself. The shrine was filled with mourners who were chanting anti-regime slogans, and trying to break the human barriers and go near the grave. Secret service agents were terrified, and fearing to lose control, they allowed the journalist to go near the grave in an attempt to calm people. But they made a condition that he give them the negatives to be checked before printing the pictures.

Then the unceremonious burial process distinguished by haste, degradation and humiliation began. It was a most insulting, offending and heartrending event. It must have broken all records.

The people around the grave were all agents of the Iranian secret service, and they had surrounded the area in such a way, that the mourners from outside the human barriers could not see anything inside.

Finally, the late Ayatollaah al-Odhmaa’s face was uncovered from the Kafan in which he had been shrouded, and the journalist took the last pictures of his smiling face.

Not all burial rites were performed, and those that were, were wrongly done. The Talqeen[6], for instance, was performed by one of Khamenei’s soldiers, the dreaded secret service, and as with other rites, it was not finished to the end because of the fast pace and state of disorder in which things were taking place.

Then the body was lowered or rather thrown into the grave, head first; and his head hit one of the two sills the Afghan burier had prepared on the sides of the grave. The scene was most painful even for secret service agents, some of whom could no longer hold their tears, and hide their shock.

The headquarters continued giving orders for more haste, and local commanders pressured their agents for more hurry. The burier finally asked one of the agents for assistance in handing him tablets for covering the body, on which white cement would be poured. As a result of the continuous pressure, the assistant dropped one of the stones which smashed on the body of Ayatollaah al-Odhmaa Sayyed Mohammad Shirazi inside the grave.

After pouring some white cement, the burier came out of the grave, and the agents, not the burier, started to fill it with dirt. Seeing the dust, mourners became more angry and unstable and pressed against rows of secret service agents. The order came to retreat as the crowds broke through the human barriers; and Khamenei’s soldiers started pulling out after they spread a rug over the grave, and put a small wooden box over it, and covered it with a few copies of the Holy Qor’aan.

Finally the doors were unlocked and the people, who were kept outside during the burial to prevent them from interfering with that criminal mission, poured in and joined those inside. Mourners threw themselves on the grave to bid farewell to their spiritual leader whom had just been buried by his worst spiteful enemies. Soon the whole shrine was wailing and lamenting. Many lost consciousness and were taken outside.

People were more saddened and grieving for what they had witnessed during the Tashyee' and burial than his death, and because of the regimes injustice and suppression of their beloved Marja’ even after his death.

Mourners remembered the trials and tribulations of Imaam Hasan, whose body was prohibited from being buried where he had instructed, and was targeted with seventy arrows by those who had shammed Islam and claimed to be its leaders. They also remembered Imaam Kaadhem who was poisoned to death in prison by those who had shammed Islam and claimed to be its leaders.

During all of this, the journalist who had taken pictures of the burial succeeded in escaping Khamenei’s soldiers, who wanted to censor his snapshots. He was one of the lucky ones, as most of the others had their films confiscated just after the events. In some cases, the agents did not bother to take out the film, they just smashed the camera.

After the Tashyee' on 18 December 2001, up until now, more than ten people have been arrested, separately, and several others have been sought for questioning. Those who were released had been badly tortured and extensively questioned about films and pictures of the events, and about people who may have such evidence in Iran. A number of people remain in hiding, fearing arrest.

But the films and pictures that have found their way out of Iran, speak volumes about the heartrending events, and the vicious steps the regime took on 18 December 2001, in order to conceal all evidence of their crimes.

When Saddam killed Sayyed Mohammad Baaqir Sadr in 1980 in Iraq, he brought one of his relatives to witness his burial; but Khamenei, who is by far worse than Saddam, wanted to hurt the Ayatollaah al-Odhmaa’s relatives even more after his assassination. Although many relatives were already in the open spaces of the shrine and the rest in his office which is close to the shrine, but Khamenei did not want any of them to witness his burial, giving them another taste of his cruelty.

In an attempt to hide his guilt, and divert attentions from what had really caused the death of this oppressed Marja’, Khamenei issued a statement of condolences shortly after his martyrdom. And held a commemoration ceremony in Qom that was attended by his representatives and a large number of Iranian high-ranking officials. Extensively covered by government-controlled media, of course. The Shirazi family did not send any representatives to that ceremony as a mark of contempt.

Following suit, the regimes’ embassies and various related centers around the world issued similar statements and held similar events; not attended by any representatives of the Shirazi family for the same reason.

The secret service tears down pictures of the Martyr all over Iran and harasses visitors to his grave...

But when the regime’s attempt to put out a false image of true friendship with the religious opposition in Iran proved futile, its ruffians, supervised by the secret service, began to clean up. They tore down placards with messages of condolences.. Shredded pictures of the late Ayatollaah al-Odhmaa.. Removed posters announcing commemoration ceremonies.. etc. from the street walls all over Iran.

Secret service agents continuously harass and threaten the men and women who go to his grave to pay their respects, and often throw them out. They also keep putting out the lights inside the shrine, and insist on tearing down any pictures that are placed on the walls of the narrow corridor around the grave.

One week after his death, a group of mourners had gathered around his grave, when the secret service turned off all the lights inside the shrine, and arrested a number of youths who were there.

It has also been reported that the secret service regularly brings mental patients to that part of the shrine who often do things that distracts the crowds. Secret agents also bring many children there to do their homework, make a lot of noise and do not leave much space for those who want to pay their respects. But what seems more vile is that the secret service has brought someone there who greatly resembles the Martyr's second son Ayatollaah Sayyed Mortadhaa Shirazi, who fled Iran in 1997 after nearly two years of illegal imprisonment and torture and still bears its scars on his body, telling people lies, spreading government propaganda and praising Khomeini and Khamenei.

It is customary around the world to put a gravestone on a grave, but in Khamenei's Iran, this custom is unheard of when it comes to leaders of the religious opposition. The government said that because of the position of the grave in one of the entrances, it could not allow some sort of wooden or glass Dhareeh be built on it. It also refused permission that a mark be engraved on a stone on a nearby wall. It did not even allow a simple gravestone, level with the ground, be put on the grave, which would not interfere with those who come and go through that entrance. The director of the shrine said: Khamenei's office has banned any marks, engravings, pictures, etc. be installed or put in the vicinity of the shrine.

Despite other graves inside the shrine, the stone on the Martyr's grave is of the same kind and color as that of other areas inside the shrine, and it does not have any marks, etc. to show that somebody, not to mention the greatest Marja' of his time, is buried there.

The Martyr Ayatollaah al-Odhmaa Sayyed Mohammad Shirazi, was among the Maraaje’ who had called for and supported the revolution in Iran. According to Ardeshir Zahedi, Shah’s son-in-law, Iran’s ambassador to the US and Iran’s foreign minister: “Khomeini started the revolution in Iran, and Shirazi spread its voice through out the world”.

But in the early 1980, a few months after Khomeini had come to power, the late Ayatollaah al-Odhmaa withdrew his support and started to criticize the regime, publicly, as unIslamic and dependent on certain foreign powers. He, as well as the other Maraaje’, strongly refused the doctrine of Absolute Authority on which Khomeini’s regime was based, and marked it as contrary to Islam. Khomeini wanted unlimited and unquestionable powers, similar to that of God and prophets, and the Maraaje’ opposed him for it.

As a result, the Martyr, his relatives, students, staff, supporters and followers were subjected to cruel acts of aggression. Throughout these years, forty seven of his close and distant relatives have been arrested, including his brother Ayatollaah al-Odhmaa Sayyed Saadiq Shirazi, who succeeded him as a Marja’, and three of his sons, two of whom were badly tortured. Ayatollaah Sayyed Mortadhaa Shirazi, his second son, was arrested three times, the last of which he was held for nearly two years. He was viciously tortured and still bears burning scars all over his body.

As a result of torture, one of his family members died in a hospital in Germany. All members of the Shirazi family even small children have been prohibited from leaving the country.

Also around three thousand of his students, staff and supporters have been arrested. Most have been tortured and held for long periods without trial. Some who did, eventually, go to trial, did not have defense lawyers, and were not allowed to defend themselves. They were just taken to hear the accusations against them and their prison term, etc.

Three of his staff members have died as a result of torture and ill-treatment. Abbaas Aameleyaan who worked for his office as a courier and driver died of kidney failure after being subjected to various forms of torture, one of which was placing him, up to his chest, in a specially made freezer.

In an attempt to frighten supporters, the secret service has for many years, openly, set up surveillance posts around the Martyr’s main office in Qom; and as a further deterrent, it sends its agents to openly patrol the surrounding streets. Whoever, especially the young, has ignored these warnings and continued to contact him regularly, has found his way into the regime’s dungeons.

The special court for the clergy, established by Khomeini’s order, supervises the suppression of the religious opposition in Iran. It has its own courts and prisons all over Iran alongside that of the secret service.

Amnesty International, International PEN, Human Rights Watch, The United Nations, the US Congressional Human Rights Committee, the UK Parliamentary Committee on Human Rights, Foundation for Democracy in Iran are amongst the many organizations which reported these suppressions.

In 1981 Khomeini ordered an assassination squad to shoot the Martyr Ayatollaah al-Odhmaa Sayyed Mohammad Shirazi dead. This was when the Martyr was visiting one of his students, the famous orator, poet and great scholar Ayatollaah Sayyed Mortadhaa Qazweeni in Qom; now in Los Angeles.

The mission was miraculously foiled, when one of the assassins was wounded in the leg. But at least five other attempts on his life, carried out by the secret service, followed the last of which was, in great sadness, successful.

Since 1981 he did not leave his house as there was a great danger on his life, except for a secret trip to Mashad in 1988, during the bombing of Iranian cities, when Saddam targeted three houses surrounding his home, and two short visits to hospitals in Tehran and Qom in secret.

Even in his home, whenever he stepped into the backyard, he risked assassination. As one of the attempts on his life came while he was walking in his backyard, when secret agents climbed on the roof and tried to shoot him in 1992.

As part of the larger package of suppression, the secret service, has often cut all the phone lines to his office, and sometimes, as the days following his assassination, many phone calls have been diverted to agents who told the caller that they had misdialed. In some cases they even swore at the callers. And the fax line has often been cut, especially after his assassination.

The Martyr Ayatollaah al-Odhmaa Sayyed Mohammad Shirazi, has written more than one thousand two hundred books. And is the author of the largest encyclopedia ever written by one person; in one hundred and fifty volumes, in more than seventy five thousand pages, the al-Feqh encyclopedia is the largest and most extensive work on Islamic law and jurisprudence.

The Martyr had written books for Islamic scholars, as he had written for university lecturers; he had written for the old as he had written for the children. His books cover many fields ranging from worship to medicine, and from sociology to poetry.

Aside from the relevant volumes in the al-Feqh encyclopedia, he had written more than forty book on politics and government, and around twenty books on economics. He had a strict but modern approach to Islam. Around forty years ago he wrote about worshiping on the Moon and the Mars when man would eventually travel to, and about Islam's views on different aspects of cloning, and even the question of inheritance if humans were to be cloned.

However, due to his opposition to the regime, his books were banned in Iran. At least in one instance they burnt thousands of copies of one of his books about the ruling style of Prophet Mohammad and his caliph Imaam Ali, which clearly showed that Khomeini's style was contrary to it.

He was also distinguished from the other Maraaje’ by the quantity and quality of his educational, religious, social, etc. institutions around the world, numbering around seven hundred and fifty. Most of those in Iran were either closed down or taken over by the regime.

The Martyr Ayatollaah al-Odhmaa Sayyed Mohammad Shirazi was born in 1928 in the holy city of Najaf-Iraq. Later he migrated to the holy city of Karbala-Iraq, where he became one of the highest religious authorities in 1961. At 33 years of age, he was the youngest person to ever become a Marja'. He was also the only person to have been a Marja' for more than five hundred months.

Before being forced to exile in 1970, the Martyr strongly opposed the communist and the Ba’thist movements in Iraq. He and his supporters suffered, greatly, from both movements; but the latter actually came to power twice and was despisingly suppressive of any opposition. The Martyr’s brother, Ayatollaah Sayyed Hasan Shirazi was the first opposition figure arrested in 1968, just after the Ba’thists came to power for the second time after a military coup. He was badly tortured for several months, and fled execution to Lebanon. He was eventually assassinated in 1980 in Beirut by Ba'thist agents.

The Martyr comes from a family which has produced numerous Maraaje’ and Islamic scholars in the past two centuries. Such as: Ayatollaah al-Odhmaa Sayyed Mohammad Hasan Shirazi, known as "al-Mojadded" or "The Regenerator", the cousin of the Martyr’s grandfather. He led the Iranian 'tobacco revolution' against the British empire from Saamerraa'-Iraq more than a century ago, gaining Iran's independence. He was poisoned to death by British agents in Saamerraa’-Iraq. And Ayatollaah al-Odhmaa Shaykh Mohammad Taqi Shirazi, the maternal uncle of the Martyr’s father. He led the 1920 revolution in Iraq, from Karbala-Iraq against the British empire, gaining Iraq's independence. He was poisoned to death by British agents in Karbala-Iraq.

[1] Plural of Marja’: A highest religious authority for Shi’ah Moslems.

[2] A cloth in which a deceased is shrouded for burial.

[3] Funeral procession in which the deceased is carried, on hands, to his burial site.

[4] Coffin.

[5] A large box in which a coffin is put and carried to the burial site. Emaari is only used for Maraaje’ and famous scholars.

[6] One of the last burial rites.