Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Said al-Hakim, one of
Iraq's top Shiite clerics,
died on Friday aged 85 in the holy city of Najaf after a heart attack, sources
close to him said.
اضافة اعلان
Funeral ceremonies will be held on Saturday in Najaf and its twin holy city
of Karbala, a source within his office told AFP.
Hakim "underwent surgery three days ago in hospital in Najaf and
succumbed today to a heart attack", the source said.
Iraqi President Barham Saleh in a statement paid homage to the "prominent
figure" in Shiite Islam.
The United States expressed its condolences in a statement from its embassy
in Baghdad.
Hakim will be buried in Najaf, home to the shrine of Imam Ali, the fourth
Islamic caliph and relative of the Prophet Mohammed.
Born to a family of clerics in Najaf in 1936, Hakim was considered to be
among the highest Shiite religious authorities in the country.
At the time of his death, he was one of four ayatollahs of the Hawza,
Najaf's Shiite seminary, along with Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq's top
Shiite cleric.
Hakim was imprisoned between 1983 and 1991 under the regime of former
dictator Saddam Hussein who feared neighbouring Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution
would set off "a similar event" in Iraq, political commentator Marsin
Alshamary said on Twitter.
A Shiite clerical observer who asked to remain anonymous said that Hakim set
himself apart for his "closeness to the faithful", noting that he
used to mix with pilgrims during Arbaeen, a key Shiite commemoration.
"In public, he expressed no political opinion," the observer said,
in line with the Shiite theological school in Iraq that opposes the Iranian
"Velayat-e faqih", which establishes religious authority over
politics.
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