Hossein Noori Hamedani

Grand Ayatollah
Hossein Noori Hamedani
آيت الله العظمى حسين نورى همدانى
Noori Hamedani in 2017
TitleGrand Ayatollah
Personal life
Born (1925-03-21) 21 March 1925
Hamadan, Iran
NationalityIranian
Signature
Religious life
ReligionUsuli Twelver Shia Islam
Senior posting
Based inQom, Iran
Websitewww.noorihamedani.com

Grand Ayatollah Hossein Noori-Hamedani (Persian: آيت الله العظمى حسين نورى همدانى) (also Hossein Nuri-Hamedani) (born 21 March 1925) is an Iranian Twelver Shi'a Marja' known for his conservative or "ultra-conservative" views.[1]

He has publicly expressed his disapproval of Sufis and dervishes,[2] Jews,[3] the intellectual Abdolkarim Soroush[4] the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women,[5] and "anti-Islamic and atheist professors" in Iranian universities, whose purge he has called for.[6] He has been noted for being the only grand ayatollah to congratulate Mahmoud Ahmadinejad when Ahmadinejad was first declared victor in the controversial June 12, 2009 election; and also as "celebrated by the central government for his wholehearted support of the leader and the president".[7]

Biography

Hosein Nuri-Hamadani was born in Hamadan, Iran. After finishing elementary studies in Hamadan, at the age of 17 he moved to Qom, Iran to continue his religious studies. He studied in the seminaries of Allameh Tabatabai and Grand Ayatollah Borujerdi. He currently resides and teaches in the Seminary of Qom.[8]

Views and activities

Hosein Nuri-Hamadanii is reported[9] to be one of the figures behind the 19 August 1978 Cinema Rex fire where four men trapped moviegoers in a cinema in Abadan, Iran and set it on fire, killing around 400. Outrage at the fire was instrumental in the overthrow of the Shah's regime and creation of the Islamic Republic, as popular opinion blamed the fire and deaths on the shah's SAVAK security forces. This was despite the fact that Islamic conservatives were known to condemn motion picture entertainment as unIslamic and had been "setting ablaze cinemas and other venues of supposed Western decadence for more than a decade".[10] A couple years later, a drug addict and thief turned religious revolutionary named Hossein Takbalizadeh came forth to announce that it was he and three friends who had set the Cinema Rex on fire as a blow against the decadent Western culture, having been goaded into action by a local conservative Shi'i cleric. That a supporter of the revolution and not one of the Shah's minions, was responsible for the slaughter was not the narrative favored by the new Islamist regime. A trial was held after pressure from the public and the families of victims. The Islamic Republic prosecution maintained that contrary to his confession, Takbalizadeh was in fact secretly manipulated by the Shah’s agents. He was convicted and executed.[11]

Noori Hamedani has been called "aligned" with the Islamic Republic’s "ultra-conservative establishment" and known for "strongly" backing Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei on "several occasions — notably during the 2009 protests against the reelection of former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad".[1]

Among his reported views are that Iran "must purge universities of anti-Islamic and atheist professors."[6] In September 2006, he called for a clampdown on dervish groups in Qom. He also issued a fatwa against the attendance of women in stadiums.[12] In early 2008, he issued what some see as an implicit death threat against Iranian intellectual Abdolkarim Soroush, saying "Soroush’s writings are worse than Salman Rushdie's", and "Abdolkarim Soroush’s religious theories have undermined the roots of prophecy, the Quran and holy revelations".[4]

In 2006, Hamedani stated that by not engaging in politics, Sufis weaken Islam, and during another speech to a group of seminarians, claimed "that the adherents of Sufism are 'enemies' of Islam and promoting them in any form is forbidden".[13] According to a 2018 report by RLRFE, some of the dervish "houses of worship have been destroyed in past years, while hundreds of members have been detained and more than a dozen have been sentenced to prison terms, lashes, or internal exile."[2]

Noori Hamedani issued a comment about fighting and vanquishing Jews in 2005 that was later removed from the Fars news agency website. In a meeting with members of the Mahdaviyat Studies Institute (which studies the Shiite doctrine of the Hidden Imam, who is to reappear as Mahdi, i.e., the rightly guided one), circa 14 April 2005, Noori Hamedani praised the work of the institute and urged howza (seminaries) in Qom to carry out more research of religious texts and hadith concerning the Hidden Imam. He also claimed that a way to create conditions that would lead to the return of the Hidden Imam (i.e. an activity which Muslims should do) is to '... fight the Jews and vanquish them so that the conditions for the advent of the Hidden Imam be met.' His comments were published on Fars news agency website. (However, Fars "took the report off its web site several hours after its publication, and other Iranian media outlets close to the conservatives refrained from citing it".)[3]

Noori Hamadani described 7th-century Medina as "the center of Zionists" and portrayed the mass killing of its Jewish Banu Qurayza inhabitants as a necessary step to strengthen Islam and crush "the bastion of global arrogance."[14]

In connection with the Iranian legislature's ratification of a bill on Iranian membership in the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), ISNA reported Nuri-Hamadani issued a statement on 2 August 2003 describing the convention as "calamitous and tragic", as well as "a Western and U.S. ploy to harm Islam." According to him, when the convention was brought to Qom, all the religious authorities opposed it as contrary to Islam.[5]

He condemned the 2023 protest burning of the Quran in Sweden, and emphasized that the western claims about freedom of expression and human rights claims, are nothing but a "sheer lie" and a pretext to justify the crimes of the protesters.[15]

In contrast to other hardline views, in 2022 he was quoted by the state-run IRNA news agency as stating in regards to the Mahsa Amini protests, “it is necessary for officials to listen to people’s demands and solve their problems and be sensitive to their rights”.[16]

He turned 100 in March 2025.[17]

See also

Notes

  1. ^ a b "Leading Iran cleric calls on authorities to 'listen to people'". Dawn. 26 September 2022. Retrieved 19 July 2023.
  2. ^ a b Esfandiari, Golnaz (20 February 2018). "Clashes Highlight Tensions Between Dervishes And Iran's Establishment". RLRFE. Retrieved 19 July 2023.
  3. ^ a b "Ayatollah Nouri-Hamedani: 'Fight the Jews and Vanquish Them so as to Hasten the Coming of the Hidden Imam'". No. Iran | Special Dispatch No. 897. MEMRI. 22 April 2005. Retrieved 19 July 2023.
  4. ^ a b Sigarchi, Arash (17 March 2008). "Soroush awaiting Salman Rushdie's Fate?". News Writer Arash sigarchi , Iranian Journalist from Washington D.C. Retrieved 20 September 2025.
  5. ^ a b "RFE/RL Iran Report". Iran Report. 6 (33). 11 August 2003. Retrieved 19 July 2023.
  6. ^ a b "Iran's Hardliners Target Universities as Massive Purge Goes On". Iran Focus. 19 November 2005.
  7. ^ Abdo, Geneive; Aramesh, Arash (4 August 2010). "The Widening Rift Among Iran's Clerics". The New York Times. New York Times. Retrieved 19 July 2023.
  8. ^ official website
  9. ^ "شیخ علی تهرانی – ترور- دختران موسوی (محمد نوری زاد) | وب سایت رسمی محمد نوری زاد" (in Persian). Retrieved 27 October 2022.
  10. ^ Amanat, Abbas (2017). Iran: A Modern History. Yale University Press. p. 719. ISBN 978-0300112542.
  11. ^ Roblin, Sebastien (14 December 2019). "In 1978, Four Terrorists Burned 420 Movie-Goers Alive in Iran". National Interest. Retrieved 20 September 2025.
  12. ^ gooya news :: politics : آيت‌الله نوری همدانی، از مراجع تقليد: شركت بانوان در مراكز ورزشی آقايان مخالف موازين اسلامی است، ايلنا Archived 27 September 2007 at the Wayback Machine
  13. ^ ZIABARI, KOUROSH (9 November 2019). "Iran's most famous Sufi faces fatwa at home". Asia Times. Retrieved 19 July 2023.
  14. ^ Litvak, Meir (2017), McElligott, Anthony; Herf, Jeffrey (eds.), "Iranian Antisemitism and the Holocaust", Antisemitism Before and Since the Holocaust: Altered Contexts and Recent Perspectives, Cham: Springer International Publishing, p. 209, doi:10.1007/978-3-319-48866-0_9, ISBN 978-3-319-48866-0, retrieved 16 June 2025
  15. ^ ""Western claims on freedom of expression, sheer lie", top cleric". Taghrib News. 24 January 2023. Retrieved 19 July 2023.
  16. ^ "Top Iranian cleric urges government to listen to protesters' demands". PBS NewsHour. 27 September 2022. Retrieved 27 September 2022.
  17. ^ حسین نوری همدانی، مرجع تقلید حامی حکومت، ۱۰۰ ساله شد (in Persian)

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