Leader Condoles Demise of Senior Iraqi Shia Cleric
In a message on Saturday, the Leader expressed condolences to the Islamic Seminary of Najaf and the family of the senior cleric.
He said Ayatollah Hakim was a source of emulation who authored precious works in the fields of Fiqh and Osul.
His demise is a great loss for the Islamic Seminary of Najaf, Ayatollah Khamenei added.
Ayatollah Hakim died of a heart attack in the southern Iraqi holy city of Najaf on Friday.
He “underwent surgery three days ago in a hospital in Najaf and succumbed today to a heart attack”, a source within his office said Friday.
Ayatollah al-Hakim was one of the four Shia sources of emulation in Najaf.
He has written more than 40 books on Islamic Fiqh. He also trained many scholars in Islamic sciences.
Born to a family of clerics in Najaf in 1354 Hijri (1936), he was a grandson to late Grand Ayatollah Muhsen al-Hakim. His father was Mohammad Ali al-Hakim, one of the most respected clerics in Najaf.
He was considered as the top candidate to succeed the Arab country’s most prominent Shia cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, who is in his early nineties.
The source added that a funeral ceremony was arranged to be held on Saturday in Najaf, home to the shrine of Imam Ali, the first Imam in Shia Islam, where he will be buried. A similar ceremony will also be held in the holy city of Karbala.
Iraq’s former dictator Saddam Hossein detained al-Hakim in 1983 and kept him behind bars until 1991. The influential cleric authored dozens of books and monographs, mostly on Shia jurisprudence.
