Mohammad-Ali Taskhiri (19 October 1944[1] – 18 August 2020) was an Iranian cleric and diplomat.[2] During the 1980s, Taskhiri served as the Iranian representative to the Organisation of the Islamic Conference and was involved in promoting Iranian interests during the height of the Iran–Iraq War.
His role, while always significant in the government of Iran, became even more so after the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Taskhiri was born in Iraq and was an important liaison with Shia Iraqi organizations. He was a signatory to a letter from 38 Muslim scholars, sent as the official Islamic response to comments made by Pope Benedict XVI on September 12, 2006. He was one of the Ulama signatories of the Amman Message, which gives a broad foundation for defining Muslim orthodoxy.[3]
After the late Ayatollah Vaezzadeh Khorasani, Ayatollah Taskhiri was the Secretary General of the World Assembly for the Proximity of Islamic Schools of Thought for many years, and due to his scientific ability and familiarity with Arabic and English languages, he took effective measures to unite the Islamic world.
He was also for a while the vice-president of the International Union of Muslim Scholars, who resigned after Qaradawi's bizarre stances.
Ayatollah Taskhiri chaired the Supreme Council of the Assembly for the Proximity of Islamic Schools of Thought and represented the Leadership Assembly of Experts.
Biography of the herald of the Islamic Unity[edit]
Ayatollah Mohammad Ali Taskhiri, the son of the late Hojjat al-Islam wal-muslemin Hajj Sheikh Ali Akbar, was born in 1944 in Najaf Ashraf and his father was from Tonekabon, one of the western cities of Mazandaran province in Iran.
He completed his primary and secondary education in Najaf and taught seminary courses up to the stage of Kharidj fiqh in the presence of great masters such as the great Ayatullah Martyr Seyyed Mohammad Baqir Sadr, Khoi, Seyyed Mohammad Taghi Hakim, Sheikh Javad Tabrizi, Sheikh Kazem Tabrizi, Sadr Badkoubi and Sheikh Mojtaba Lankarani also studied at the Faculty of Jurisprudence in Najaf, majoring in Arabic literature, jurisprudence and principles.
Ayatollah Taskhiri also taught common subjects while studying in the seminary of Najaf Ashraf; In the field of Arabic poetry and literature, he also benefited from the presence of great masters such as Ayatollah Sheikh Mohammad Reza Muzaffar, Sheikh Abdul Mahdi Matar and Sheikh Mohammad Amin Zainuddin.
At the beginning of his youth, with great enthusiasm for Arabic poetry and literature, he composed Arabic poems and literary lectures on various occasions and in various circles of poetry and literature; He took an active part in the political struggle against the Ba'athist regime in Iraq, and in this connection he was imprisoned and sentenced to death, but he was saved with the help of God Almighty.
In 1971, he went to the seminary of Qom and participated in the courses of great professors such as Ayatollah Golpayegani, Ayatollah Vahid Khorasani and Ayatollah Mirza Hashem Amoli for nearly 10 years; During this period, he also taught seminary sciences and Arabic literature in some scientific and academic centers across the country, and with the victory of the glorious Islamic Revolution of Iran, he spent all his time on cultural affairs and Islamic propaganda inside and outside the country.
