Muhammad Saeed al Hakim

Muhammad Saeed al-Hakim was a Shia marja and one of the most senior Shia clerics in Iraq after Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani. He was born in Najaf, Iraq to a prominent Shia family that traced its lineage back to Muhammad. He studied Islamic sciences under his father and other grand ayatollahs, such as al-Khoei and Khomeini. He became a mujtahid, a theologian qualified to make independent juridical decisions, in the mid-1970s. He wrote many books and treatises on various topics, such as theology, jurisprudence, logic, grammar, rhetoric, and economics. He was a critic of Saddam Hussein's rule and a supporter of democracy and human rights in Iraq. He was targeted in an attempted assassination in 2003, when his house in Najaf was bombed, but he survived with minor injuries. He was one of the signatories of the Amman Message, which gives a broad foundation for defining Muslim orthodoxy. He died of a heart attack in 2021 at the age of 85.