Shahab ud Din Mar ashi Najafi

Shahab ud-Din Mar'ashi Najafi was a prominent Shia scholar and marja' who lived in Najaf and Qom. He was born in Najaf, Iraq, in 1897, to a family of sayyids who traced their lineage to Imam al-Sajjad (a). He studied in the hawza of Najaf, and also spent three years studying in the Iraqi cities of Samarra and Kadhimiya. He excelled in areas of fiqh, ilm al-rijal, aql, and kalam. He received ijazahs from numerous scholars, among them Lady Amin. He attained the level of ijtihad in 1925, and travelled to Qom, Iran, at the request of Abdul-Karim Ha'eri Yazdi, one of the most important revivalists of the Qom hawza. He stayed in the city of Qom until his death. He led the prayers in the shrine of Fatemah Masumeh for over half a century. He was one of the supporters of Imam Khomeini and the Islamic Revolution of Iran. He founded a library that is a major library in Iran and the Islamic world, in terms of the number and the quality of the manuscripts. He also founded the schools of Mar'ashiyya, Shihabiyya, Mahdiyya, and Mu'miniyya for seminary students. His most important works are: gloss of Ihqaq al-haqq, Mushajjarat al al-Rasul, Tabaqat al-nassabin, and the gloss of Umdat al-talib. He travelled to various countries for writing some of his books and had discussion with the scholars of different religions. He died in 1990, and was buried in his library, according to his will.