Grand Ayatollah (Marja al-Taqlid) Bashir Hussain al-Najafi

Early Life

Born in 1942 in Jalandhar, Punjab, in British India. After the 1947 partition his family migrated to Pakistan, where he received his early religious education in Gujranwala and later at the Jamia tul-Muntazar seminary in Lahore. He moved to Najaf, Iraq in the early 1960s to pursue advanced religious studies.

Grand Ayatollah Sheikh Bashir Hussain al-Najafi is a Shia marja al-taqlid (source of emulation) and one of the four Grand Ayatollahs who lead the Hawza seminary in Najaf, Iraq. He was born in 1942 in Jalandhar, Punjab, in British India, and is of Pakistani origin, making him one of very few people of South Asian background to reach the highest rank of religious authority in Shia Islam. After his family migrated to Pakistan following the 1947 partition, he studied Arabic grammar and jurisprudence under his relatives and then at the Jamia tul-Muntazar seminary in Lahore, which he completed in 1965. In the early 1960s he travelled to Najaf, where he studied jurisprudence and its principles under leading scholars including Grand Ayatollah Abu al-Qasim al-Khoei and Ayatollah Muhammad Sadiq al-Rouhani. He began teaching in the Najaf seminary in 1966, lecturing on literature, logic, philosophy and jurisprudence. As one of the senior maraji of Najaf, he holds significant influence, particularly among Shia communities in South Asia. He was a signatory of the Amman Message and has been active in promoting religious education. In January 1999 he survived an armed attack on his seminary in Najaf, attributed to Saddam Hussein's forces, in which several people were killed. He continues to reside in Najaf and maintains ties to Pakistan.