Hussein al-Khalili

Ayatollah Mirza Husayn Khalili Tehrani (1815-1908)

Career In 1891, he became a Marja', and by the demise of Mirza Shirazi in 1895 he was listed among great jurists, and many people from Tehran followed him. When the parliament came under attack from imperial court's cleric, Shaykh Fazlullah Nuri, Tehrani alongside other jurists of Najaf sided with democracy and acted as a legitimising force. They invoked the Quranic command of ‘enjoining good and forbidding wrong’ to justify democracy in the period of occultation, and linked opposition to the constitutional movement to ‘a war against the Imam of the Age’. Akhund Khurasani, Mirza Husayn Tehrani and Shaykh Abdullah Mazandarani, theorised a model of religious secularity in the absence of Imam, that still prevails in Shia seminaries.

The period from the destruction of the first parliament under the orders of Mohammad Ali shah on June 23, 1908, to the Shah's deposition on July 16, 1909, is called as the Lesser Despotism in the history of modern Iran. The shah repeatedly delayed the elections under the guise of fighting sedition and defending Islam. Mohammad Ali shah wrote letters to the sources of emulation in Najaf, seeking their support against the conspiracies he alleged by Babis and other heretics. However, Akhund Khurasani, Mirza Tehrani and Mirza Abdullah Mazandarani responded by affirming the religious legitimacy of democracy and advised the shah to work within the constitutional framework in improving the conditions of society and defending the country against colonial influence.