Influential cleric urges reforms in Iran's Assembly of Experts
In an exclusive interview, Al-Monitor spoke with Ayatollah Asadollah Bayat-Zanjani, an Iranian marja in the city of Qom.
Ayatollah Asadollah Bayat-Zanjani is a Shiite marja who resides in the holy city of Qom. Born in the city of Zanjan, where he began seminary studies as a teenager, he later moved to Qom and studied under notable Ayatollahs Allameh Tabatabei, Morteza Motahhari and Ruhollah Khomeini, the first supreme leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
After the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Bayat-Zanjani held a number of positions in the newly formed Islamic Republic, serving three terms in parliament and acting as a member of the Council for Amending the Constitution in 1988. A critic of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's administration, he supported Reformist Mir Hossein Mousavi in the contested 2009 presidential elections. He condemned the crackdown that followed the 2009 elections, and his website was blocked in 2010 as a result.
