Some­thing peo­ple need to know; Sis­tani and other Aya­tol­lahs’ images of hum­ble old men ded­i­cated their lives to ful­fill their “duty to God” and serve the Shi­ite com­mu­nity, is totally mis­lead­ing. In real­ity they are multi-millionaires, Hawza-barons with tur­bans, make enor­mous amounts of money from [Al-Kumus and the supreme-cleric-share].

At this moment, Lead­ers of the Hawza are the fol­low­ing five senior Shi­ite authorities:

- Aya­tol­lah Ali Sis­tani (Iranian).

- Aya­tol­lah Mohammed Said Hakim (Arab-Iraq).

- Aya­tol­lah Sheikh Bashir Najafi (Pakistani).

- Aya­tol­lah Moham­mad Ishaq Al Fayyadh (Afghan).

- Aya­tol­lah Moham­mad Al Yacoubi (Arab-Iraq).

The word “Al-Maraji’ Al-Udhma” = The High Ref­er­ences, refers to the five “supreme-clerics” as one entity which is the Shi­ites spir­i­tual lead­er­ship. Due to the post-occupation devel­op­ments in Iraq they became reli­gious and polit­i­cal references.

Some­thing you need to know, despite the family-names and nation­al­ity dif­fer­ences, they are all related to each other in a series of com­pli­cated struc­ture of marriages.

Although the “Ara­bic — Najafi” iden­tity of the Hawza is con­firmed as an Ara­bic reli­gious insti­tu­tion, It seems there is kind of “nation­al­ism” among Iraqi Shi­ites ques­tion­ing the eth­nic roots and the nation­al­ity of the supreme-cleric, for exam­ple; in the period between 1914–1919 when peo­ple started to argue about the supreme-cleric Aya­tol­lah Yazdi’s [Iran­ian] posi­tion from the British occu­pa­tion, after he refused [or less will­ing] to sup­port the Iraqi national con­fronta­tion against the British.

More evi­dence is the com­pe­ti­tion that lasted fif­teen years between Aya­tol­lah Mohsen Al Hakim (Iraqi) in Najaf and Aya­tol­lah Hus­sein Al Broog­a­rdi (Iran­ian) in Qom. While Iraqis chose Al Hakim as the high­est author­ity; the Ira­ni­ans responded by choos­ing Al Broog­a­rdi as their supreme-cleric.

This is the first known split between the two Hawzas which also started an iden­tity cri­sis [Iraq offered an Iraqi nation­al­ity to Sis­tani but he refused]. Some­thing we need to note here is that; while the Qom-Hawza started a move­ment to mod­ern­ize the insti­tu­tion, the Najaf-Hawza kept it’s rad­i­cal ide­ol­ogy, this is a very good example:

In his “mod­ern” ideas, Aya­tol­lah Fad­hal­lah dis­cuses some reli­gious issues with Iraqi clerics:

- I dis­cussed the mat­ter with Iran­ian cler­ics in Qom, and [my ideas] are well received.

- You should con­sult Iraqis in these mat­ters, Iraqis know his­tory better.

This a list of all Supreme-clerics since the last cen­tury until today, to check the Iran­ian dom­i­na­tion of the Najaf-Hawza:

- Aya­tol­lah Moham­mad Kazem Yazdi 1903–1919 (Iranian).

- Aya­tol­lah Mirza Mohammed Taqi Al-Shirazi 1919–1920 (Iranian).

- Aya­tol­lah Fathulla Isfa­hani Dec. 1920-Aug 1920 (Iranian).

- Aya­tol­lah Sayed Abul-Hassan Isfa­hani 1920–1945 (Iranian).

- Aya­tol­lah Mohsen Al Hakim (Iraqi) — Aya­tol­lah Hus­sein Albroog­a­rdi (Iran­ian) [Hawza split] 1945–1960.

- Aya­tol­lah Mohsen Al Hakim (Iraqi) 1960–1970.

- Aya­tol­lah Al Khoei (Iran­ian) 1970–1992.

- Aya­tol­lah Sayed Abdel A’ala Sabze­vari (Iran­ian) 1992–1993.

- Aya­tol­lah Sayyid Ali al-Sistani (Iran­ian) 1994-until today.

Related:

What is Al-Hawza?