Grand Ayatollah Sheikh Mohammad Ishaq Fayyad, one of the highest-ranking Shia religious authorities, has passed away in the city of Najaf. The Iraqi government has declared three days of national mourning in response to his death.
The office of Ayatollah Fayyad in Kabul announced the news on Thursday, June 4, through a Facebook post, describing his passing as “a great loss for the religious seminary and for all believers.”
Ayatollah Fayyad was born in Jaghori district of Afghanistan’s Ghazni province. He later moved to Iraq to pursue religious studies and settled in the holy city of Najaf.
Meanwhile, Iraqi Prime Minister Ali Falih Al-Zaidi, in a message posted on X, stated that the fields of research, jurisprudence, and Islamic sciences had lost one of their most distinguished scholars.
“On this painful occasion, we declare three days of national mourning throughout the country,” he added.
The three-day mourning period in Iraq comes at a time when Shia Muslims in Afghanistan continue to face discrimination, pressure, and repression under Taliban rule.
A few days earlier, Grand Ayatollah Ghulam Abbas Waezzada Behsudi, another prominent Shia religious authority from Afghanistan, stated that many people have been brought to tears when seeking help from religious scholars because of the pressures imposed on them by the Taliban.
Waezzada Behsudi made these remarks during his Eid al-Adha sermon, adding that pressure on followers of the Ja’fari school of thought has steadily increased over the past five years.
According to him, despite the Taliban’s claims of adherence to Islamic law and religious values, religious pressure on Shia Muslims has continued to intensify.
