Afghanistan, June 4 -- Grand Ayatollah Mohammad Ishaq Fayyaz, a prominent Shia scholar and religious authority, has passed away in Najaf, Iraq, at the age of 96.
His office in Kabul confirmed that the Afghanistan-born scholar passed away on Thursday. Three days of public mourning have been announced in Iraq.
Born in 1930 in the village of Soba, Jaghori District, Ghazni Province, in east-central Afghanistan, Fayyaz moved to Iran for religious studies before settling in Iraq.
After years of study in the Shia seminary of Najaf, he rose to become a leading Shia religious authority, followed by believers in Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, and beyond.
His views on Islamic government, particularly on the authority of the jurist, are ...