Grand Ayatollah Hussein-Ali Montazeri was 87.
Montazeri's son, Ahmad, told the Iranian Labor News Agency that his father was suffering from an unspecified illness and passed away late Saturday at his home in Qum, the Iranian shrine and seminary city 60 miles south of Tehran.
His death comes as Iranian protesters prepare to take part in emotionally charged and symbolically loaded Muharram ceremonies marking the Seventh Century martyrdom of Imam Hussein, the grandson of the Prophet Mohammad and a highly revered figure within Iran's majority Shiite Muslim faith.
Burial arrangements have yet to be made, but the anticipated ceremonies around his death could further galvanize a protest movement driven as much, if not more, by raw emotion over perceived injustice as rational political calculation.
Already this morning, weeping clerics and seminary students crammed inside and outside Montazeri's home in Qum to extend condolences and grieve, two clerics reached by telephone said. On the restive campus of Tehran University, nearly 50 students had gathered to mourn Montazeri upon learning of his death, a witness said.
"Ayatollah Montazeri will be remembered in the history of Iran as brave, open-minded and willing to say the truth at any time, even when encountering danger," Fazel Maybodi, a midranking reformist cleric and a disciple of Montazeri, said in a telephone interview from Qum.
"He was a faithful source of emulation in Islamic jurisprudence who initiated a huge change in the mentality and attitudes of the senior clergy," he said. "He braved all threats and dangers to honor his commitment as a senior cleric."
Born in 1922 in the Iranian town of Najafabad near the city of Isfahan, Montazeri pursued his religious studies in the seminaries of Qum. The scholar and theologian organized clergy to oppose the monarchical regime of the late Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, spending several years in prison during the 1970s.
After the 1979 revolution, he was the designated successor to Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic, until a falling out in the late 1980s over major political differences.
Cast out of Iran's inner circle of power and stripped of his official posts, Montazeri over the last 20 years became outspoken critic of the Islamic Republic, calling for greater democracy and respect for human rights and civil liberties while often kept under surveillance in conditions that resembled house arrest.
Nonetheless, he served as an influential spiritual guide to the reform movement that peaked in the late 1990s during the presidency of Mohammad Khatami.
His stature and relevance further rose in the months following Iran's disputed June presidential elections, when he became a strong advocate for the opposition movement and challenged the Islamic Republic's legitimacy.
"A system which has been acting under the aegis of Islam and has the honor to be Shiite has created distrust toward Islam and religion not only in the world, but also among [our own] people and our young generations," he wrote in a letter posted to a reformist website in September. "[The system] has depicted Islam as unable to implement justice in society.
In November, he warned members of the pro-government Basiji militia that their violence against demonstrators was not religiously sanctioned."It would be a misfortune to go to hell for the sake of the worldly desires of others," he said, according to reformist websites.
The Iranian human rights group founded by Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi awarded Montazeri an annual award earlier this month.
Iran's semi-official Fars News Agency said that Ayatollah Yousef Sanaii, another clerical supporter of the opposition, was by Montazeri's side as he died. Maybodi said he died around midnight, in his sleep.
Mostaghim is a special correspondent.
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