Senior Shia scholar Ayatollah Shobeiri Zanjani dies in Qom at 98

Ayatollah Seyyed Mousa Shobeiri Zanjani, a prominent Shia religious authority and longtime scholar of the Qom seminary, has died in Qom, Iran, at the age of 98. He was born in the city on March 1, 1928, and died there on September 21, 2026, following decades of teaching and scholarly work within the seminary system.

As a Marja', a title designating a senior source of religious authority within Shia Islam, Shobeiri Zanjani held a position of considerable standing among clerics and followers who looked to him for guidance on religious and jurisprudential matters. His decades of activity in Qom, one of the principal centers of Shia religious scholarship, placed him among a generation of senior clerics whose teaching shaped successive cohorts of students within the seminary.

A life centered on Qom

Details of his death and life have been marked in Iranian state media, including a photographic retrospective published by IRNA documenting his years of scholarly and teaching activity. His passing represents the loss of one of the seminary's senior figures, whose tenure spanned a period of significant political and religious change in Iran, from the years before the 1979 revolution through the decades that followed.

Marja' figures such as Shobeiri Zanjani typically combine formal religious education with an ongoing role advising and teaching students, and their deaths are often marked with public tributes from religious institutions and, in some cases, state authorities, reflecting the intertwined nature of religious and civic life in Qom.

No further details on funeral arrangements or a successor role were included in the available reporting. Additional coverage is expected as more details of his life and legacy are published in the coming days.