Ayatollah Sayyed Hoseyn Ghaffari

Ayatollah Sayyed Hoseyn Ghaffari was a combatant cleric who was martyred in the Shah’s prison in 1974 after years of struggling and fighting against the Pahlavi regime. Hoseyn Ghaffari was born in 1914, in a farming family in Azarshahr (Dehkharghan). He lost his father as a child and started farming with his family to make a living. Due to his interest in gaining knowledge, he used to take his books to the farm and study along with his work as well.

He studied the preliminary Islamic sciences in his hometown, then went to Tabriz with his brother for business as well as studying at Talebieh Seminary. While studying, he also worked as a carpenter. He faced difficulties in making a living in Tabriz and so he returned to his birthplace and continued to pursue religious studies alongside farming and labouring.

Sayyed Ghaffari then went to Qom to complete his education and benefited from the presence of the great scholars of the seminary. Likewise, he attended Imam Khomeyni’s class for a while and developed a strong love for him. During his studies, he travelled to the villages around Iranian Azerbaijan to proselytize Islam.

Sayyed Ghaffari arrived in Tehran in late 1952 and rented a house in Shahpour Square (now Vahdat-e Eslami Square) and permanently settled in this city. His sincere relationship with various social strata and groups such as workers, farmers and students, was considered to be one of the most important factors in his socio-cultural and political influence. After some time, he took responsibility as the prayer leader of the Khatam al-Awsiya Mosque in Tehran-e No district (Istgah-e Sharq). He later on settled there because of the insistence of the people of Tehran-e No.

Simultaneously with the approval of the 1962 State and Provincial Associations Bill, he accompanied the Islamic movement with his revealing remarks. In his speech, he protested against the government and read the contents of the proclamation of Imam Khomeyni and Ayatollah Milani on the pulpit of the mosque for the people. He was one of the clerics who were arrested by the security officials on the eve of June 6, 1963, along with eighty other clerics, and was interrogated at the Shahrbani Prison.

Sayyed Ghaffari was released from the prison after forty days of imprisonment but he continued with his revelations about the regime. He was arrested by the police officers and imprisoned for two and a half months in Ghezel Qaleh Prison two days after his speech at the mosque, in which he said, “Anyone who insults the scholars and clerics is a pure idolater.”

After Imam Khomeyni was exiled to Turkey and then Najaf al-Ashraf, he sent him a telegraph in Najaf to congratulate him on his arrival there. In one of his speeches against the regime, he likened the reforms of the Pahlavi regime to the actions of Mu’awiyah’s era which led to him being summoned again by SAVAK in Tehran.

On July 2, 1974, his house was searched at night and several of Imam Khomeyni’s proclamations, as well as evidence of his and his son, Sayyed Hadi Ghaffari’s connections to the regime’s dissenters and combatants inside and outside of the country, were obtained. After he was arrested and imprisoned, he was then sent to Qasr Central Penitentiary where he was kept in the same ward with his son for several months.

There, along with studying, he taught the Quran, jurisprudence, and Nahj al-Balaghah. Also, he held discussions with the Marxists and, while guiding them, tried to remind them of the principles of Islam. At times, he would get into an argument with them over these issues. After being in prison for a while, he was charged in a court and sentenced to eight months in prison.

The news of his death from the Qasr Central Penitentiary was reported to the prosecutor of the Imperial Armed Forces on January 25 of that year. According to the death report, he was hospitalized in the internal medicine department of the penitentiary due to fever, high blood pressure and kidney disorders, and finally died due to the illness and old age. But after an autopsy, the forensic scientists said that the cause of his death was cerebral hemorrhage, yet he had no specific illness before his arrest.

When the great Ayatollah Golpaygani, Mar’ashi-Najafi, Shariatmadari, and Qoddousi were informed that the body of Ayatollah Hoseyn Ghaffari has been brought to Qom, they cancelled their classes. Together with the seminary students and a great number of people, they performed the funeral prayer in the Holy Shrine of Lady Fatimah al-Ma’sumah (peace be upon her) and his body was buried in Wadi al-Salam Cemetery in Qom. On the day of his funeral, there were demonstrations and clashes between the police and the people, in which some people were injured and some were arrested and imprisoned.