The Grand Ayatollah Saanei is one of the disciples of the late Imam Khomeini the leader of Iran’s Islamic movement. He was born in Neekabad, Esfahan Province in 1937.
His grandfather, Ayatollah Haj Mulla Yousef, had been among the devout and highly respected clerics of his own time. Haj Mulla Yousef had been tutored in divine philosophy by the well-known Iranian Philosopher, Jahangir Khan, and in jurisprudence, he had been among the pupils of Grand Ayatollah Mirza Habibollah Rashti.
One of the considerable fulfillments of Haj Mulla Yousef was the propagation of Mirza-ye-Shirazi’s movement concerning the “tobacco movement”. Ayatollah Saanei’s father, the late Hujjat-ul-Islam sheikh Muhammad Ali Saanei too, was a cleric acclaimed for his piety and virtues.
Ayatollah Saanei entered the Esfahan Seminary in 1946, and in 1951, he entered the Qom Seminary to continue his studies. His smartness and exemplary diligence led the great Shiite religious authority, Grand Ayatollah Borujerdi, to award him special commendation. From 1955 to 1963 (i.e., the time when Imam Khomeini was exiled from Iran), Ayatollah Saanei, successively and actively attended Imam Khomeini’s seminary sessions on Kharij lecture and was one of his loyal disciples.
Ayatollah Saanei reached the rank of Ijtihad (the authority to deduce the Islamic rules from the relevant sources and references) at the age of 22, and this by itself, was indicative of his scientific authority and capability and also of his indigence. Then, in 1975, he began teaching Kharij lecture (seminary lecture not based on reading text books) offering a course on the Book of Zakaat(alms) at the age of 38.
This has been the trend for more than thirty years now, and the outcome of all attempts at teaching, studying and understanding Islam’s concepts and its jurisprudential aspect in particular, is the novel and up-to-date religious rules which place him among neo-thinking religious authorities.