Hawzah News Agency - (Qom - Iran) - Referring to the existential attributes of the late Ayatollah Boroujerdi, Hujjat al-Islam Ansarian emphasized that he removed the Shia school of thought from isolation by engaging positively with Sunni scholars.
A ceremony was held on commemorate the sixtieth anniversary of the death of Grand Ayatollah Seyyed Hoseyn Boroujerdi on the evening of June 18th in Qom’s Grand Mosque.
Ayatollah Boroujerdi (March 1875 – 30 March 1961) was an Iranian source of emulation and the leading source of emulation in Iran from roughly 1947 to his death in 1961.
Hujjat al-Islam Hoseyn Ansarian, a teacher and lecturer in the Islamic Seminary of Qom, spoke at the ceremony and referred to the verse of the Quran, “Indeed those who have faith and do righteous deeds — the All-Beneficent will endear them [to His creation]” [19:96] and stated, “This verse matches the personality of Ayatollah Boroujerdi because he was a pious and practical man in which his love was placed in the hearts of all.”
His Eminence added, “During his time in Esfahan, he was well-regarded by the elders. During the approximately ten years that he studied in Najaf, he was well-regarded by his teachers and the devotees of that city loved him. When he was about thirty years old and in Boroujerd, the people of that city loved him. They called him ‘Imam’ at that time and when Ayatollah Boroujerdi migrated to Qom [in 1945], they felt like they had been orphaned.”
He said, “The people with all their being supplicated for him. In the sixteen years that he was in Qom, his love spread to the entire Islamic world and the senior Sunni jurisprudents prayed for this great man and considered him a great asset to the religion of God.”
Hujjat al-Islam Ansarian pointed out that Ayatollah Boroujerdi brought the Shia out of isolation and the followers of the Ahl al-Bayt achieved such a position that the Grand Mufti of Egypt [Shaykh Mahmoud Shaltout] officially recognized Shi’ism in 1959 and declared that the Twelver Shi’ah school of thought is considered as one of the five main denominations of Islam.
This was all due to Ayatollah Boroujerdi’s efforts. Before this, Shia were a small community until his era and some Sunnis considered Shia as infidels.