DUBAI (Reuters) – Grand Ayatollah Sayyid Muhammad al-Hakeem, one of Iraq’s most senior Shi’ite clerics, died on Friday from a heart attack in the holy city of Najaf, Iraqi state news agency INA reported.
Al-Hakeem, born in 1934, is one of four Grand Ayatollahs who teach at the Hawza, the religious seminary of Najaf, alongside Iraq’s top Shi’ite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.
(Reporting by Maher Chmaytelli; Editing by Angus MacSwan)
