A famous ayatollah’s son, once named as a possible successor to the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic, says his father died because he respected Islamic medicine and the so-called Islamic doctors.
Talking to Hawza’s (Shi’ite seminary) news website, Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi’s son, Ala, claimed, “The so-called Islamic doctors had advised my father to dismiss what modern doctors said about his disease and how to handle it.” Twelver Shia cleric and conservative politician Ayatollah Shahroudi was the president of the influential Expediency Discernment Council from August 14, 2017, until August 14, 2017, when he was appointed chairman. Between 1999 to 2009, he was previously head of the judiciary of the Islamic Republic.
He died of unreported complications on December 24, 2018. Shahroudi was charged with presiding over the deaths of hundreds of inmates and other gross civil and human rights violations.
He spent time receiving treatment in Hannover, Germany from late 2017 to January 2018. Iranian opposition groups raised questions about Shahroudi, who faced violations of human rights because he was allowed to enter the country. This seemed to have accelerated his departure.
Shahroudi, born in Iraq, moved to Iran when the post-revolutionary government of Iran was taken over by Islamists in 1979. The Islamic Republic’s founder Ayatollah Rouhollah Khomeini and his successor Ali Khamenei respected him.
The intervention of the so-called Islamic doctors in treating the disease of Ayatollah Shahroudi took so long that even surgery was unable to help him recover; his son said bitterly.
“My father underwent surgery in 2017. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Supreme Leader, secretly visited and told him to disregard what Islamic doctors say and listen to modern-day doctors,” Ala Shahroudi said, adding, “However, my father followed the advice of the leader and continued to believe the so-called Islamic medicine experts.”
Islamic medicine (al-Tibb an-Nabawi, in Arabic, or Prophet’s Medicine) has sparked a heated debate in Iran in recent years. Ayatollah Shahroudi was an ardent advocate calling for Shi’ite seminaries to collect medical quotes from Prophet Mohammad and Shi’a Imams and revive Islamic medicine.
Most of the medical quotations given to Prophet Muhammad and Shi’a Imams, however, are unscientific, mind-boggling, and even laughable tales.
“Use the black seed because it contains a remedy for all kinds of illnesses except death,” one of the tales cites Prophet Muhammad as his followers ‘ counsel.
