Abul Qassim al-Khoei, 95; Grand Ayatollah Led Shiites

NICOSIA, Cyprus — Imam Abul Qassim al-Khoei, the highest religious authority to the world’s 200 million Shiite Muslims, died at home in Iraq, his grandson said Sunday.

The grand ayatollah was 95.

He collapsed and died while preparing for Saturday afternoon prayers, the grandson, Yousif al-Khoei, said in a telephone interview from London.

He said his grandfather was buried Sunday with little ceremony under pressure from Iraqi authorities.

The younger al-Khoei said there also were reports of a police clampdown to prevent unrest during mourning in the province around Najaf, the holiest city for the Shiites who rose up against Iraqi President Saddam Hussein after the Gulf War. The ayatollah had lived near Najaf, 100 miles south of Baghdad.

The religious leader was in some ways considered more prominent than the late Iranian Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini of Iran, but he remained apolitical and did not oppose Hussein during the 1980-88 war against Iran.

The elder al-Khoei, the supreme Shiite religious authority since 1971, was detained by Hussein in March, 1991, after the failed uprising and confined to his house.

The Iraqi News Agency called the ayatollah a “fine . . . committed cleric” and said a funeral was held in which “the governor of Najaf led the masses of the province in a procession” with other dignitaries.

But relatives in London branded the report “nonsense.”

“His family has been forced to bury him quite unceremoniously with only two or three family members present,” his grandson said. “They (Iraqi authorities) were expecting trouble.”

Ordinarily, the grandson said, Shiites from the region would have gathered for the funeral, and the body would have been taken nearly 40 miles to the holy city of Karbala.

Al-Khoei was buried in Najaf at a mosque adjacent to the tomb of Imam Ali, son-in-law of the prophet Mohammed, whose assassination in 661 AD precipitated the splitting of Islam into Sunni and Shiite sects.

Iraq’s population of 17 million includes about 9.5 million Shiites. Hussein and his closest aides are of the Sunni minority.