NCRI – Following a recent visit by the Iranian regime’s Supreme Leader to the city of Qom, clerics not allied with the regime and their counterparts in the Iraqi city of Najaf have said that a religious imitation of those mullahs who met with Ali Khamenei in his trip would not be required.
According to al-Arabiya TV on Monday, “Ali Khamenei’s recent visit to Qom has deepened divisions in the Qom religious seminary and Najaf in Iraq.”
The TV added, “The societies of seminary teachers in Qom and Najaf have released statements condemning Khamenei for trying to impose his rule on Shiite religious leaders.”
Khamenei traveled to Qom for the first time in ten years, where security organs had arranged meetings for him with some of the clerics. But despite security pressures, a number of these clerics refused to meet with Khamenei, the TV report said.
The regime’s government officials blocked the Qom Society of Seminary Teachers website, but after becoming operational again, it announced that emulating religious leaders who met with Khamenei would not be required, al-Arabiya said.
