Ayatollah Mousavi Ardabili Passes Away at Age 91

Ayatollah Abdolkarim Mousavi Ardabili, the head of the judiciary of the Islamic Republic in the 1980s and a Shiite religious authority in Iran, passed away on Wednesday, December 3, at the age of 91. Mr. Mousavi Ardabili had been hospitalized in Tehran in recent days, and senior officials of the Islamic Republic, including Ali Khamenei, the leader, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, head of the Expediency Discernment Council, Hassan Rouhani, the president, and Ali Larijani, the speaker of the Islamic Consultative Assembly, had visited him. Iranian news agencies reported that the reason for this religious authority's hospitalization was heart and lung problems. Abdolkarim Mousavi Ardabili was one of the five members of the Islamic Revolution Council appointed by Ruhollah Khomeini from Paris in 1979. After the establishment of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Khomeini initially appointed Mr. Ardabili as the Attorney General of the country and, after the death of Mohammad Beheshti, appointed him as the head of the Supreme Court. Mr. Mousavi Ardabili served as the head of the judiciary of the Islamic Republic for eight years in the 1980s, and rewriting Iran's judicial laws based on Shiite jurisprudence was one of the most important actions during his presidency of this institution. He also served in various capacities in the Assembly of Experts for Constitution, the Constitutional Revision Council, the Assembly of Leadership Experts, and the Supreme Cultural Revolution Council. After the death of Ruhollah Khomeini and the leadership of Ali Khamenei, Mr. Mousavi Ardabili moved to Qom and founded Mofid University in that city. Gradually, he became recognized as one of the Shiite religious authorities, especially by the reformist faction. The mass execution of political and ideological prisoners in Iran occurred during his presidency of the Islamic Republic's judiciary. In 1987, Abdolkarim Mousavi Ardabili wrote a letter to the then-leader of the Islamic Republic asking for permission that, since according to his view, the execution of a 'corrupt' person was a matter of 'caution', courts should have the authority to act in the trials of these individuals based on the opinion of Hossein Ali Montazeri, the then-deputy of Ruhollah Khomeini, who considered the execution of 'corrupt' individuals 'permissible'. The then-leader of the Islamic Republic agreed to this request. Mr. Mousavi Ardabili said in a Friday prayer on August 14, 1988, regarding this matter: 'The judiciary is under very heavy public pressure as to why you are trying these people? They have no trial. Their sentence is known, the subject is known, and their punishment is also known. The judiciary is under pressure as to why all of them are not executed and some of them are imprisoned... I agree with you and say that they should not be pardoned (the congregation shouted Allahu Akbar). I do not say this under the influence of the atmosphere, but because I am aware of the severity of their obstinacy.' Meanwhile, according to an audio file of a meeting of Ayatollah Montazeri with the decision-making committee regarding the execution of political prisoners, Mr. Montazeri, who opposed the executions at that time, referred to Mr. Ardabili as 'the most liberal of all', who 'is against these things' but 'says in Friday prayers that all of them should be executed'. Ayatollah Mousavi Ardabili resigned from all his judicial and political responsibilities in 1989 after the death of Ayatollah Khomeini and the rise of Ayatollah Khamenei to power. Mohammad Javad Akbarin, a religious scholar residing in France, comments on Ayatollah Mousavi Ardabili's decision to Radio Farda: 'When we look at the record of Ayatollah Mousavi Ardabili's life, especially after the revolution, we encounter the image of a 'hesitant jurist' in relation to the government. What I mean by a hesitant jurist is someone who often does not know what to do, takes shaky steps, or withdraws. In the memoirs of the late Ayatollah Montazeri, it is mentioned that during the executions of the 1980s, Ayatollah Mousavi Ardabili opposed the executions, but after Ayatollah Khomeini's order, he fully defended this order. It seems that after the leadership of Ayatollah Khamenei, he was also not very supportive of the way the issue was presented, as he was present in a meeting held in the presence of Ayatollah Khomeini, where Mr. Hashemi later announced that Ayatollah Khomeini had pointed out the suitability of Mr. Khamenei. Later, Ayatollah Mousavi Ardabili recounted that in that meeting, Mr. Khamenei's name was not mentioned, and Ayatollah Khomeini said that you are all suitable. The 'you' referred to the attendees of the meeting, which included Mr. Hashemi, Khamenei, and Mousavi Ardabili. However, Mr. Hashemi, in order to advance the leadership issue, only highlighted Mr. Khamenei's name. Thus, Ayatollah Ardabili faced a kind of dishonesty from that very starting point, and on the one hand, he knew Mr. Khamenei's temperament, and on the other hand, he was hesitant about the correctness of some of the actions taken in the 1980s, and as a result, he preferred to withdraw, go to Qom, and engage in teaching and discussion.