Al-Monitor is an award-winning media outlet covering the Middle East, valued for its independence, diversity and analysis. It is read widely by US, international and Middle East decision makers at the ...

Prominant Shia Islamic leader Ayatollah Sistani, for one, has written on his website that "There is no problem in chewing a gum though he might feel the flavor insofar as the gum does not have ...

Al-Monitor is an award-winning media outlet covering the Middle East, valued for its independence, diversity and analysis. It is read widely by US, international and Middle East decision makers at the ...

But the Iranian model of government - a theocratic state - is not supported by Shi’ism’s most senior Islamic cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani who is based in the Iraqi city of Najaf.

Tellingly, it was Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, universally acknowledged as the most venerable and authoritative, who was too busy. Whether the stated reason was genuine or it was a deliberate ...

Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, declared Sunday the first day of Ramadan. Only in Morocco, at the far-western edge of the Arab world, will Sunnis start observing the daytime fast on Sunday, its Islamic ...

Iraq: The Shiite Grand Ayatollah Ali Al Sistani declared Sunday as the start of the holy month, while the Sunni Endowment Diwan in the country and the Kurdistan region have announced that Ramadan ...

Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, declared Sunday the first day of Ramadan. Only in Morocco, at the far-western edge of the Arab world, will Sunnis start observing the daytime fast on Sunday, its Islamic ...