– He Studied Shari’ah in the Madinah University
– He acquired his PhD degree in Sudan
– Compiled many books in the field of Fiqh and Usool Al-Fiqh
– Known as the ‘Shaykh Al-Shafi’iyyah’ (Shaykh of the Shafi’is) in Iran
– He is of course fluent in Arabic (not like the absolute majority of Shia ‘Ayatullats’ who can’t even recite a Fatiha correctly)
– He is known for his orthodox Sunni-Shafi’i Aqidah and was more than once prevented by the Iranian regime to participate at major Sunni gatherings in Iran (what the regime also often does is to confisnicate the passports of Sunni scholars in order to prevent them to do Hajj or ‘Umra and to connect with the wider Sunni world in public)
– He runs many Shafi’i schools inside Iran (all under heavy pressure)

NOTE: As we have explained in previous posts, the Sunnis of Iran (the largest religious minority in Iran, 10% acc. to regime sources, at least 20-30% acc. to Sunni Iranian sources) are not just made up by non-Persian ethnic groups (like Baloch, Kurds etc.), this is a misconception, for there are still many ethnic Persian Sunnis in Iran, particularly in the Iranian Khorassan province (Persian Hanafis) and in the southern provinces of Iran (Fars and Hormozgan province, majority of the Sunnis there are Persian Larestani Shafi’is). South Iran is actually still a Shafi’i-Sunni fortress with many Shafi’i schools (in Pre-Safavid Iran most Persians were Shafi’is followed by Hanafis).

When the Safavids under Ismail I decided to convert everyone residing in current day Iran from Sunni to Shiite Islam in 1501, they started arranged attacks and massacres against the Sunni Persians who refused to convert (Persian Sunnis from Ray-Tehrani, Shirazi, Isfahani and other major Persian Sunnis were either slaughtered or forced to become Shiites), as a result, many Sunni Persians left their hometowns for the Zagros Mountains. After the Battle of Chaldiran where the Safavids lost to the Ottoman the Sunni Persians descended from the mountains to begin a new life in the land they named “Bastak”, meaning barrier or backstop signifying barrier from Shiite Safavids’ attacks and influences. So the southern Persian (Shafi’is) are basically the remainders of the Persian (majority Shafi’i) Sunni population of Iran. They are a minority (Persian Sunnis) but still existing in Iran and in the southern parts they even make up the indigenous majority of the population.