Tomb of Haj Sheikh Shushtari
Around the Vali-Asr Avenue, is located the tomb of the man whose image is still on the walls of most houses in Shushtar. People of Shushtar known him as “Sheikh Shushtari” and “Haj Sheikh”. He is one of the contemporary scholars who had done valuable service in the field of hadith scholarship.
Mohammad Taqi Sheikh Shushtari, son of Sheikh Mohammad Kazem, was born in Najaf in 1902. His father was Shushtarian and his mother was from Kerman. His ancestors had a long history of struggle against oppressive regimes. In addition, his father and grandfather were deported because of opposing and speaking against Reza Shah.
Seyed Hossein Nouri, Seyed Mohammad Ali Imam, and Seyed Ali Asqar Hakim trained him primarily. Most of them were as his father’s disciples. After that, he had achieved a degree of Ejtehad at the age of sixteen or seventeen. With the teachings of masters such as Mohammad Taqi Sheikh al-Islam and Seyed Mahdi Al-e Tayeb and his father. Due to his great intelligence, he learned the beginning of each book from the master; and the rest was self-study.
Later in 1975, he migrated from the Shushtar to the shrines (Atabat) with Seyed Baqer al-Hakim due to the unveiling. He continued to study Islamic sciences and knowledge in the seminaries of Karbala, and then Najaf. Sheikh attempted to compile the valuable book of Qamoos al-Rejal and won the permission to quote the hadith from Sheikh Agha Bozorg Tehrani.
He returned to Shushtar in 1941, after the end of the reign of Reza Shah, continuing his research besides teaching the Islamic sciences, and finally, he died in Shushtar on May 18th, 1995 at the age of 96. Mohammad Taqi Sheikh Shushtari was famous enough that his mentor, Sheikh Agha Bozorg Tehrani has brought his name in the two volumes of the Az-Zaree’a book and has mentioned twelve titles of his works.
Now, his private home is dedicated to the library of Astan Quds Razavi. Salasel Castle
