Riverside to the Ocean The Life of Sheikh Morteza Ansari

“I saw Imam Sadiq, peace be upon him, and he gave me a beautiful Quran. Its edges were decorated… it was just otherworldly.” “Muhammad, what does my dream mean?” “It is a glad tiding by Allah’s will. The Quran you received is the child you shall soon bear, Mullah Yaqoob’s Daughter!” Murtaza’s destiny seemed set in stone even before he was born. Yet, that he would have to earn every bit of it—and magnify it on a temporal canvas through nearly intolerable struggles—was beyond question. Born into the noble Ansari family of Dezful, he grew up learning much and fast. But the prancing River Dez and the bricked streets of Dezful could only entertain him for so long as a child. His restless soul and insatiable mind eventually led him to where all those thirsty must come, and where none leave unquenched. In the shadow of Amir al-Mu’mineen’s luminous Shrine, the unassuming Murtaza first became Shaykh, and then Khatam al-Fuqaha—the Seal of the Jurists! Yet, Murtaza remained unchanged—the humble boy from Dezful who carried his mother to the Shrine of his master on his ageing back each day, and who lived more austerely than even Catholic monks, even as millions around the world emulated him as a marja. It was in Najaf that Shaykh Murtaza Ansari’s long-awaited prayer was granted in the form of his friend, teacher, and mystical guide: Sayyid Ali Shushtari, the progenitor of the illustrious line of latter-day Shia mystics known as Maktab-e-Najaf. The otherworldly bond between the great marja and the great mystic endured until both found their eternal abode at the doorstep of their master’s Shrine—a place where a young Murtaza had once felt inexplicably at home, and where he had beseeched Amir al-Mu’mineen (as) to grant him his company and closeness.