Allamah al-Majlisi

Allamah Muhammad Baqir Majlesi
Born	c. 1616 Isfahan, Iran
Died	c. 1698 Isfahan, Iran

Muhammad Baqir Majlesi (1616–1698 AD) (Persian: علامه مجلسی‎‎ Allameh Majlesi; also Romanized as: Majlesi, Majlessi, Majlisi, Madjlessi), known as Allamah Majlesi or Majlesi-ye Thani (Majlesi the Second), was a renowned and very powerful Iranian Twelver Shi'a cleric, during the Safavid era. He has been described as "one of the most powerful and influential Shi'a ulema of all time", whose "policies and actions reoriented Twelver Shia'ism in the direction that it was to develop from his day on."

He is buried next to his father in a family mausoleum located next to the Jamé Mosque of Isfahan.

Born in Isfahan in 1616, his father, Mulla Muhammad Taqi Majlesi (Majlesi-ye Awwal—Majlesi the First, 1594 AD-1659 AD), was a cleric of Islamic jurisprudence. The genealogy of his family is traced back to Abu Noaym Ahámad b. Abdallah Esfahani (d. 1038 AD), the author, inter alia, of a History of Isfahan, entitled Zikr-i akhbar-i Isfahan.

By the age of 25, he gained certification of "riwāyat" from Mulla Sadra to teach. He is said to have completed studies under 21 masters (ustadh). He is reported to have trained 181 students to become masters themselves.

In 1678, the Safavid King, Sultan Husayn, appointed Majlesi as "Sheikh ul-Islam" (Chief Religious Leader of the land) in Isfahan, the capital of the Persian Empire. In this influential position, he was given a free hand by the Sultan to encourage and to punish as he saw fit. "The three inter-related areas in which Majlisi exerted his efforts were": the suppression of Sufism, mystical philosophies, philosophic views known as Falsafah that he claimed were contrary to Islam and "the suppression of Sunnism and other religious groups."

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