abu_rashid
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It appears that even the Shi'a don't know who this guy is either, even though he claims to have been a top Shi'a cleric (An Ayatollah no less) that was supposedly in with Khomeini.
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FEDERAL agents have been urged by the nation's senior Shia leader, Kamal Mousselmani, to investigate an Iranian man purporting to be a prominent Islamic cleric.
Sheik Mousselmani told The Australian yesterday the mystery cleric - who has been identified as Ayatollah Manteghi Boroujerdi on his website after appearing under the name Sheik Haron - was not a genuine Shia spiritual leader.
He said there were no ayatollahs - supreme Shia scholars - in Australia and none of his fellow spiritual leaders knew who Ayatollah Boroujerdi or Sheik Haron was.
"We don't know him and we have got nothing to do with him," Sheik Mousselmani said. "The federal police should investigate who he is. It should be their responsibility."
Sheik Haron, who insulted the family of an Australian soldier killed in Afghanistan in November, was accused by Muslim leaders of being a fake cleric deliberately stirring anti-Islamic sentiment.
Sheik Mousselmani, head of the Supreme Islamic Shia Council of Australia, which represents the nation's 30,000 Shi'ites, said Sheik Haron's website - Sheik Haron Web - gave him away as an amateur who knew little about Shia Islam.
"From the way he writes his (fatwas or religious edicts), I don't think he is Shia Muslim," Sheik Mousselmani said. "And there are no ayatollahs in Australia.
"We don't follow, we don't support and we don't stand with anyone we don't know. He's not one of us."
Sheik Haron has been identified in a letter on his websites that claims he is of Iranian background and once supported the country's Islamic revolution against US "oppression".
"Ayatollah Boroujerdi was supporting Ayatollah Khomeini (leader of the Iranian Islamic revolution) and the Islamic revolution like many others who were against the oppression of the United States of America, but later the direction of the Islamic revolution changed and it was not what the nation expected it to be," the letter says.
Sheik Haron's website lists a number of letter he has written to officials and ministers, including one to former attorney-general Philip Ruddock and one to federal police commissioner Mick Keelty.
The Australian Federation of Islamic Councils president Ikebal Patel said yesterday the body's investigation into the cleric last month could not find any information on who Sheik Haron is.
"I know the community very well, and this just doesn't make sense," he said. "We couldn't find anything on the man."
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