Senior Iranian ayatollah condemns Ahmadinejad aide over music

Dec 22, 2010, 14:05 GMT

Tehran - An Iranian grand ayatollah on Wednesday condemned a close aide of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad over remarks on music, the ISNA news agency reported.

While referring to the conservative clergy, the president's chief of staff, Esfandiar Rahim-Mashaei, said this month that 'just because some do not understand music, they declare it haram,' or religiously prohibited.

'The meaning of what this gentleman has said is that all clerics, theocrats, the late supreme leader [of the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Ruhollah Khomeini] and even imams who have voiced their opposition to immoral music styles do not understand,' Grand Ayatollah Makarem Shirazi said.

'This is an insult to all these great spiritual personalities,' Shirazi, one of the country's most senior religious authorities, said, adding in a reference to Iran's nuclear dispute with the international community and the implementation of economic reforms, 'If the [political] situation was not special, we would not have remained silent and would have harshly confronted this person.'

Rahim-Mashaei also said the clergy should understand that Iranian society had changed and needed poetry and art and not only prayers.

'Just because he has an official position does not give him the right to say whatever he wants and play around with our sanctities,' the grand ayatollah said. 'We will in due time give a decisive reply to this insult.'

It is not the first time that Rahim-Mashaei, whose daughter is married to Ahmadinejad's son and, therefore, is considered the closest aide to the president, has angered the clergy.

In a meeting this summer with Iranian expatriates, he said the country should introduce the ideology of Iran, rather than Islam, to the world.

His remarks caused widespread protests among the country's clergy and senior ultra-conservative officials who accused him of provoking confrontation between Islam and Iran and spreading misinterpretations.

The clergy in Iran generally do not have a favourable approach toward nationalism, which they claim could lead to secularism.

But Ahmadinejad defended his aide against the clergy, saying he is the head of the presidential bureau and he had 'full trust in him.'

Ahmadinejad also said the attacks 'by certain political gangs' against Rahim-Mashaei were also aimed at the government.

Aafter his re-election last year, Ahmadinejad appointed Rahim-Mashaei as vice president despite protests from the clergy, parliament and even from among his own supporters.

The criticism was because of earlier remarks by Rahim-Mashaei, saying Iran's political differences with Israel had nothing to do with Israelis and Jews and that Iran was a friend of the Israeli people.

Only an order from the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, forced Ahmadinejad to accept Rahim-Mashaei's resignation as his first deputy.

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