Zaynolabideen Ghorbani

Zaynolabideen Ghorbani was born in 1933 in Panjah, a village near Lahijan in Gilan Province, Iran. His father, Gholam Hassan, died when he was five years old. The family worked in agriculture, and he helped on the farm while attending school.

He learned the basics of the Quran and Persian at primary school in his home village, then moved to Lahijan to study Islamic sciences and Arabic. In 1950 he went to the Qom Seminary, where he studied Islamic jurisprudence and its principles with Hossein Borujerdi and Ruhollah Khomeini and Islamic philosophy with Muhammad Husayn Tabatabai. His other teachers included Hussein-Ali Montazeri, Ali Meshkini, Mohammad-Taqi Bahjat and Musa al-Sadr. He completed the advanced dars-e kharej courses and reached the rank of ijtihad.

While a student in Qom, Ghorbani met Navvab Safavi and joined the Fada'iyan-e Islam in 1952. After Safavi's execution he went into hiding, and during this period he came to know Ali Khamenei. He spoke out increasingly against the Shah and was arrested by SAVAK in 1963. He was arrested again after Mohammad Beheshti left for Germany in 1965, and in 1971 he was held for six months and banned from leaving the country or engaging in religious affairs.

After the 1979 revolution, Ruhollah Khomeini appointed him the Supreme Leader's representative in Gilan Province and Friday prayer leader of Lahijan. He represented the people of Gilan in the Islamic Consultative Assembly from 1984 to 1988 and in the Assembly of Experts from 1990 to 2024. After the death of Ayatollah Sadegh Ehsanbakhsh, Ali Khamenei appointed him Friday prayer leader of Rasht and representative in Gilan. He also founded the Lahijan branch of the Islamic Azad University and taught at several universities.

In 2018 he resigned as the Supreme Leader's representative and Friday prayer leader of Rasht following a controversy over the Adineh residential complex in Rasht, saying he no longer had the strength to carry the duty. Rasool Falahati succeeded him.

Ghorbani had ten children, seven sons and three daughters. His nephew, Mohammad Hossein Ghorbani, became a member of parliament for Astaneh-ye Ashrafiyeh. He was a prolific author, and his works include Towards the Eternal World, History of Islamic Culture and Civilisation, Islam and Human Rights, The Foundation of World Peace, Islamic Government and Velayat Faqih, and a Persian translation of volumes 9 and 10 of al-Ghadir that he compiled while in prison.

Zaynolabideen Ghorbani died in the early hours of 12 October 2026, aged 93, at Milad Hospital in Lahijan, where he had been admitted about a week earlier. Gilan news outlets, including 8dey News, reported his death that morning and said the details of his funeral and burial would be announced later. A specific cause of death was not made public in initial reports.

For four decades Ghorbani was among the most prominent clerics in northern Iran, leading Friday prayers in Lahijan and Rasht and representing Gilan in the country's highest clerical and legislative bodies. He is remembered in Gilan as a scholar and author of dozens of books on religious, Quranic, philosophical and social subjects, and as the founder of the Lahijan branch of the Islamic Azad University.