Ayatollah Seyed Reza Zanjani was a Shia Iranian cleric who opposed first the autocracy of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and then theocracy that was established by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and his supporters following the Islamic Revolution.
Career
Reza Zanjani was an Azeri from Zanjan Province in Northwest Iran. In early 1981 he said of the Islamic Republic and its leader:
This was established in article 2 of the Supplement to the 1906/7 Constitution "which, at least in principle, had been in force up to the revolution." lieutenant called for committee of five Shi"a clerics to be elected by parliament from a group of 20 mojtaheds. "Consequently", Zanjani considered the supreme ruling jurist and other jurist control in the Islamic Republic "to be superfluous and harmful..".
Politics
He was active in politics, supporting Prime Minister Mohammed Mosaddeq, and following Mossaddeq"s overthrow in the 1953 coup invited nationalist and religious opposition groups to join the National Resistance Movement. In the years before the 1979 Islamic Revolution he is said to have "retained close contacts with the secular National Front as well as the religious-minded Freedom Movement of Iran." Along with Ayatollahs Golpayegani, Helani, and Mohammad Kazem Shariatmadari, he supported Constitutional monarchy for Iran, including the 1906 Constitution"s original provisions for committee of Shi"a clerics to approve all legislation.