Is Sistani Dying?

By Cernig

Is Grand Ayatollah Sistani, the spiritual leader of Iraq's Shiites, dying? I've found to my chagrin in the past that the Roads To Iraq website can be quite unreliable - but for what it's worth they are passing on a story they say is from a Jordanian newspaper, al-Ghad, which claims the "Cat Herder" is gravely ill. Al-Ghad itself is a respected publication in the region.

Roads To Iraq's post says:

Jordanian newspaper al-Ghad reported that sources close to Sistani said that the grand cleric’s health is in serious problem, which prevents him from intervene or issued a statement to stop the fights between the militias and the Iraqi forces.

The source also said that Sistani authorized his son “Mohammad Ridha” to manage the “Hawaza” affairs without issuing any Fatwas.

If true it must be said that this would explain recent duelling opportunistic statements from "Sad n Bad" sides about whether Sistani told the Mahdi Army it should keep its weapons or not.

But if any reader has a knowledge of Arabic, please click the link to the original and tell me in comments whether it says what RTI says it does, and whether it says anything further the RTI post ommited. Thanks.