The Biography of Grand ayatollah Asadollāh Bayat Zandjāni
Grand ayatollah Asadollāh Bayat Zandjāni was born in a religious family in a village located 25 kilometers of Zandjān, Iran in January, 1941. Farming provided for his family's life and by this way they earned an ordinary life.
He started the introductory studies by entering the village's elementary school and according to custom of those days he accomplished reciting of Noble Qurān, Sa'di's Gulistan, Moedjam History, and some other books of Persian literature. At the age of thirteen, his family decided to move from the village to the city of Zandjān. This movement was a turning point in his life as he entered the Islamic seminary of Zandjān. In six years of his presence there, he attended theological courses such as Arabic literature, morphology and syntax, major logic (manteq e kobra), margins of mullah Abdollāh (hāshieh e mullah Abdollāh), Logic in Verse (manzume e manteq) , Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh) and its principles (usul al-fiqh), part of laws of Mohaqqeq e Qomi (qavānin),hajj e lomĕ to its first volume, nikah e lomĕ (the matrimonial contract within Islamic marriage) to its second volume, and also old mathematics at the level of kholasah al-hisab by sheikh Bahāi, of some of the leading teachers of those days in Zandjān such as hojatoleslam (authority on Islam) Yaqub Ali Jabbari, hojatoleslam Abdol Hamid Qāemi, hojatoleslam Ahmad Rashvandi Zandjāni, ayatollah Ahmad Zandjāni (of Islamic jurists (faqih) who held his own juristic book (risalah amaliyah) and the author of Monotheism in Speech and Belief (tawhid dar kalām va aqāyed)), and ayatollah Alinaqi Helli Zandjāni (great teacher of old mathematics.(
He was among those who, as it was common in some traditional seminaries, taught the students of lower levels by the time he had completed that course and teachers always confirmed his teaching methods. It was particularly useful because he had the opportunity to accustom himself to the methods of instructing as well as deepening his knowledge.
At the age of 19, after ending primary lessons, he decided to move to Qom in order to learn the advanced levels and also to deepen his past knowledge. In his memories about those days, he quotes: "Because of many financial problems, my father disagreed to my request for moving to Qom. One day when my father returned home from bazaar, I insistently told him about my tendency for moving to Qom. I knew he would disagree and so did he. That disappointed my plans, so I pinned my hopes on Fatimah ─one of the fourteen infallibles and daughter of Muhammad─ may God give them peace─ and took her as a medium with the sublime God. It was not long after that my father had a dream and in consequence of it, he did agree to my request and to the end of his honourable life, I always enjoyed his encouragements and best wishes for me."
