Sayyid Abu al-Fadl Burqa'i, known in Persian: سید ابوالفضل ابن الرّضا برقعی, (1908-1993) also known commonly as Ayatollah Borqei or Ibn al-Ridah[2] was an Ayatollah and a former Shi'ite scholar.[3]
Ayatollah Borqei was born in 1908, and was the son of a Shi'ite cleric, Sayyid Ahmad. His family was descended from Ali ibn Musa al-Ridha, the eighth Imam of Ahlulbayt.[2] His education started at the age of twelve. At adulthood, he gained scholarly knowledge and was a teacher at one of Qom's seminaries.[2] In his late forties, he left Shi'ism and converted to a non-denominational sect of Islam.[3] In 1944, he issued a Fatwa stating that anyone who attended the funeral of Reza Shah Pahlavi was a heretic disbeliever who contradicted the laws of religion.[2] His opinion caused the government to redirect the funeral to Tehran instead, and the late Shah was buried in Rey.[2]
The students of Ayatollah Borqei included Mehdi Hashemi.[3] Borqei's family later left Shi'ism during his lifetime as well. Borqei died in 1993, and was buried in Tehran.[3] He is buried in the Imamzadeh Shu'ayb mausoleum.[3]
After his alleged reversion to a non-denominational[1] Islam, Borqei held several views contrary to Twelver Shi'ism. He criticized the veneration of Ali ibn Abi Talib[4] and denied the existence of Muhammad al-Mahdi, the son of Hasan al-Askari.[4] Borqei also wrote a Fatwa forbidding Mu'tah or any other form of temporary marriage.[4]
Borqei wrote several books in his lifetime, and over forty of them are dedicated to defending orthodox Shiism, after leaving Shiism he wrote new books propagating his new beliefs and refuting his old books. [1]
In addition to all of these, Borqei translated Ibn Taymiyyah's Minhaj as-Sunnah into Persian, and was the first one to do so.[1]
Borqei preferred the title Muslim over any other title.