A senior cleric and representative of Iran’s supreme leader was unharmed after being attacked in central Iran on Friday, the semi-official Tasnim news agency reported.
A man tried to attack Ayatollah Yousef Tabatabai-Nejad after Friday prayers in the central city of Isfahan but “failed due to the intervention of the bodyguards” of the senior cleric, Tasnim reported.
“After prayer today, a young man around 25 years old, who must have had a problem, attacked me. But with the vigilance and intervention of law enforcement agents, his move failed and fortunately no harm was done to me or anyone else,” Tasnim quoted Tabatabai-Nejad as saying.
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“The young man has been arrested and is currently under interrogation to determine what motivated him to do what he did,” he added.
Tabatabai-Nejad is the representative of Iran’s supreme leader in the province of Isfahan and the Friday prayer leader of the city of Isfahan, the province’s provincial capital.
He also represents the province of Isfahan in Iran’s Assembly of Experts, a clerical body that selects and monitors the supreme leader.
Tabatabai-Nejad has been at the center of controversy on several occasions due to his beliefs and remarks.
In 2020, he said women who do not fully cover their hair should be made to feel “unsafe” in public.
Wearing a headscarf and covering all parts of the body were made mandatory for women in Iran soon after the establishment of the Islamic Republic in 1979.
In April, Tabatabai-Nejad described Jews as “extremely stupid, cowardly and the dumbest creatures of God.”
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