When Sayyid Abul Hasan Isfahani died the following year, the majority of Shi'a accepted Ayatullah Borujerdi as Marja'.

[6] Borujerdi was authorized as a Mujtahid by his teachers, which included Akhund Khurasani, Shaykh al-Shari'ah Isfahani and Sayyid Abu al-Qasim Dihkurdi.

"[2] Following this order, several Baha'is were killed across Iran, and the murderers, often acting in groups, remained immune from punishment due to the support and influence of the clergy, even if they were arrested.

[12] One of the reasons for this wave of Baha'i hostility was that the Shah felt indebted to the religious clerics who had helped him regain power through the coup against Mosaddegh.

Consequently, encouraged by the government and religious scholars to act against the Baha'is, officials directly intervened in the demolition of the dome of the Baha'i center (Hazirat al-Quds) in Tehran.

In Tehran, in front of foreign reporters, clergymen wielding pickaxes participated in the destruction of the dome alongside military commanders.

[14] The Chief of Staff of the Army, Nader Batmanghelidj, and the military governor of Tehran, Teymur Bakhtiar, who later became the head of SAVAK, joined the representatives of the clerics to personally participate in the destruction of this building.

Ayatollah Borujerdi, who initiated this persecution and killings, published an open letter to Falsafi commending his services to Islam and the monarchy.

In this letter, Boroujerdi described the Baha'i faith as a conspiracy threatening both the government and the national religion, calling for a complete cleansing of Baha'is from all public service positions.

Pressure from the global Baha'i community, foreign press, the United Nations, and other countries made it difficult for Mohammad Reza Shah to resist.

[15] As news of the crimes, assaults, and plundering against members of the Baha'i community in Iran spread, a wave of international opposition emerged through media against the Iranian government for allowing such behavior.

[17][18] Borujerdi's belief in quietism, or silence of state matters, extended to keeping silent in public on such issues as Israel's treatment of the Palestinians, the overthrow of Mohammad Mosaddegh and the end of his campaign to nationalise and control the British-owned oil industry in Iran, and the Baghdad Pact alliance with the US and UK.

[19] It is thought that as a reward for this support the Shah ensured more religious instruction in state schools, tightened control of cinemas and other offensive secular entertainment during Moharram.

"[20] In his view, the confiscations of large concentrations of landholdings of aristocrats and clergy by the Pahlavi shahs disrupted the fabric of rural life and eroded religious institutions.

[26] One of his sons, Sayyid Muhammad Hasan Tabataba'i Burujirdi, who was born in 1925 in Burujird, was in charge of writing the official verdicts of his father.

[27] After entering elementary school at the age of seven, Sayyid Husayn's father realized his talent for learning and sent him to Nurbakhsh seminary in Borujerd.