The Oxford Handbook of Islamic Theology states: "Modernist tendencies were not limited to Sunni scholars: in Iran, Ayatollah Muhammad Hasan (Riza Quill) Shariat Sangalaji (1890 or 1892-1944) called for Ijtihad instead of Taqlid. And advocated a strictly rational approach to Islam, and prompted his fellow believers to return to the pure origins of their religion by combating superstitions that had distorted its strict monotheism over time. What brought him into fierce conflict with his conservative colleagues was his assessment that also some beliefs traditionally regarded as belonging to the core of Imami Shi'ism are superstitious and must do. For instance, he rated the idea that the Twelfth Imam will return before resurrection to establish justice on earth as an illegitimate addition to Islam (Richard 1988: 166). He condemned the belief that the prophet and the imams are closer to God than ordinary people and can hence you may ask for intercession (shafa't). He also rejected the popular idea that al-Husayn's suffering and death were expiatory self-sacrifices, denouncing it as un-Islamic (Shariat Sangalaji, Tawhid, 63f., 140; Richard 1988:167; for Shi' I modernism in Iran and elsewhere, cf. Nasr 1993)." Shariat Sanglaji had the following teachings and beliefs: • He emphatically rejected the
Return of the Twelfth Imam and wrote the book "Islam wa Rajat" to refute this particular Shiite belief. • He was not in favor of sacred intermediaries and considered it
polytheism. • He was against tomb worship, and in his book Tawhid-i ibaadat - Yaktaparasti, he quoted narrations that prohibited building on graves and taking them as places of worship. • While some Muslim scholars held the view that prophets like Jesus, Isa, and Khidr are alive, Sanglaji wrote a book Mahwo al Mawhoom to refute this belief. He stated that no prophet, including Jesus, is alive. == Students ==