Abu al-Qasim al-Khoei
Born in Jaghori village in Ghazni province, Afghanistan to Hazara ethnic group, he holds Afghan citizenship. His family were farmers and he started learning the Qur'an from the village cleric when he was five. When he was 10 his family moved to Najaf, where he studied various Islamic studies including Arabic language, rhetoric, logic, Islamic philosophy, the Hadith and Islamic jurisprudence, eventually studying under Grand Ayatollah Abu al-Qasim al-Khoei. When al-Khoei died in 1992 he supported Ali al-Sistani as the chair of the marjaiya in Najaf.