Hard-line cleric Ayatollah Mohammad-Taghi Mesbah Yazdi has not only criticized President Hassan Rouhani’s comments that religious affairs should not be in the hands of the administration, but has also questioned the president’s religious credentials.

Rouhani has been engaged in a public debate with a number of hard-line clerics over the enforcement of religious and cultural norms in society. In public speeches, he said some clerics obsessed with the Iranian people's afterlife had “delusions” and did not know religion. He also called for religious affairs to be handled by religious experts and clergy rather than the administration.

Without addressing Rouhani by name, Mesbah Yazdi said, “Some individuals with official positions who wear a turban, in response to an assembly over poor veiling and the concern of the clergy with religion and culture, introduce [those concerned] as people who do not know Islam, and accuse them of being delusional.”

Mesbah Yazdi asked, “Where did you learn religion? From the Qom seminary, or Britain?” Rouhani, who has the status of Hojat al-Islam (Islamic authority), studied in Qom in the 1960s, attending classes by prominent ayatollahs. He also received a BA in judicial law from the University of Tehran and a PhD from Glasgow Caledonian University in Scotland.