Al-Shahristani family

The family of al-Shahristani (Arabic: آل الشهرستاني, romanized: ʾĀl al-Shahristānī), also transliterated in a number of other ways, including al-Shehristani or al-Shahrestani, are an Iraqi-Iranian clerical Shia family that settled in Karbala from the village of Shahristan, near Isfahan, in the late 18th century.

The family rose to prominence in Iraq in the late 19th century. Members of the family are notable for being Ayatollahs in Karbala. However, in more recent times, the family has become more academic, and political, with its most notable politician being Iraqi statesman, Hussain al-Shahristani.

The family claim agnatic descent from Muhammad's daughter Fatimah, carrying the honorific title of Sayyid, through the seventh Shia Imam, Imam Musa al-Kadhim, making them a Musawi family. They are not to be mistaken with the Husaynid Karbalaei family of al-Shahristani, who married into the Musawi family, intertwining the two families.