The senior cleric passed away due to heart attack in the holy Iranian city of Qom on Saturday.
Following his passing, his office issued a message of condolence and hailed his services for peaching the true relgion of Islam and the Ahlulbait school of thought.
Born in the Persian month of Aban 1318 SH and in the month of Shaban 1458 AH in the semi-desert farming village of Yingabad (now Nikabad), 60 km (37 mi) southwest of Isfahan.
He was the third of four children (a fifth child died in infancy) of Hujjud-al-Islam Mohammed Ali Saanei (1892–1974) and his wife Sharbonoo (1899–1947).
His father, despite having lost his own father at the age of six going on to serve his community for fifty years.
Mohammad Ali's father Hajjmulla Yousef Yingabadi (1867–1899) was an Isfahan-trained cleric known for his strong sense of social justice, was active in the Isfahan-area activities of Ayatollah Shirazi's tobacco movement in the early 1890s.
At age six he began his education at the local maktab, later studying at home with his father after the later noticed his intellect, studying the Quran and other basic texts of the period.
Shortly before his tenth birthday, in the autumn of 1947, together with his father and brother Hassan (who also became a cleric and political official) he left for hawza in Isfahan, studying at that city's Kasseh Garan Madrassa (his father later returned to Nikabad.)
In Isfahan, his most noted teacher was the historian Allamah Mirza Mohammed Ali Habib Abadi (1890–1976)
Saanei completed his preliminary studies (the equivalent of secondary school) in 1951, whereupon he went to Qom to continue his studies.
1955 saw Saanei place well in the first-level examinations (equivalent to a bachelor's degree) thus awarded the commendation of Grand Ayatollah Borujerdi.
While at Qom he was a student of the leading theologians of his day, among them Mohammad Mohaghegh Damad, Abbas Ali Shahroudi, Mohammad Ali Araki, and Borujerdi himself for about a year.
His most lasting education came from the seven years he spent being taught by Imam Khomeini until the lImam's exile in 1964.
At the age of 22, he was granted the degree of Ijtihad allowing him to formulate religious judgements for his own use.
In September 1964, Ayatollah Saanei married Khanum Shafiei (d. 2012) and has two sons and a daughter. One son, Fakruddin (Saeed) is also a cleric, with the honorific of Hujjud-al-Islam.
Following the victory of the Islamic Revolution under the wise leadership of Imam Khomeini, he served in many institutions of the country.