 A "protégé" of Mohammad Taqi Mesbah Yazdi, he was the "morality teacher" of the cabinet of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.Aghatehrani he was formerly Imam of 'Islamic Institute of New York', a Shia mosque located in New York City.Aghatehrani went to Canada to pursue his graduate studies at McGill University, before gaining a PhD in Middle East Studies from State University of New York at Binghamton and defending a thesis entitled "Khajah Nasir al-Din Tusi on the Meta-Mysticism of Ibn Sina" in 2000.