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Mohammad Taghi Mesbah Yazdi: Wikis




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Ayatollah Mohammad Taghi Mesbah Yazdi
Born 1934
Yazd, Iran
Religious beliefs Twelver Shi'a Islam

Ayatollah Mohammad Taghi Mesbah Yazdi (Persian: محمد تقی مصباح یزدی) (born 31 January 1934 in Yazd) is a hardline Iranian Twelver Shi'i cleric and politician who is widely seen as Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's spiritual advisor. He is also a member of Iran's Assembly of Experts,[1][2] the body responsible for choosing the Supreme Leader, where he heads a minority ultraconservative faction.[3] He has been called "the most conservative" and the most "powerful" and "influential ... clerical oligarch" in Iran's leading center of religious learning, the city of Qom.[4]

Mesbah Yazdi advocates Islamic philosophy and in particular (Ishraghi or Ishraqi).[5] He believes Iran has strayed from the values of the 1979 Iranian revolution and strongly opposes democratic rule[6] and the Reformist movement in Iran.[7][8]




Political activity

Mohammad Taghi Mesbah Yazdi is the spiritual adviser of a number of hardline Islamic fundamentalists in Iran, including now President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. He is said to have "great sway among Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and the Basij volunteer paramilitary force."[10] In 1997, after the election of reformist president, Mohammad Khatami, Mesbah Yazdi encouraged Iran's Revolutionary Guards and Hezbolli to put a stop to the reform agitation by any means, including violence.[4] After decline of the reform movement in 2003, his supporters made gains in local and parliamentary elections. In 2005, Mesbah Yazdi supported Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's presidential bid and subsequently gained "direct influence" in the Iranian government through the appointment of loyal supporters "to high posts" after Ahmadinejad's victory.[10]

According to some sources, Mesbah-Yazdi is rumored to have ambitions to succeed Ali Khamenei as Supreme Leader."[3][11] Some clerics and some newspapers feared Mesbah-Yazdi was trying to expand his already growing power by "packing" the Assembly of Experts with "loyalists." In October 2006, an acolyte of Mesbah-Yazdi, Mojtaba Samareh Hashemi, was appointed head of the election commission, supervisor of the poll for the Assembly of Experts,[12] and many of the candidates in the 2006 Assembly of Experts elections were Mesbah-Yazdi loyalists (though they ran as independent candidates to avoid revealing their affiliation to Mesbah Yazdi).[10] However, his group failed to achieve a majority in that election, leaving the assembly in the hands of pragmatic-conservatives.[13] Mesbah-Yazdi himself won a seat but finished only in sixth-place in Tehran municipality where he ran,[14] and now heads the minority ultraconservative faction in the assembly[3]

He has been named by investigative journalist Akbar Ganji as "having encouraged or issued fatwas, or religious orders" for the 1998 Chain murders of Iran assassinations of five Iranian dissidents.[15]


2009 Presidential Election

According to the website roozonline, an unnamed cleric that could only have been Mesbah-Yazdi[16] reportedly issued a "religious decree to manipulate the results" of the 2009 election in favor of his follower, president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.[16]. The information came from an open letter issued by a group of Ministry of Interior employees, who described the cleric as "one of the Qom Seminary School professors, who also heads a research institute there and previously spoke at the Tehran Friday prayers". In part the fatwa read:




According to Alarabiya news [18] Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi has issued a fatwa calling for the murder of Mir-Hossein Mousavi following the election.


Mesbah-Yazdi has been described as close to Ayatollah Mohammad Beheshti, Khomeini's first designated heir who was assassinated in 1981. Mesbah Yazdi helped Beheshti establish the Haghani School (also Haqqani) in Qom to train the future cadres of the regime,[19] and is (or was) a member of the school's board of directors.[20] The Haghani School is very influential and has been described as "a kind of Ecole Nationale d'Administration for the Islamic Republic" whose alumni "form the backbone of the clerical management class that runs Iran's key political and security institutions."[21]


He publishes the "archconservative" weekly Parto-Sokhan[23], is the director of the Imam Khomeini Education and Research Institute in Qom, founded in 1995,[22 ][24] and a member (since 1990) of the Iranian Assembly of Experts. In addition, Mesbah Yazdi sometimes speaks before Khutbah in Tehran's Friday prayers.

After the presidential election of June 1997 in the relatively more open political atmosphere in that time, Mesbah Yazdi's students played an important role as the critics of the former president Mohammad Khatami. As a result, Mesbah Yazdi's name appeared more often in the media and became more well known. He issued a fatwa in support of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's presidential bid,[25] and meets with the president frequently. In December 2006, he was elected to the Assembly of Experts, the group of Ayatollahs responsible for choosing a successor for the Supreme Leader.[2]


Mesbah Yazdi has been described as "a theoretician of the radicals" in Iran,[26] "extremely hostile towards the West" and "the first senior figure" in Iran to have "publicly endorsed a military nuclear programme." [27]He advocates suicide bombings, the killing of "any person who insults Islam," and the carrying out of the fatwa to kill author Salman Rushdie. He considers "the Zionists" to be the fundamental source of evil on earth. [26]



Mesbah-Yazdi supports a return to what he sees as the values of the 1979 Iranian revolution.[25] He believes an "Islamic republic" is a contradiction in terms, as a truly Islamic government would not hold elections as an opportunity for voters to make choices between representatives and policies, but to express their allegiance to the supreme faqih.[7] He believes that "the republican component" was established in Iran as a concession to secular forces[8] and should be "stripped" away to leave the true essence of the "Islamic system."[7] He has been quoted as saying, "It doesn't matter what the people think. The people are ignorant sheep."[8]



Mesbah Yazdi believes that a trial is not needed to convict and execute offenders. "If anyone insults the Islamic sanctity, Islam has permitted for his blood to be spilled, no court needed either". He has called for the execution of Dr Hashem Aghajari for insulting Islam based on the blasphemy laws of the Islamic Republic of Iran. This idea is considered by many, as an open avocation of terrorism.

On the issue of slavery Mesbah Yazdi has said


In a lecture that was released in February 15 2006, Mohsen Ghorourian who is a well-known student of Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi said that using atomic bomb has religious legitimacy.[31] In 2005.

Like many prominent Shia clergies, he supports non-literal interpretations of various verses of the Qur’ān and narrations attributed to the Prophet and his followers.[5] Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi opposes bida'a or innovations in religion which he believes includes new interpretations of the Sunna and Qur'an. He has been quoted as saying: "If someone tells you he has a new interpretation of Islam, sock him in the mouth."[25]




Nikahang Kowsar was arrested for his depiction of "Professor Crocodile", a reptilian academic who was shown strangling a journalist with his tail, interpreted as a reference to Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi. It is written in the cartoon "Isn't any one to free me from this bribed reformist"

The Ayatollah's nickname comes from a cartoon portraying "Professor Crocodile", a "reptilian academic who was shown strangling a journalist with his tail". The cartoon was drawn by Nikahang Kowsar and satirized freedom of expression in Iran, and a speech given by Mesbah Yazdi in the previous day. Mesbah Yazdi was known as Professor Mesbah (Persian: استاد مصباح) among his supporters. "Mesbah" rhymes with the Persian word for crocodile, "Temsah" (Persian: تمساح), and the cartoon labeled the crocodile as "Professor Temsah", who repeats the words used by Mesbah Yazdi in the previous day. The cartoonist was shortly imprisoned for the depiction."[25]


Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi has been described as "affiliated" with the Hojjatieh group.[33] Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi denies this and has denounced the rumor, saying that if anyone finds a connection between him and Hojjatieh, he will renounce everything he stands for.[34] Ayatollah Khomeini actually frowned on the Hojjatieh and the group was nominally dissolved in 1983, yet they secretly continued to maintain and strengthen their network.

Quotes by Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi

  • The concept ”exam” in the divine order (In Persian)

See also


  1. ^ 16 نماينده استان تهران در مجلس خبرگان مشخص شدند
  2. ^ a b "Ayatollah who backs suicide bombs aims to be Iran's next spiritual leader". Retrieved 2008-03-07.  
  3. ^ a b c Battle for Iran shifts from the streets to the heart of power. Peter Beaumont. 28 June 2009 accessed 15-July-2009
  5. ^ a b
  6. ^ "Ahmadinejad's messianic connections".  
  7. ^ a b c Iran: a green wave for life and liberty, Asef Bayat, 7 - 07 - 2009 accessed 14-July-2009
  9. ^ پايگاه اطلاع رسانى آثار حضرت آيت الله مصباح يزدى (Persian)
  10. ^ a b c Iranian Clerics’ Angling Stirs Worry on Absolute Rule by NAZILA FATHI, September 25, 2006
  11. ^ Bureau. The Assembly of Experts
  12. ^ Majd, The Ayatollah Begs to Differ, (2008), p.49-50
  13. ^
  14. ^ Majd, Hooman, The Ayatollah Begs to Differ : The Paradox of Modern Iran, by Hooman Majd, Doubleday, 2008, p.45-6
  15. ^ Ganji Identified Fallahian As The "Master Key" In Chain Murders
  16. ^ a b c "Mesbah Yazdi’s Decree to Rig Votes".  
  17. ^ "Discontented Muslim clergy challenge Iran's supreme leader behind scenes", by Ali Akbar Dareini and Lee Keath / Associated Press. July 08, 2009
  18. ^ "مرجع ديني ايراني بارز أفتى بقتل موسوي وكروبي".  
  20. ^ "Home Page\Biography". Retrieved 2008-03-08.  
  24. ^ Qabas.Net
  25. ^ a b c d e f "The rise of Prof 'Crocodile' - a hardliner to terrify hardliners". Retrieved 2008-03-07.  
  26. ^ a b c d Is war between Iran and Israel inevitable? By Erich Follath accessed 15-July-2009
  28. ^ "Web Site Of The Ayatullah Mesbah Yazdi" Click on "speeches", then "lesctures". "Towards a Comprehensive Defense of Islam and Islamic Culture." Ayatullah Muhammad Taqi Mesbah
  29. ^ Transcript of TV interview with Dr. Soroush by Dariush Sajjadi, Broadcast on Homa TV on 9 March 2006 accessed 7-15-2009
  30. ^ see also "متن مصاحبه داريوش سجادی با دکتر سوش". Retrieved 2008-03-07.  (Persian)
  31. ^ "Iran clerics say it's okay to use nukes". Retrieved 2008-03-07.  
  33. ^ Letter From Tehran: Iran's New Hard-Liners, Who Is in Control of the Islamic Republic? Jerry Guo, September 30, 2009
  34. ^ "آیت‌الله مصباح: احمدی‌نژاد اشتباه كرده ا". Retrieved 2008-03-07.  (Persian)

External links


Up to date as of January 14, 2010
(Redirected to Mohammad-Taqi Mesbah-Yazdi article)

From Wikiquote

Ayatollah Mohammad-Taghi Mesbah-Yazdi (born 1934) is a senior member of the Assembly of Experts of the Islamic Republic of Iran.


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