| Ayatollah
Morteza Motahari
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| Ayatollah
Morteza Motahari |
Ayatollah Morteza Motahari, born
1920, received his elementary education in theology from his
father, Sheikh Mohammad Hossein in his home town, Fariman in
Khorasan province. When he was twelve years of age joined the
Islamic Educational Center at Mashhad and pursued his studies
there for five years. Then he proceeded to Qom, the great center
of Islamic education. He stayed there for fifteen years and
completed his education in Islamic Beliefs and Jurisprudence under
the supervision of the renowned philosopher Allameh Mohammad
Hossein Tabatabai, Ayatollah Khomeini and many other distinguished
scholars. Then he migrated to Tehran.
During the period of his education the Motahari felt that the
communists wanted to change the sacred religion of Islam and
destroy its spirit by mixing their atheistic views with the
Islamic philosophy and interpreting the verses of the Qur'an in a
materialistic manner. Communism was not the only thing which
received his attention. He also wrote on exegesis of the Qur'an,
philosophy, ethics, sociology, history and many other subjects. In
all his writings the real object he had in view was to give
replies to the objections raised by others against Islam, to prove
the shortcomings of other schools of thought and to manifest the
greatness of Islam. He believed that in order to prove the falsity
of Marxism and other ideologies like it, it was necessary not only
to comment on them in a scholarly manner but also to present the
real image of Islam.
Ayatollah Motahari wrote assiduously and continuously from his
student days right up to 1979, the year of his assassination. He
was one of the most versatile Islamic scholars and prolific
writers of recent times, deeply rooted in traditional learning and
enamoured of its exponents. He was a Islamic thinker who had fully
absorbed a rigorous philosophical training. Much of his work has
been published in and outside Iran.
The activities of the Ayatollah Motahari were intolerable for the
followers of some other Islamic faction, Forqan, and they,
therefore, decided to remove him from the scene. Eventually they
succeeded on the 1st of May 1979. When the sad news was conveyed
to Ayatollah Khomeini he, in his condolence message, said: "I
have been deprived of a dear son of mine. I am lamenting upon the
death of one who was the fruit of my life."
Ayatollah Motahary was a popular figure in the religious circles
of Iran. He served in the Tehran University as the Head of the
Department of Theology and Islamic Learning's. At the time of his
assassination he was the president of the Constitutional Council
of the Islamic Republic of Iran and a member of the Revolutionary
Council.
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