Sayyed ''Sayyid'' is an honorific title of Hasanid and Husaynid lineage, recognized as descendants of the Islamic prophet Muhammad through his daughter Fatima and Ali's sons Hasan and Husayn. The title may also refer to the descendants of the famil ...

Abol-Ghasem Mostafavi-Kashani ( ''Abu’l-Qāsem Kāšāni''; 19 November 1882 – 13 March 1962) was an Iranian politician and

Shia Shia Islam is the second-largest branch of Islam. It holds that Muhammad designated Ali ibn Abi Talib () as both his political successor (caliph) and as the spiritual leader of the Muslim community (imam). However, his right is understood ...

Marja. He played an important role in the 1953 coup in Iran and the overthrow of Prime Minister

Mohammad Mosaddegh Mohammad Mosaddegh (, ; 16 June 1882 – 5 March 1967) was an Iranian politician, author, and lawyer who served as the 30th Prime Minister of Iran from 1951 to 1953, elected by the 1950 Iranian legislative election, 16th Majlis. He was a membe ...

Early life

His father,

Ayatollah Ayatollah (, ; ; ) is an Title of honor, honorific title for high-ranking Twelver Shia clergy. It came into widespread usage in the 20th century. Originally used as a title bestowed by popular/clerical acclaim for a small number of the most di ...

Hajj Hajj (; ; also spelled Hadj, Haj or Haji) is an annual Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca, Saudi Arabia, the holiest city for Muslims. Hajj is a mandatory religious duty for capable Muslims that must be carried out at least once in their lifetim ...

Seyyed ''Sayyid'' is an honorific title of Hasanid and Husaynid lineage, recognized as descendants of the Islamic prophet Muhammad through his daughter Fatima and Ali's sons Hasan and Husayn. The title may also refer to the descendants of the fa ...

Mostafavi Kashani (), was a noted scholar of Islam in his time. Abol-Ghasem was trained in Shia Islam by his religious parents and began study of the

Quran The Quran, also Romanization, romanized Qur'an or Koran, is the central religious text of Islam, believed by Muslims to be a Waḥy, revelation directly from God in Islam, God (''Allah, Allāh''). It is organized in 114 chapters (, ) which ...

soon after learning to read and write. At 16, Abol-Ghasem went to an Islamic

seminary A seminary, school of theology, theological college, or divinity school is an educational institution for educating students (sometimes called seminarians) in scripture and theology, generally to prepare them for ordination to serve as cle ...

to study

literature Literature is any collection of Writing, written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially novels, Play (theatre), plays, and poetry, poems. It includes both print and Electroni ...

Arabic language Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...

logic Logic is the study of correct reasoning. It includes both formal and informal logic. Formal logic is the study of deductively valid inferences or logical truths. It examines how conclusions follow from premises based on the structure o ...

semantics Semantics is the study of linguistic Meaning (philosophy), meaning. It examines what meaning is, how words get their meaning, and how the meaning of a complex expression depends on its parts. Part of this process involves the distinction betwee ...

and speech, as well as the principles of Islamic jurisprudence, or

Fiqh ''Fiqh'' (; ) is the term for Islamic jurisprudence.Fiqh
Encyclopædia Britannica ''Fiqh'' is of ...

. He continued his education at the seminary in

Najaf Najaf is the capital city of the Najaf Governorate in central Iraq, about 160 km (99 mi) south of Baghdad. Its estimated population in 2024 is about 1.41 million people. It is widely considered amongst the holiest cities of Shia Islam an ...

in the Qur'an and

Hadith Hadith is the Arabic word for a 'report' or an 'account f an event and refers to the Islamic oral tradition of anecdotes containing the purported words, actions, and the silent approvals of the Islamic prophet Muhammad or his immediate circle ...

s as interpreted in Sharia law, receiving his jurisprudence degree when he was 25.

Later life

Personal life

Kashani had 3 wives and 19 children, including 7 sons and 12 daughters. His son Mostafa died in an accident in 1955; the newly appointed prime minister,

Hossein Ala' Hosein Alā (; 13 December 1881 – 13 July 1964) was a prominent Iranian diplomat and statesman who held several key positions during the early 20th century, including two terms as Prime Minister. Background He was born in 1881 in Tehran and s ...

, escaped an assassination attempt at the funeral. According to British intelligence, around this time two of his sons were involved in a lucrative business buying and selling import-export licenses for restricted goods. One of Kashani's children,

Mahmoud Kashani Sayyid Mahmoud Kashani (Persian: سید محمود کاشانی) (born 6 June 1942) is an Iranian politician, academic, writer and lawyer. He is also a professor in Shahid Beheshti University. He was head of the Iranian delegation to the Internati ...

, went on to become head of the Iranian delegation to the

International Court of Justice The International Court of Justice (ICJ; , CIJ), or colloquially the World Court, is the only international court that Adjudication, adjudicates general disputes between nations, and gives advisory opinions on International law, internation ...

The Hague The Hague ( ) is the capital city of the South Holland province of the Netherlands. With a population of over half a million, it is the third-largest city in the Netherlands. Situated on the west coast facing the North Sea, The Hague is the c ...

, Netherlands, in Iran's case with the United States and a presidential candidate in the Iranian presidential elections of 1985 and

elections An election is a formal group decision-making process whereby a population chooses an individual or multiple individuals to hold public office. Elections have been the usual mechanism by which modern representative democracy has operated ...

in 2005. His second son is Ahmad Kashani, a former member of the

Iranian parliament The Islamic Consultative Assembly (), also called the Iranian Parliament, the Iranian Majles (Arabicised spelling Majlis) or ICA, is the unicameral national legislative body of Iran. The parliament currently consists of 290 representatives, an i ...

Political life and death

Abol-Ghasem expressed

Anti-capitalist Anti-capitalism is a political ideology and Political movement, movement encompassing a variety of attitudes and ideas that oppose capitalism. Anti-capitalists seek to combat the worst effects of capitalism and to eventually replace capitalism ...

leanings from early on in his career and opposed what he saw as "

oppression Oppression is malicious or unjust treatment of, or exercise of power over, a group of individuals, often in the form of governmental authority. Oppression may be overt or covert, depending on how it is practiced. No universally accepted model ...

despotism In political science, despotism () is a government, form of government in which a single entity rules with absolute Power (social and political), power. Normally, that entity is an individual, the despot (as in an autocracy), but societies whi ...

and

colonization 475px, Map of the year each country achieved List of sovereign states by date of formation, independence. Colonization (British English: colonisation) is a process of establishing occupation of or control over foreign territories or peoples f ...

." Because of these beliefs, he was especially popular with the poor in Tehran. He also advocated the return of Islamic government to Iran, though this was most likely for political reasons.Samii, A.W. "Falsafi, Kashani and the Baha'is
/ref> Due to his pro-

Nazi Nazism (), formally named National Socialism (NS; , ), is the far-right politics, far-right Totalitarianism, totalitarian socio-political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Germany. During H ...

positions, Ayatollah Kashani was arrested and exiled by the British to

Palestine Palestine, officially the State of Palestine, is a country in West Asia. Recognized by International recognition of Palestine, 147 of the UN's 193 member states, it encompasses the Israeli-occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and th ...

in 1941. He continued to oppose foreign, especially British, control of Iran's oil industry while in exile. After he returned from exile on 10 June 1950, he continued to protest. Angered by the fact that the

Anglo-Iranian Oil Company The Anglo-Persian Oil Company (APOC; ) was a British company founded in 1909 following the discovery of a large oil field in Masjed Soleiman, Persia (Iran). The British government purchased 51% of the company in 1914, gaining a controlling numbe ...

paid Iran much less than it did the British, he organized a movement against it and was the "virtually alone among the leading mujtahids in joining" nationalist Prime Minister

Mohammed Mosaddeq Mohammad Mosaddegh (, ; 16 June 1882 – 5 March 1967) was an Iranian politician, author, and lawyer who served as the 30th Prime Minister of Iran from 1951 to 1953, elected by the 16th Majlis. He was a member of the Iranian parliament from ...

, in his campaign to

nationalize Nationalization (nationalisation in British English) is the process of transforming privately owned assets into public assets by bringing them under the public ownership of a national government or state. Nationalization contrasts with priv ...

the Iranian oil industry in 1951. Kashani served as speaker of the

Majles (, pl. ') is an Arabic term meaning 'sitting room', used to describe various types of special gatherings among common interest groups of administrative, social or religious nature in countries with linguistic or cultural connections to the Mus ...

(or lower house of Parliament), during the oil nationalization, but later turned against Mosaddeq during the

1953 Iranian coup d'état The 1953 Iranian coup d'état, known in Iran as the 28 Mordad coup d'état (), was the overthrow of Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh on 19 August 1953. Led by the Iranian army and supported by the United States and the United Kingdom, the co ...

. Kashani protected the violent Islamist group

Fada'iyan-e Islam Fadayan-e Islam ('';'' English; " Fedayeen of Islam" or "Redeemers of Islam") is a Shia fundamentalist group in Iran with a strong activist political and terrorist orientation.FEDĀʾĪĀN-E ESLĀM. (1999). In Encyclopædia Iranica. Retrieved f ...

, led by

Navvab Safavi Mojtaba Mir-Lohi (, 9 October 1924 – 18 January 1956), better known as Navvab Safavi (), was a Shia cleric of Pahlavi Iran and founder of the Fada'iyan-e Islam group. He played a role in assassinations of Abdolhossein Hazhir, Haj Ali Razma ...

, after their expulsion from the

Qom Qom (; ) is a city in the Central District of Qom County, Qom province, Iran, serving as capital of the province, the county, and the district. It is the seventh largest metropolis and also the seventh largest city in Iran. The city is ...

seminary by Ayatollah Hosein Borujerdi in 1950. The group then engaged in public assassinations in Tehran in the early 1950s.James Buchan. ''Days of God: The Revolution in Iran and its Consequences'' pp. 65–6. Simon & Schuster. 2012. On 17 February 1956, a month after the execution of the Navvab Safavi due to his killing of senior figures Kashani confessed to an army prosecutor his role in these murders stating "I issued the

Fatwa A fatwa (; ; ; ) is a legal ruling on a point of Islamic law (sharia) given by a qualified Islamic jurist ('' faqih'') in response to a question posed by a private individual, judge or government. A jurist issuing fatwas is called a ''mufti'', ...

to kill Razmara, for I was a qualified

Mojtahed ''Ijtihad'' ( ; ' , ) is an Islamic legal term referring to independent reasoning by an expert in Islamic law, or the thorough exertion of a jurist's mental faculty in finding a solution to a legal question. It is contrasted with ''taqlid'' (im ...

." Then Kashani was detained and following his release from the prison he retired from politics. He died on 13 March 1962.

Early life

Later life

Personal life

Political life and death

References

Further reading