Mohammad Khiabani

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Shaikh Mohammad Khiābāni. In the caption one reads: "Āghā Shaikh Mohammad Khiābāni, the leader of the Freedom Fighters of Azarbaijan who was martyred".

Shaikh Mohammad Khiābāni, also known as Shaikh Mohammad Khiābāni Tabrizi (1880–1920), was an Iranian Azari cleric, political leader, and representative to the parliament.

He was born in Khameneh, near Tabriz to Haji AbdolHameed from Khameneh, a merchant.

He became active during the Persian Constitutional Revolution and was a prominent dissident against foreign colonialism, which subsequently led to his sening into exile by the Ottomans in 1918.

After the Russian Revolution of 1917, Khiabani re-stablished the Democrat Party of Tabriz after being banned for five years, and published the Tajaddod newspaper, the official organ of the party. Later, in a protest to the 1919 Treaty between Persia and the United Kingdom, which exclusively transferred the rights of deciding about all military, financial, and customs affairs of Persia to the British, he revolted and took Tabriz and surrounding areas, calling it Azadi-stan (the land of liberty). After the fall of Vosough od-Dowleh, the then prime minister, the new prime minister send Mokhber os-Saltaneh to Tabriz, giving him full authority, who crushed and killed Khiabani (Mokhber os-Saltaneh claimed that Khiabani had committed suicide).

There is also a book published in this matter by Abdolhossein Nahidi Azar including his complete biography, speeches and mile stones in his life and also what he really did for Iranian culture in Tabriz.