Morteza Motahhari

Morteza Motahhari
Title	Ayatollah
Born	Morteza Motahhari (1919-01-31)31 January 1919 Fariman, Iran
Died	1 May 1979(1979-05-01) (aged 60) Tehran, Iran
Religion	Islam
Main interest(s)	Fiqh, Kalam, philosophy
Notable work(s)	The Rights of Women in Islam Justice of the God
Influenced by Ruhollah Khomeini, Allameh Tabatabaei, Seyyed Hossein Borujerdi
Influenced Iranian Revolution, Ali Motahari

Part of a series on the
History of the Iranian Revolution
Topics Timeline Background Consolidation Casualties Ideology Guardianship of the Islamic Jurists
Revolutionary leaders Mohammad Javad Bahonar Abulhassan Banisadr Mehdi Bazargan Mohammad Beheshti Mostafa Chamran Sadegh Ghotbzadeh Hassan Habibi Hashemi Rafsanjani Ali Khamenei Ahmad Khomeini Ruhollah Khomeini Mahdavi Kani Hussein-Ali Montazeri Morteza Motahhari Mousavi Ardabili Mohammad Ali Rajai Ezzatollah Sahabi Yadollah Sahabi Ali Shariati Mahmoud Taleghani Ebrahim Yazdi
Parties and organizations CCA Guerrilla groups Freedom Movement Fedai Islamic Republic Party MIRO Student Followers of the Imam's Line OIPFG MKO Tudeh
Official institutions The Interim Government Islamic republic Sepah Basij Assembly of Experts for Constitution
Events Movement of 15 Khordad Black Friday Hostage crisis Cultural Revolution
See also Human rights in Iran

Morteza Motahhari (31 January 1919 – 1 May 1979) (مرتضی مطهری) was an Iranian cleric, philosopher, lecturer, and politician.

Motahhari is considered among the important influences on the ideologies of the Islamic Republic.^[1] He was a co-founder of Hosseiniye Ershad and the Combatant Clergy Association (Jāme'e-ye Rowhāniyat-e Mobārez). He was a disciple of Ayatollah Khomeini during the Shah's reign and formed the Council of Revolution of Iran at Khomeini's request. He was chairman of the council at the time of his assassination.^[2]

Biography

Motahhari was born in Fariman on 31 January 1919. Then he attended the Hawza of Qom from 1944 to 1952 and left for Tehran.^[3] He joined the University of Tehran, where he taught philosophy for 22 years. Between 1965 and 1973 he also gave regular lectures at the Hosseiniye Ershad in Northern Tehran.

Motahhari wrote several books on Islam, Iran, and historical topics. As outlined by Ayatollah Murtaza Mutahhari in 1975, the phrase ‘equal rights’ means something different from what is commonly understood in the western world. He clarifies that men and women are innately different and therefore enjoy different rights, duties and punishments.^[4] His emphasis was on teaching rather than writing. However, after his death, some of his students worked on writing these lectures and manage them in order to publish them as books. As of the mid-2008, the "Sadra Publishings" published more than sixty books of Motahari. Nearly 30 books were written about Motahari or quoted from his speeches.

Morteza Motahhari opposed what he called groups who "depend on other schools, especially materialistic schools" but who present these "foreign ideas with Islamic emblems". In a June 1977 article he wrote to warn "all great Islamic authorities" of the danger of "these external influential ideas under the pretext and banner of Islam." It is thought he was referring to the People's Mujahideen of Iran and the Furqan Group (Guruh-i Furqan).^[5]

On 1 May 1979 Morteza Motahhari was assassinated in Tehran by gunshot by a member of the Furqan Fighters after leaving a late meeting at the house of Yadollah Sahabi.^[6] The group acclaimed the responsibility of the assassination.^[6] The alleged assassin was Akbar Goudarzi, who founded the group, leftist Islamic group.^[7]

Motahhari was the father in law of Iran's former secretary of National Security Council Ali Larijani.^[8] It was by Motahhari's advice that Larijani switched from computer science to Western Philosophy for graduate studies.

In honor of Motahhari, a major street in Tehran (formerly Takhte Tavoos--Peacock Throne in English) was named after him. Morteza Motahhari Street connects Sohrevardi Street and Vali Asr Street, two major streets in Tehran.

Assassination

During Revolution, while Shapour Bakhtiyar prevented Khomeini's return to Iran in 1978, Ayatollah Motahhari was the leader to manage the clergies protesters in Tehran Universitie's mosque. Motahhari was an important figure, and helped Ayatollah Khomeini to organize revolutionary department. So because of these activities, he was favored by revolutionary people and was hated by anti-revolutionaries group such as Forghan group. Therefore he was killed by the Forghan group on 2 May 1979.^[9]

Awards

• UNESCO Award, 1965.^[10]

Publications

See also

• Modern Islamic philosophy

References and notes

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Morteza Motahhari.

Wikiquote has quotations related to: Morteza Motahhari

• Online books by Murtaza Mutahhari