Navvab Safavi

Sayyid Mojtaba Mir-Lohi (, 9 October 1924 – 18 January 1956), more commonly known as Navvab Safavi, was an Iranian Shia cleric and founder of the Fada'iyan-e Islam group.

He played a role in assassinations of Abdolhossein Hazhir, Haj Ali Razmara and Ahmad Kasravi.

Born in Ghaniabad, south of Tehran into a well-known religious family on 9 October 1924, he received his primary education in Tehran and left school after eighth grade when his father died.

His father, Seyyed Javad Mir-Lohi, was a cleric who was put in jail many years for having slapped Reza Shah's minister of justice, Ali Akbar Davar, in the face, and thus the young Navvab was raised by his maternal uncle, Seyyed Mahmood Navvab Safavi, whose name he eventually adopted.

It was said that "the family name was changed to Navvab Safavi (deputies of the Safavids) to identify with the famous Shi'ite dynasty of the Safavids, who made Shi'ism the state religion of Iran in sixteenth century."

Seyed Mojtaba entered Hakim Nezami Primary School at the age of 7 and then continued his education at the German Industrial School.

At the same time, he was studying religious lessons in one of the mosques in Khani Abad, and after Reza Shah abdicated and left the country, he turned to political activities.

He staged a demonstration against the prohibition of hijab in the same school when he was not more than 18 years old, and it was his first struggle against the Pahlavi government.

Growing up during this period of militant secularization, after briefly (for few months) working in Abadan's petroleum installations in Khuzestan Province, for the British-owned Iranian Oil Company; a British oil company expert severely confronted one of the workers, after which Navvab provoked the workers to protest and carry out retaliation.

The protests were suppressed with the intervention of police and military forces.

Navvab also escaped and left Abadan for Basra and then Najaf in Iraq by boat at night.

He decided, to pursue religious studies at Najaf in 1943.

Mojtaba stayed at the Ghavam School in Najaf and from the very first days began a friendship and close relationship with Allameh Amini, who had established a library in one of the upper rooms of the school and was writing his famous work, Al-Ghadir.

He learned jurisprudence, principles and interpretation from masters such as Abdolhossein Amini, Hossein Qomi and Agha Sheikh Mohammad Tehrani.

He is said to have been known for his striking looks and his "mesmerizing" speaking ability, and compared his own charisma and magnetism over the masses to that of Hassan-i Sabbah, the leader of the Assassins.

Amir Taheri claims that Safavi was "the man who introduced Khomeini to the Muslim Brotherhood and their ideas," who "spent long hours together" with Khomeini in discussion, and visited him in Qom on a number of occasions during 1943 and 1944.

He and his organization were responsible for the attempted and actual assassinations of politicians Abdolhossein Hazhir, Hossein Ala' (he survived the attempt), Prime Minister Haj Ali Razmara, and historian Ahmad Kasravi.

Safavi and his group were closely associated with Abol-Ghasem Kashani and supported but were not members of Mohammad Mosaddegh's National Front.

Safavi founded the Fada'iyan-e Islam organization in 1945, and began recruiting like-minded individuals.

Safavi worked with Kashani, helping organize bazaar strikes against Premier Ahmad Qavam, public meetings in support of Palestinian Arabs, and a violent demonstration in 1948 against Premier Abdolhossein Hazhir.

When the Shah appointed National Front leader Mohammed Mossadegh to the post of prime minister, Safavi expected his objectives would be furthered.

He demanded the government drive the British out, and that it release "with honour and respect" the assassination of Razmara.

When that didn't happen, Safavi announced "we have broken away irrevocably from Kashani's National Front. They promised to set up an Islamic country according to the precepts of the Koran. Instead, they have imprisoned our brothers."

He later warned, "there are others who must be pushed down the incline to hell", words which would pass on to Mossadegh and further alienate him.

Thus relations between Kashani and Safavi, not to mention Mosaddegh, became "strained."

There he learned about Hasan al-Banna, the founder of Muslim Brotherhood (الإخوان المسلمين), who was killed by Egyptian government in 1949, and met Sayyid Qutb.

The Shia Marja, Ayatullah Hossein Borujerdi, rejected the ideas of Navvab Safavi and his radical group.

He questioned him about the robberies that his organization committed on gun point, Safavi replied:

In 1950, at 26 years of age, he presented his idea of an Islamic State in a treatise, Barnameh-ye Inqalabi-ye Fada'ian-i Islam, which reflects his simplistic and naïve understanding of politics, history and society.

On 10 May 1951, Navvab Safavi declared, "I invite Mosaddegh, other members of the National Front and Ayatollah Kashani, to an ethical trial.

Under the Pahlavi regime, the Usuli idea of democracy was suppressed and Shi'i Islamism found the space for revival.

Like the Muslim Brotherhood, a group he was in deep connection with and even met Sayyid Qutb later in 1953.

Navvab Safavi believed that Islamic society needed to be purified.

To this end, he organized carefully planned assassinations of politicians and related people to them.

After the 1953 coup against Iran's prime minister Mohammad Mosaddegh, Navvab Safavi congratulated the Shah and said:

"The country was saved by Islam and with the power of faith . . . The Shah and prime minister and ministers have to be believers in and promoters of, shi'ism, and the laws that are in opposition to the divine laws of God . . . must be nullified . . . The intoxicants, the shameful exposure and carelessness of women, and sexually provocative music . . . must be done away with and the superior teachings of Islam . . . must replace them. With the implementation of Islam's superior economic plan, the deprivation of the Muslim people of Iran, and the dangerous class difference would end."

In the years to follow, he enjoyed a close association with the government.

In 1954, he attended the Islamic Conference in Jordan and traveled to Egypt.

On 22 November 1955, after an unsuccessful attempt to assassinate Hosein Ala', Navvab Safavi and some of his followers were arrested.

In January 1956, Safavi and three other members of Fada'iyan-e Islam were sentenced to death and executed.