title: Murtadha al-Shirazi
text: # Murtadha al-Shirazi
  
  Ayatollah Sayyid Murtadha al-Hussaini al-Shirazi (Arabic: مرتضى الحسيني الشيرازي, Persian: مرتضی حسینی شیرازی; b. 1964) is a Shia mujtahid and author. He is the second son of late grand Ayatollah Sayyid Muhammad al-Shirazi. He teaches a number of higher level classes in Islamic law, legal theory and Quranic exegesis at the religious seminary of Najaf, Iraq.
  
  ## Biography
  
  al-Shirazi was born in Karbala, Iraq in 1964. His family had produced scholars and marjas, including Mirza Hassan Shirazi, leader of the constitutional, also known as the Tobacco Movement in Iran, Grand Ayatollah Muhammad Taqi Shirazi, leader of the 1920 revolution in Iraq, which liberated Iraq from colonial powers, and his father Grand Ayatollah Mohamad Shirazi.
  
  In 1995 Shirazi was imprisoned for 18 months after which he "reportedly escaped to Syria and has requested political asylum."
  
  He has written a number of books in Arabic with some of his works translated in English.
  
  