Growing up in a famous family for Abdullah was full of memories of being visited by many people, most of which were politicians, poets and writers all over of Iran and Kurdistan. The Mohtadi family was indeed an influential one with great wealth and stature. The father of the family, Haji Abdul Rahman aghai Ilkhanizadeh was a minister in the Kurdish Republic of Mahabad in 1946; he moved to Tehran when the Republic of Mahabad failed. in the 1950s he changed the family name to Mohtadi, teaching [Sunni] theology at the University of Tehran.