Abbas Ali Eslami was born in Sabzevar in 1878. After finishing elementary school in his hometown, he went to Mashhad to continue his education. Then he began studying jurisprudence, principles of jurisprudence, philosophy and Islamic theology at the Islamic Seminary of Mashhad.
Eslami was particularly interested in preaching through delivering sermons and speeches, and for this reason, he went to India to study sciences related to the art of speech, interpretation, hadith, etc., in a special school called “Dar al-Wa’idhin.” After finishing his studies there, he returned to Iran where he faced the pressures of the Pahlavi regime due to his speeches.
However, in late 1941 and the departure of Reza Shah from Iran, which provided the country with some social and political freedom, Eslami started a widespread cultural effort in the southern part of Tehran. He turned his house into a school.
In June and May 1964, along with six other people, Eslami, by using his experiences in Iran, established the “Association for Islamic Education,” and they published the journal “Jame’eh” in March 1952. Forty years of efforts resulted in the construction of about 180 elementary and high schools and sixty mosques and husayniyahs.
However, after the victory of the Islamic Revolution, the Association for Islamic Education turned the buildings of its previous schools into huge educational complexes, and therefore three large educational complexes were opened up to 1988. In the speeches that he gave all over the country, Eslami exposed the antireligious actions of the Pahlavi regime, and until the victory of the Islamic Revolution was arrested and imprisoned eleven times by the regime’s agents – after the assassination of Ali Razmara on May 5, 1963, 1964, the 2500-year celebrations, etc.
Whenever Eslami was banned from giving a speech in a city, he would go to another one and continue his struggles. After his arrest in 1964, Imam Khomeini (ra) in his famous speech delivered on October 26, 1964, about Capitulation, which led to his exile to Turkey, stated: “American cooks, mechanics…together with their families, enjoy legal immunity, but Mr. Eslami is taken in shackles from this place to that one and has been imprisoned.”
Among his works one may mention his “Do az Bad Rafteh” (which discusses the issue of Enjoining the Good and Forbidding the Evil), “Rah-e Hoseyn (a)” and “Jehad.”
Finally, after half a century of promoting Islam, Eslami died on April 17, 1985, and was buried in the Shrine of Lady Fatimah al-Ma’sumah (a) in Qom.
Reference: The Encyclopedia of the Islamic Revolution.
Archive of The History of the Islamic Revolution
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