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Darius Adim

Mohammad Ali Taheri is a researcher, theorist, and founder of the Circle of Mysticism group, who was born into a Muslim family in Kermanshah on the first day of Farvardin month in 1335.

He has two brothers and two sisters named Kamal, Jamal, and Azardokht (the name of his other sister is not known). His father’s name was Mohammad Agha and his mother was called Ezat Al-Molouk (both have passed away). The result of the marriage between Mohammad Ali Taheri and Ziba Mohammadian is two children named Sepehr and Negar.

Mohammad Ali Taheri describes his childhood as follows: “From a young age, I was curious about everything, countless questions passed through my mind and I was eagerly pursuing the answers to all my questions.”

The endless sky and its starry night were particularly captivating for him. After finishing elementary school, he moved to Tehran with his family and continued his education there. Despite this, he maintained his enthusiasm for exploring the sky and the infinite world, which led him to design and build his first remote-controlled airplane at the age of 13. Encouraged by those around him, he successfully built a helicopter in the yard of his home in Tehran’s Qolhak neighborhood at the age of 16. This caught the attention of the security system at the time, Savak, causing many troubles for his family, especially his mother. However, his passion for the aviation industry was so strong that he even managed to build a kite and experience multiple flights with it.

In 1355, he participated in the first national exhibition of the works of the most innovative and young inventors of the country, with the design and construction of a remote-controlled model airplane, along with several designs for aircraft – including a vertical take-off aircraft design – and achieved first place in the competitions in the field of technology and inventions.

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Mohammad Ali Taheri, alongside his designs and remote-controlled airplane, created the first exhibition of the works of young and new artists in the country – 1355.

One year later, at the same exhibition, he participated by presenting a single-seat aircraft prototype and several other new designs for the construction of the first airplane. He also presented a book on aviation technical terminology, which had been completed in handwritten form, and was the result of his efforts between 1349 and 1354. He achieved the first rank among inventors nationwide in the technical field for the second time, along with multiple awards. He also received several scholarships from various universities, but did not use them for various reasons. At the same time, interviews were conducted with Taheri regarding his activities, inventions, and research in mathematics.

The beginning of transformation for him was in the month of Aban, 1357. In this period of his life, he was only a 22-year-old youth who had a great enthusiasm and interest in finding answers to his questions about cosmology and understanding existence.

This is a picture of a beautiful sunset over the mountains.
Pages from the handwritten version of the book “Dictionary of Technical Terms in Aviation”.

After entering the world of self-discovery and perception, slowly and gradually, I began to collect scientific research in this field and continued to do so over the course of several years in the form of small classes. The output of these classes gradually expanded and was added to the population of its classes every day. The result of these gatherings were courses that were held legally and with permission during the presidency of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, which were met with considerable reception. This led to the achievement of honorary diplomas from several foreign universities and also resulted in appreciation and gratitude towards reputable scientific universities within the country, including the University of Tehran.

Mohammad Ali Taheri designed and prepared two handmade carpets named “Shahab” and “Shafagh” during the years after the revolution and in the period that the Islamic Republic refers to as the “Holy Defense” (the Iran-Iraq War). In this regard, one can refer to the daily memoirs of Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani.

After his efforts to design and produce various military projects were unsuccessful, he decided to continue his studies abroad. After multiple trips to European countries and Japan, he finally settled in Ankara, Turkey and continued his studies at the Middle East Technical University (METU), an English-speaking university. It is worth noting that despite his experience in the aerospace and mechanical engineering industry, it was expected that he would be eager to continue his studies in this field, but he chose environmental engineering instead.

After returning to the country, he founded the engineering and design company “Tivakian” with registration number 139330, along with his sister and brother-in-law. As the CEO of this company, he focused on designing and manufacturing the necessary machinery for various factories such as mushroom, flour, animal feed, and poultry factories. It was during this time that he designed and produced a series of machines for the first time in Iran, which could automatically transfer and weigh flour, animal feed, and poultry from silos, then pour the contents into a bag, shake it, and sew the bag. The cost of manufacturing, selling, and installing these machines was several times lower than similar foreign machines at that time.

In fact, it was during this period that I was engaged in daily work and leisure time to study and research in the field of mysticism, and the result of these investigations led to the establishment of the group of cosmic mysticism or circle mysticism and what is known as “complementary self-healing and psychosomatics”.

In the summer of 1385, Mohammad Ali Taheri legally established an institution called “Erfan Kiyani Cultural and Art Institute (Circle)” and began teaching Kiyani mysticism and complementary medicine.

These classes were met with enthusiasm from various segments of society. Classes with low attendance were transformed into classes with high attendance of over 500 people. It was during this period that Taheri established an institute called “Cosmic Mysticism Society” under the National Youth Organization of the Presidency.

During these courses, all classes and lessons were recorded and registered in audio-visual format. Additionally, the course topics were published in various books and handouts with official printing permits and made available to the public.

The scope of teaching cosmic mysticism has expanded to include classes at the University of Tehran under the title of “Metaphysics”. According to official statistics from the Institute of Cosmic Mysticism, at that time more than 3500 people participated in these courses and received a certificate of completion from this center.

In addition, in the year 1388, classes under the name of “Psychosomatics” were held by Mr. Taheri at the University of Medical Sciences in Iran. Psychosomatics is actually the study of the mind and psyche and addresses the problems and diseases caused by improper functioning of the mind and psyche, and examines the causes of their interference and provides solutions for treating such diseases. These classes were held in two groups, each consisting of 1100 individuals.

However, the story of the prosecution of Mohammad Ali Taheri coincides with the events of 1388 and the beginning of a movement that formed in protest against the results of the presidential election of that year. Of course, most of Mohammad Ali Taheri’s followers say that security institutions have felt threatened by the increasing support for him.

At this time, the first case against Taheri is filed with a personal complaint; the individual claims that Mr. Taheri is having an illicit relationship with one of his students. In the process of handling this case, the efforts of the complainant did not lead to anywhere and Mohammad Ali Taheri was acquitted through the ruling of Judge Shahbazi Sahraeian and his acquittal was issued.

Ismaeil Mansouri Larijani, a writer who is active in the field of Islamic mysticism and has previously written introductions for two books by Mr. Taheri, titled “In a critical session held in February 2011 at the National Headquarters for Religious Management, he discussed the reasons for his opposition to Mr. Taheri, stating: “After two years, I realized that this man has launched therapeutic networks. I called them out and said that these actions of yours are illegal and un-Islamic, these ladies that you have launched are deceiving people, it’s not right. Then I realized that they are pursuing their own goals. That’s when I wrote a letter to the Guidance Council and stopped its publication. It was the first time I complained about them and said, what are they doing, they take money from people and their work has no results.”

At the end of the introduction of the book “Cosmic Mysticism (Circle)”, which was published in 1384, Ismail Larijani, himself claimed to have named “Circle Mysticism” as “Cosmic Mysticism”.

Some analysts believe that after the speech of Ayatollah Khamenei, the leader of the Islamic Republic, in late 1389 and his emphasis on the necessity of fighting against what he called “false mysticism” or the newly imported interpretations, severe attacks were made against the Sufis and other groups who were explaining religious issues parallel to the official channels. Even spiritual and mystical groups were not exempt from this. With the belief that the ideas of Mohammad Ali Taheri have no place in Islam, he was accused by some and in response, he presented his intellectual and religious positions to prove that they are clear and do not contradict Islam and Shiism. However, this not only did not help in responding to those people, but also led to new consequences in terms of entering into religious issues.

The case of filing a lawsuit against him did not end here. It was in this way that the continuation of the project of filing a lawsuit against him intensified from late 1388. From late 88, along with the expansion of his activities, restrictions, obstacles, and harassment from some security institutions were created. During this time, Taheri was arrested several times; the first time was on April 18, 2010 and he was in detention for 67 days until he was released on bail and his sessions and classes were suspended from that time.

On May 4th, 2011, Taheri was arrested for the third time and then put on trial. He was charged with offenses such as corruption on earth, insulting sacred beliefs, interference in medical affairs, producing and distributing unauthorized audiovisual works, and engaging in illegal activities in this field. He was also accused of engaging in an illegitimate relationship (touching the body of a non-mahram during treatment), acquiring illegal wealth, and unauthorized use of academic titles. As a result, he was sentenced to 5 years in prison, a fine of 900 million tomans, and 74 lashes.

Despite serving five years of imprisonment, in Bahman 1393 (January/February 2015), news of his retrial was announced. The date of his first retrial was on 6 Esfand 1393 (February/March 2015). He was faced with new charges and accusations from the Revolutionary Guards and with the efforts of institutions such as the Spiritual Health Organization and the Association for Saving from the Ring and the fatwa of three religious authorities that had been issued earlier (in Esfand 1389/February 2011).

Mohammad Ali Taheri’s 5-year sentence came to an end on February 7, 2016, but after that, his detention was repeatedly extended by judges and the judicial authorities. His case of “spreading corruption on earth” was reopened and on August 27 of the same year, he was sentenced to death. This sentence was overturned in the Court of Appeals in the fall of 2016.

Seyyed Mahmoud Alizadeh Tabatabaei, one of the lawyers of the case, recently announced that his client has been sentenced to death again on September 5th of this year, despite the previous annulment of the death sentence in the court of appeal.

The case of Mohammad Ali Taheri has been one of the most fluctuating cases of ideological crimes during this period and recent years, which its fate is still surrounded by ambiguity due to the involvement of Sepah intelligence and Tharallah base.

Explanation:

All the photos in this article and some information related to the biography of Mohammad Ali Taheri are taken from Erfan Kiani’s website (Halqeh).