page_title: Murtadha al-Qazwini
section_title: Early life and education
hierarchical_section_title: Murtadha al-Qazwini / Early life and education
caption_attribution_description: English: Article Use §Summary This picture was taken by me.
context_page_description: Ayatollah Sayyid Murtadha al-Musawi al-Qazwini is a senior Iraqi Shia jurist, poet and orator.
  al-Qazwini is currently the Imam of the eastern wing of the Imam Husayn shrine. He lived in exile for twenty three years between Kuwait, Iran and the United States, until he returned to Iraq after the 2003 invasion.
  He is the founder of the Development and Relief Foundation, a charitable institution that has established schools, a seminary, a state of the art hospital, and clinic in Karbala.
  He is currently the chief of the al-Qazwini family.
context_section_description: al-Qazwini was born in Karbala to the prominent religious al-Qazwini family. His father was Ayatollah Sayyid Muhammad-Sadiq al-Qazwini, a mujtahid, that was the Imam at the Abbas shrine. He was abducted by the Baathist regime on April 18, 1980 at the age of eighty. He has been missing ever since. His mother was the daughter of his third cousin, once remove, Sayyid Muhammad-Mehdi al-Qazwini, a alim and poet, most known for authoring Huda al-Musanafin (Guidance of the Ranks), a critique on Shaykhism. He is the fourth of seven children.
  al-Qazwini naturally began his religious education at a young age. He carried out theological studies and academic education concurrently, and at the age of seventeen, was awarded by Salih Jabr, for being the highest achieving student in the country.
  
  In his religious education, he studied his intermediate stages under Sheikh Jafar al-Rashti, Sheikh Muhammad al-Khatib and his third cousin, once removed Sayyid Muhammad-Hassan Agha-Mir al-Qazwini.
  As for the advanced stages, he studied them under Mirza Mahdi al-Shirazi, Sheikh Yusuf al-Khurasani and Sayyid Muhammad-Hadi al-Milani.
  In 1953, he was granted ijaza's from Sayyid Abd al-Husayn Sharaf al-Din, Sheikh Agha Bozorg al-Tehrani and al-Milani.
  He travelled to Cairo to pursue some research in Al-Azhar University, however due to unforeseen circumstances, he returned to Karbala, unable to complete his studies.
  In 1942, he studied oratory under the supervision of his maternal uncle, Sayyid Muhammad-Salih al-Qazwini, who was a renowned cleric and orator. His uncle authored al-Mawidha al-Hasina (The Good Instruction), a critique of Ali al-Wardi's Wuadh al-Salatin (The Sultans Preachers'). By the 1950s, he was giving sermons in the Husayn shrine. Consequently, he began to travel to other countries in the Persian Gulf region, to deliver religious speeches.
caption: al-Qazwini in the 1950s
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