Mohammad Taghi Fazel Meybodi

Mohammad Taghi Fazel Meybodi was born on July 28, 1953, in the city of Meybod in Yazd Province. He entered the Qom seminary in 1971 and pursued his religious education under some of the era's leading teachers. His philosophy instructors were Yahya Ansari Shirazi and Abdollah Javadi Amoli; he studied advanced jurisprudential principles (kharej-e usul) for six years under Naser Makarem Shirazi, and advanced jurisprudence (kharej-e fiqh) for six years under Hossein-Ali Montazeri. This close relationship with Montazeri shaped his critical, reformist approach to political jurisprudence and clerical institutions.

Fazel Meybodi has taught courses such as Sharh al-Lum'ah, glosses on logic, Bidayat al-Hikmah, principles of jurisprudence, and Kifayat al-Usul at the Qom seminary. He is currently a member of the Assembly of Qom Seminary Researchers and Teachers and a professor at Mofid University in Qom.

In recent years he has become known for outspoken remarks on Iran's social and political issues, including his position that there is no religious or rational justification for enforcing dress codes on women, his criticism of the indiscriminate use of titles such as "Ayatollah" and "Hojjat al-Islam" for clerics who have not attained ijtihad, and his critical views on the relationship between religion, governance, and economic justice. In numerous media interviews he has emphasized the need for major shifts in the country's political and economic direction and greater attention to the demands of the younger generation.

His written works include the books "What Is Religion?" ("Din Chist?"), "Tolerance and Forbearance" ("Tasamoh va Tasahol"), and "The Discourse of Freedom" ("Hadith-e Azadi"), as well as essays such as "A Treatise on Religious Knowledge," "The Discourse of Rationality," and a memorial volume for Mohammad Khatami.