Ali Shariati

He sought to translate these ideas into cultural symbols of Shiism that Iranians could relate to. Shariati believed Shia should not merely await the return of the 12th Imam, but should actively work to hasten his return by fighting for social justice, "even to the point of embracing martyrdom," saying "every day is Ashoura, every place is the Karbala".

Social theorist Asef Bayat has recorded his observations as a witness and participant in the Iranian revolution of 1979. He asserts that Shariati emerged at the time of the revolution as "an unparalleled revolutionary intellectual" with his portraits widely present during the marches and protests and his nickname as "mo'allem-e enqilab" (revolutionary mentor) chanted by millions and whose literature and tapes had already been widely available before the revolution. "My father," recalls Bayat, "barely literate, had his own copies" of Shariati's works.

His continued success again aroused the interest of the government, which arrested him, along with many of his students. Widespread pressure from the people, and an international outcry, eventually led to his release on 20 March 1975, after eighteen months in solitary confinement.

Shariati then returned to Iran in 1964, where he was arrested and imprisoned for engaging in subversive political activities while in France. He was released after a few weeks, at which point he began teaching at the University of Mashhad.

The same year he joined Ebrahim Yazdi, Mostafa Chamran and Sadegh Qotbzadeh in founding the Freedom Movement of Iran abroad. In 1962, he continued studying sociology and the history of religions in Paris, and followed the courses of Islamic scholar Louis Massignon, Jacques Berque and the sociologist Georges Gurvitch. He also came to know the philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre that same year, and published Jalal Al-e Ahmad's book Gharbzadegi (or Occidentosis) in Iran.

Shariati then managed to get a scholarship for France, where he continued his graduate studies at University of Paris. He left Paris after earning a PhD in sociology in 1964. During this period in Paris, Shariati started collaborating with the Algerian National Liberation Front (FLN) in 1959. The following year, he began to read Frantz Fanon and translated an anthology of his work into Persian. Shariati introduced Fanon's thought into Iranian revolutionary émigrée circles. He was arrested in Paris on 17 January 1961 during a demonstration in honour of Patrice Lumumba.

In 1952, he became a high-school teacher and founded the Islamic Students' Association, which led to his arrest following a demonstration. In 1953, the year of Mossadeq's overthrow, he became a member of the National Front. He received his bachelor's degree from the University of Mashhad in 1955. In 1957, he was arrested again by the Iranian police, along with sixteen other members of the National Resistance Movement.

Ali Shariati Mazinani (Persian: علی شریعتی مزینانی,  23 November 1933 – 18 June 1977) was an Iranian revolutionary and sociologist who focused on the sociology of religion. He is held as one of the most influential Iranian intellectuals of the 20th century and has been called the "ideologue of the Iranian Revolution", although his ideas did not end up forming the basis of the Islamic Republic.

Ali Shariati (Ali Masharati) was born in 1933 in Mazinan, a suburb of Sabzevar, in northeastern Iran. His father's family were clerics. His father, Mohammad-Taqi, was a teacher and Islamic scholar. In 1947, he opened the Centre for the Propagation of Islamic Truths in Mashhad, in Khorasan Province. It was a social Islamic forum which became embroiled in the oil nationalisation movement of the 1950s. Shariati's mother was from a small land-owning family. His mother was from Sabzevar, a little town near Mashhad.