Mujtaba al-Shirazi

al-Shirazi was born to Mirza Mahdi al-Shirazi and Halima al-Shirazi. Both of his parents are from the distinguished clerical al-Shirazi family that emigrated from Shiraz to Karbala in the 19th century. He is the tenth of ten children. All of his brothers are clerics, and his brothers' Muhammad al-Shirazis and Sadiq al-Shirazi are marja's. His mother is the great-granddaughter of Mirza Shirazi, the pioneer of the Tobacco Movement. His nephew, Mohammad Taqi al-Modarresi is also a marja'.

al-Shirazi was considered a mentor to al-Habib. However, they had a fall out in 2012, and are no longer affiliated.

On 20 February 2009, Shia pilgrims gathered in Medina, at the al-Baqi' cemetery, to mark the anniversary of Prophet Muhammad's death. However, an incident took place where the religious police videotaped female pilgrims, a practice that was found offensive, and so a group of men asked the police to destroy or hand over the tapes, but they were denied. In response, on 24 February, many pilgrims gathered and protested in front of the cemetery and so the religious police began to attack them, and then the police interfered, arresting and injuring dozens of the pilgrims, as well as beating and assaulting them with knives.

This rhetoric also extended to the use of profane words when condemning the Saudi government for the al-Baqi' 2009 incident.

al-Shirazi and his student, controversial Kuwaiti cleric, Sheikh Yasser al-Habib, were accused of provoking terror attacks against Sunni mosques, as a reaction to the al-Baqi' incident and the bombings (2006 and 2007) of the Askariayn shrine. However, al-Habib denied this, claiming:

Due to family ties, and his differences on Islamic philosophy with Khomeini, al-Shirazi naturally became affiliated with his brother. Hence, after facing much pressures and discomfort in Mashhad, with some reports going as far as to say that al-Shirazi's house was at some point raided, whilst he was taken and tortured, he left Mashhad for London in 1994.

Ayatollah Sayyid Mujtaba al-Husayni al-Shirazi. (Arabic: مجتبى الحسيني الشيرازي; Persian: مجتبى حسينى شيرازى; b. ِ6 August 1943) is an Iraq-Iranian Shia jurist.