Mirza Mohammed Hassan Husseini Shirazi

Ayatollah Mirza Mohammad Hasan Shirazi (Persian میرزای شیراز, Ayatollah Shirazi, born April 25, 1815 in Shiraz, † February 20, 1895 in Samarra ) was a Shiite cleric and Marja -e taqlid.

Mirza Mohammad Hasan Shirazi started his training at age 4. At 29 he moved to Najaf to continue his studies under Sheikh Mortaza Ansari. Mirza Shirazi died in Samara. His grave is located in the Mosque of Ali ibn abi Talib in Najaf.

Fame Shirazi by a legal opinion ( fatwa ), with which he turned against the smoking of tobacco. Background was the national award of the tobacco concession (cultivation, sale, export ) in Iran in 1890 to the British Major Gerald F. Talbot by Nasreddin Shah. This monopoly has led to nationwide riots of Iranian tobacco farmers and tobacco dealer. Ayatollah Shirazi, who resided in Najaf ] in Iraq, declared with the famous legal opinion ( fatwa Tobacco, 1891) addressed the use of tobacco as against the 12th Imam.

The following tobacco boycott made ​​the concession for the British to worthless, prompting the Shah in 1892 to withdraw the concession. The compensation sum of £ 500,000 to Talbot represented the first foreign debt of Iran dar. Shirazi raised then with a second legal opinion, the tobacco ban again.

The tobacco movement is considered the first successful protest movement in the recent history of Iran and as a forerunner of the democratic movement that would lead to a constitutional revolution of Iran.