ABSTRACT
Morteza Motahhari secured himself a permanent place in the annals of the Islamic Republic in Iran. Motahhari had demonstrated a particular predilection for Islamic philosophy. By 1951 Motahhari had finished his course of juridical studies in Qom. Motahhari had deemed it necessary to confront the secular ideas spreading fast in Iran by recharging the publicly docile Islamic philosophical tradition, which he believed was "first in order of significance" among all branches of knowledge. Some three weeks after the death of Ayatoliah Borujerdi, Morteza Motahhari delivered a lecture on Friday, 21 April 1961, at the Monthly Religious Society, in which he addressed the then-current issue of ejtehad and taqlid. The figure of Ali and the concept of "justice" frequently recur in Motahhari's speeches and books. His concentration on "justice" had an obvious political ring to it, tacitly but emphatically implying its absence in his contemporary state apparatus.
