I can say without exaggeration that those lectures aroused...

I can say without exaggeration that those lectures aroused in me such ecstasy that their effect remained with me until the following Monday or Tuesday. An important part of my intel­lectual and spiritual personality took shape under the influence of those lectures and the other classes I took over a period of twelve years with that spiritual master (ustad-i ilahi) [meaning Ayatullah Khumayni].

^2 ” In about 1946, Ayatullah Khumayni began lecturing to a small group of students that included both Mutahhari and his roommate at the Fayziya Madressah, Ayatullah Muntadhari, on two key philosophical texts, the Asfar al-Arbaʿa of Mulla Sadra (q.d.s.) and the Sharh-e-Manzuma of Mulla Hadi Sabzwari (q.d.s.). Mutahhari’s participation in this group, which continued to meet until about 1951, enabled him to establish more intimate links with his teacher.

Also in 1946, at the urging of Mutahhari and Muntadhari, the Ayatullah Khumayni taught his first formal course on Fiqh and Usul, taking the chapter on rational proofs from the second volume of Akhund Khurasani‘s Kifayatal Usul as his teaching text. Mutahhari followed his course assiduously, while still pursuing his studies of Fiqh with Ayatullah Burujerdi.

In the first two post-war decades, Ayatullah Khumayni trained numer­ous students in Qum who became leaders of the Islamic Revolution and the Islamic Republic, such that through them (as well as directly), the imprint of his personality was visible on all the key developments of the past decade. But none among his students bore to Ayatullah Khumayni the same relationship of affinity as Mutahhari, an affinity to which the Ayatullah Khumayni himself has borne witness to.

The pupil and master shared a profound attachment to all aspects of traditional scholarship, without in any way being its captive; a comprehensive vision of Islam as a total system of life and belief, with particular importance ascribed to its philosophical and mystical aspects; an absolute loyalty to the reli­gious institution, tempered by an awareness of the necessity of reform; a desire for comprehensive social and political change, accompanied by a great sense of strategy and timing; and an ability to reach out beyond the circle of the traditionally religious, and gain the attention and loyalty of the secularly educated.

Among the other teachers whose influence Mutahhari was exposed in Qum, was the great exegete of the Qurʾan and philosopher, Ayatullah Sayyid Muhammad Husain Taba’tabaʾi (q.d.s.).