Hassan Rahimpour Azghadi is rising to become an ever more popular figure among the new generation of hard-liners in Iran, following the footsteps of hard-line cleric Ayatollah Mohammad-Taghi Mesbah Yazdi. Both men are waging a war against the present atmosphere at the Qom seminary — the theological center of Iran — charging that it is not sufficiently revolutionary.
Azghadi is a graduate of the Qom Seminary, where he studied Dars-e Kharij, an academic level perhaps best described as equivalent to a doctorate. Yet many academic figures and clerics have questioned his religious knowledge given that he has not published any academic work. He has responded to this by saying, "I have a postdoc in book reading." Of further note, Azghadi neither wears a turban nor traditional clerical garb such as robes.
