I tried really hard to prove my loyalty to the Iranian regime. I began to wear shirts with the image of Ali Khamenei printed on them. I did everything I could think of, but that was it for me. They treated me as though I had a relationship with Satan himself. I was completely outcast. But the matter didn’t end there; it escalated to bullying. They tried to make me flee the country by bullying me. The dean of students, Mr. Sanjary, would instruct senior students to pressure me to return to Australia voluntarily. The senior students would follow me wherever I went, and if I stopped they would bully me by pushing and shoving me with all their strength, causing me to fall. They would light cigarettes and throw them down the back of my shirt, and would drive beside me with their motorbikes and pull my shirt, slamming me to the ground in public. They stole my money, laptop, and phone and left me with basically nothing.
The school also began to pressure me. So, I went to the office of the supreme leader Ali Khamenei and complained to his representative. I began to cry in his presence and requested that he put an end to all of this. He understood the “mistake” I had made by visiting Sadiq Shirazi, and informed me that he would order them to put an end to the bullying, which he did in fact do and I continued with my studies normally. However, although the school’s administration had stopped bullying me, the students didn’t. They beat me up in the streets and accused me of being a traitor.
Even after the intercession of the representative of Iran’s Supreme Leader, the dean of students, Mr. Sanjary, was still uncomfortable with my presence for no apparent reason. Knowing he was a member of the Iranian intelligence services, I had to take calculated measures to protect myself. Therefore, I followed a student he was close to, Amir, and whom he had appointed as a student captain. I personally filmed Amir engaging in indecent behaviour in public, and kept the video recording to myself. I then heard rumors from other students that Chinese students were engaging in homosexual activities in the showers. So, I hung a pair of my jeans in one of the shower rooms, and placed a recorder in its pocket. I managed to obtain an audio file of their entire session. Less than a week later, Mr. Sanjary called me to his office and accused me of a very serious crime. He gave me two options, to leave Iran or to face prison in the morning. He had organized students to falsely testify against me. I knew I was innocent, and I had already envisaged that something like this would occur.
I returned to him with the audio file of the Chinese students and the video of Amir. I said to him, “If you don’t leave me alone, copies of this will be distributed to the Greens Party [the Iranian opposition]. I am almost finished with my Farsi language course, and if you try to harm me in any way, you will regret it.” Mr. Sanjary understood that I was ten steps ahead of him, and I made him suspect that I had more cards up my sleeve. If news was to surface that there were homosexual activities in Iran’s Islamic institutes or that its head students were engaging in indecent practices in public, it would be on the front pages of every opposition newspaper and magazine. I was forced to do this for my own protection, as I wasn’t prepared to be imprisoned or expelled over false accusations.
Mr. Sanjary then sent an Afghan-Australian student from Sydney, Australia, to corner me and make me promise that I would never visit Sadiq Shirazi again. I did so out of fear. However, he still physically abused me whenever he could, and would keep an eye on my movements. One day in winter, he saw me going into the showers, and decided to bring the hose (which the cleaners used to wash the floor of the showers) and pour cold water on me from over the shower door.
I continued to remain patient and successfully completed the entire Farsi language course at Al-Mahdi Institute, and thus received my certificate.
To speed my transition from the school, the dean of students invited me to his office. He said, “You speak Arabic well, there is no need for you to continue on to the ‘Basics of Islam’ course. You can go straight to an Arabic university that will accept you.” I applied to Aalul-Bayt University, and was accepted immediately. I finally felt free. This was going to be a new beginning for me at an actual university with a professional study atmosphere. I moved to the dormitory of the university, and I felt much more comfortable there. There was more freedom in this university, and therefore I began to visit Ayatollah Shirazi more frequently, but discretely. Interestingly, I began to notice other students from my university at his office as well. But I was skeptical as they might have been spies for the university’s administration, which was in fact the case. I was called into the university’s office within the first month and questioned about my visits to Sadiq Shirazi’s office. I informed them that I visited all of the grand ayatollahs out of interest. They were much more lenient than Al-Mahdi’s officials, but they requested that I no longer visit this particular ayatollah as “he is a deviant man.”
My research into Sadiq Shirazi showed that he is a descendent of Prophet Mohammad, and comes from a lineage of Islamic leaders dating back at least 100 years. His brother, Mohammad Shirazi, was a staunch opponent of Khomeini and rebelled against him after he executed nearly 5000 people without trial. That was the day that the Shirazi family began to rebel against the Iranian government, because they do not believe in mixing politics with religion. Therefore, they do not recognize the religious authority of Ali Khamenei who is considered to be a politician rather than a scholar, which was and still is the case. However, it bewildered me that an ideological disagreement could lead to such waves of hatred between individuals of the same denomination and school of thought, particularly because they had once been good friends. I later discovered that Sadiq Shirazi was actually under house arrest, and not allowed to leave his house. Despite this, he visits sacred shrines that are close to his home.
I developed friendships with members of the Shirazi Institute and engaged in advanced theological lessons there during the evenings. When I mentioned Shirazi at the university, everyone around me cursed him, but when I mentioned Ali Khamenei at the Shirazi office, they all wished him guidance. This said a lot about the two sides.
I began to analyze what I was being taught by both schools of thought, the Shirazi Institute and the regime’s university, and to figure out what their motives were. It became clear to me that the universities were nothing more than institutes to groom missionaries to spread the ideology of the Iranian regime, while the Shirazi office was spreading true Islam without any politics or agendas involved. I ideologically switched sides and became a follower of Sadiq Shirazi. The majority of Iranian Muslims who oppose the tyrannical dictatorship are followers of Shirazi. The Shirazi school of thought within Shia Islam can be described as a non-political school that is open to other religions and nations. They have a large presence in the West and do not have an agenda to spread violent Sharia Law or take over countries. They also believe in Islamic laws, such as polygamy and child brides for instance, but they are not uniquely Shirazi beliefs; they are basic Islamic beliefs. Nevertheless, it is also a reality that a conservative Islamic authority cannot possibly be an Islamic authority without believing in the permissibility of these matters.
While studying for my Bachelor’s degree, I began to introduce more western students to Shirazi as an alternative option, and in a short time I created a group of students who opposed the ideology of the Islamic government of Iran. One night, I led a delegation of thirty students to Shirazi’s office and, because we returned late to the dorms, the security guard became suspicious of us, and me in particular. Therefore, the school appointed a Nigerian student to monitor me within the dorms. His name was Harun, and his room was next to mine. He would follow my movements and even record my conversations. I obviously knew this was happening, but it didn’t matter to me as by now I was convinced that the Iranian regime was a tyrannical regime. I became a well-known opponent of the Iranian regime and disagreed on political matters with my teachers in the classrooms. I had a group of students, around fifty, who supported my ideas. The university administration was now alarmed that I was de-radicalizing students, or what they considered to be reversing their brainwashing of the students. Because I am an Australian citizen, it was extremely difficult for them to treat me like they would treat a regular Iraqi or Iranian student, even though I was born in Iran.
One morning, I received a call to attend the principal’s office. As soon as I walked in, he said, “Mr. Tawhidi, pack your bags and go back to your country!” I replied, “Sure,” and walked away to do exactly that. The principal expected