Ayatollah Mohammad Reza Mahdavi Kani (, 6 August 1931 – 21 October 2014) was an Iranian Shia cleric, writer and conservative and principlist politician who was Acting Prime Minister of Iran from 2 September until 29 October 1981. Before that, he was Minister of Interior in the cabinets of Mohammad-Ali Rajai and Mohammad-Javad Bahonar. He was the leader of Combatant Clergy Association and Chairman of the Assembly of Experts and also founder and president of Imam Sadiq University. On 4 June 2014, Mahdavi Kani was hospitalized in Bahman Hospital and went into a coma after suffering a heart attack. He died on 21 October 2014. Early life Mahdavi Kani was born on 6 August 1931 in the village of Kan, near Tehran. His father was an Ayatollah and taught in the Mofid School. After he finished basic education in Kan, he studied at Borhan High School in Tehran. He left for Qom in 1947 to study at a religious seminary. His teachers included Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, Nematollah Salehi Najafabadi, Grand Ayatollah Seyyed Mohammad Reza Golpayegani, Grand Ayatollah Seyyed Hossein Boroujerdi and Allameh Sayyed Muhammad Husayn Tabatabaei. He comes back to Tehran in 1961 to teach religious sciences. In that Time, most of clerics participated in protests against Muhammad Reza Shah Pahlavi was known in that Time as "taghoot". Mahdavi Kani also added to these clerics and formed alliance with Ayatollah Khomeini. He also was imprisoned by Shah three times. Career After the demise of Ayatollah Boroujerdi, Mahdavi Kani went back to Tehran and continued his struggle against the Pahlavi regime, something which he had started since he was 18, during the time of Ayatollah Boroujerdi. He was considerably active and effective in his participation in the Islamic movement of Iran led by Khomeini. Before the Islamic Revolution, he was appointed by Khomeini to the Revolutionary Council and later took up various political and religious positions. He was the leader of the Combatant Clergy Association, which he cofounded in 1977. Mahdavi Kani refused to join Islamic Republican Party in 1979, because he believed clerics should remain non-partisan. He was appointed chief of the Central Provisional Komiteh for the Islamic Revolution that was a body in charge of trials and executions of the civil and military officials of the Pahlavi era. He served as the minister of interior in the cabinet of Mohammad-Ali Rajai to succeeding Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. He was reappointed