Ahmad Moftizadeh (, ; February 1933 – 9 February 1993) was an influential political and religious thinker among the Sunni Kurdish minority in Iranian Kurdistan. He is best known for his leading role in negotiating democratic freedoms for the Kurdish people in Iran during the country's Islamic Revolution. Moftizadeh led one of three major Kurdish factions during the Islamic Revolution that were demanding increased rights for Kurds in the new government. His negotiations ultimately failed and the new revolutionary authorities of the Islamic Republic of Iran ordered the arrest of Moftizadeh and several of his followers. Moftizadeh died shortly after his release from prison on 9 February 1993 due to severe torture and mistreatment by Iranian prison authorities. Rise to Influence Ahmad Moftizadeh was a Kurdish nationalist and Islamist leader that emerged during the Shah's rule of Iran just prior to the time of the Islamic Revolution of 1979. He was widely regarded as one of the most influential Sunni personalities in Iran and rose to fame among the larger Kurdish community in Iran after being targeted by government authorities of the Shah of Iran for his demands for Kurdish autonomy. Moftizadeh was the son of the longest serving Mufti of the Iranian Kurdistan region. Like his father, he performed his religious scholarship in neighboring Iraqi Kurdistan due to the restrictions on Sunni religious schools in Iran. His time in Iraqi Kurdistan also allowed him to learn about the Kurdish national struggle and its failings from an early age. Throughout his teens, Moftizadeh accompanied his father on visits to the University of Tehran where his father taught courses on Islamic philosophy. After his father died, Moftizadeh chose not to assume the clerical role in the same capacity as his father, and instead, accepted a permanent role at the University of Tehran as a lecturer of Islamic studies. During his time in Tehran, Moftizadeh developed relations with members of the outlawed Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran and eventually became a prominent member of the organization during one of his visits back to Iranian Kurdistan. Moftizadeh regularly convened with other Kurdish activists at the Tehran home of Abdul Rahman Ilkhanizadeh, a former minister in the short-lived Kurdish Republic of Mahabad. Ilkhanizadeh, also known as Hajj Abdul Rahman Mohtadi, was the father of another prominent Kurdish leader, Abdullah Mohtadi, and had a daughter, Khadijah Mohtadi, to whom Moftizadeh would marry. In 1964, after