Grand Ayatollah Haj Sayyed Abdullah al-Shirazi was born in Shiraz, Iran.

At the age of 15 he was sent into exile with his father, Ayatollah Sayyed Muhammad Tahir al-Shirazi, for resisting the Qajar and British colonial rule in southern Iran.

Al-Shirazi was sentenced to 4 years in prison in 1935, during the famous Goharshad Mosque uprising in the city of Mashad against the anti-religious policies of Reza Shah Pahlavi.

The Marja of Taqleed are clerics that have the authority to declare fatwas and decrees into all matters of Islamic jurisprudence.

Local papers reported a turnout of "a few hundred thousand people" for the funeral ceremony commemorating him at the Shrine of Imam Reza, including figures such as Ali Akbar Nategh-Nouri, Mohammad-Reza Mahdavi Kani, Abbas Vaez-Tabasi, and Yousef Saanei.