His elder sister, Um Moosa, was married to his cousin, senior cleric, Abd al-Hadi Shirazi.

[7] After his father, Mirza Habibullah died in 1902, he moved to Najaf, to study under the two greats, Akhund Khurasani and Muhammad-Kadhim Yazdi.

He then travelled to Samarra with his family, to study in its seminary - under his maternal uncle, Mirza Muhammad-Taqi Shirazi and Hasan al-Sadr - which the former was managing at the time.

They remained in Kadhimiya for approximately a year and a half, living a life of dire poverty, until they returned to Karbala, where Mirza Taqi, was preparing to lead the Iraqi revolt against the British administration.

[15] The hawza of Karbala grew immensely under Mirza Mahdi's term as head, as he innovated new methods to teach religious studies, which attracted many youth to join the seminary.

This was in 1958, a time where the Iranian community was being politically isolated, in the face of an Iraqi government that was raising the banner of Arab nationalism.

Due to this situation, Mirza Mahdi sent a letter to the governor of Karbala, Fuad Arif,[19] who was of Kurdish descent, objecting the treatment of the Iranians.

Mirza Mahdi retorted, but this time with an angry tone, reminding Fuad, that it was us that ignited the 1920 revolt, and ended up forcing the British to grant Iraq more autonomy than they had previously planned to.

[20] After this, Mirza Mahdi founded a new philosophy, which was that he was not going to hold an Iraqi citizenship, deeming it as an imperialistic innovation, invented to crush the ranks of the Muslims.

They had a list of fifty two names (this included Mirza Mahdi's son Muhammad), of the people they planned to attack their homes, for the reason that they 'stood against communism and the "red tide"'.

His most known poem was written on the auspicious birth anniversary of Fatima, which begins with:[25] درّة أشرقت بأبهى سناها فتلألأ الورى فيا بُشراها لمع الكون من سنا نور قدس بسنا ناره أضاء طواها A pearl has risen with prestigious light, The world has been illuminated, glad tidings.