[10] From 1952 to 1960, in the holy city of Qom, he participated in the courses taught by Ruhollah Khomeini and Muhammad Husayn Tabataba'i; and, for approximately fifteen years, he was a student of Mohammad-Taqi Bahjat Foumani.

[13][14] Yazdi's actual last name was Giwachi, an occupational surname indicating his ancestors produced a type of traditional footwear called Giwah.

[1] In 1997, after the election of President Mohammad Khatami, Mesbah Yazdi encouraged Iran's Revolutionary Guards and Hezbolli to put a stop to the reform agitation by any means, including violence.

[10] He had been named by Akbar Ganji as "having encouraged or issued fatwas, or religious orders" for the 1998 chain murders assassinations of five Iranian dissidents.

[18] On 22 June, a few days after security forces broke up one of the biggest election protests, Mesbah-Yazdi "addressed a gathering" of Revolutionary Guards and told them: "Do not be worried about the events and earthquakes that have occurred.

"[20] After Ahmadinejad fired intelligence minister Heydar Moslehi without consulting Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, Mesbah Yazdi stated, "That a human being would behave in a way that angers his closest friends and allies and turns them into opponents is not logical for any politician.

Mesbah Yazdi believed that the educational system of hawza should be changed and his proposal was approved by Seyyed Hossein Borujerdi,[26] so he and Mohammad Beheshti establish the Haghani School (also Haqqani) in Qom to train the future cadres of Iran.

Mesbah-Yazdi had been described as close to Ayatollah Mohammad Beheshti, Khomeini's first designated heir who was assassinated in Hafte Tir bombing in 1981 (despite being considered a moderate),[27] and is (or was) a member of the school's board of directors.

[28] The Haghani School is very influential and had been described as "a kind of Ecole Nationale d'Administration for the Islamic Republic" whose alumni "form the backbone of the clerical management class that runs Iran's key political and security institutions.

[30][31] He published the weekly Parto Sokhan,[32] was the director of the Imam Khomeini Education and Research Institute in Qom, (founded in 1995),[31][33] and was a member of the Iranian Assembly of Experts from 1991 to 2016.

[8] After the presidential election of June 1997, in the relatively more open political atmosphere in that time, Mesbah Yazdi's students played an important role as the critics of the former president Mohammad Khatami.

Mesbah Yazdi had been described as "a theoretician of the radicals" in Iran,[35] and "is opposed to western culture",[36] lamenting that "nowadays ... if someone says something critical" of freedom and democracy, "he or she will face serious peril.

"[38] In a lecture posted on his website, Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi warns of Muslim "thugs of falsehood and the followers of the damned Satan" who have formed a coalition of the forces of infidelity and hypocrisy, the servants of dollars and euros/gold and silver, and influential oppressors and traitors to uproot Islam, to fight Muslims, to dominate their countries, wealth, and resources, to deny their glories and excellence, to destroy their relics and teachings, to wipe out their culture, to alter their identity, to put them in miserable conditions, and to force them into wretchedness in this world and God’s punishment in the hereafter.

[35] In 2005, he issued a fatwa urging Iranians to vote for Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a former student and "protege", whom he is "considered a ideological and spiritual mentor" of, and with whom he reportedly met with weekly.

According to a poll conducted in March 2016 by Information and Public Opinion Solutions LLC (iPOS) among Iranian citizens, Mesbah had 18% approval and 20% disapproval ratings and thus a –2% net popularity; while 52% of responders didn't recognize the name.