Mohammad Behbahani

He pursued his religious education in Tehran and Najaf under the tutelage of Akhund Khorasani and Seyyed Mohammad Kazem Tabatabai Yazdi, reaching the rank of Ijtihad.

Mir Seyyed Mohammad Behbahani's life and actions reflect the complex political landscape of Iran during his time, where religious figures often played significant roles in both supporting and opposing various regimes and movements.

Several years after leaving the CIA and starting his academic career, he briefly noted in his book that during the coup, "Behbahani Dollars" were distributed among clerics and southern Tehran factions.

[6] According to declassified U.S. government documents that were released from the National Archives in 2017 under the title "Review of Recent Crisis," the U.S. Embassy in Tehran was a source of at least some of the "Behbahani Dollars."

The document stated: "Based on credible reports, the U.S. Embassy secretly paid substantial sums of money to certain influential individuals, including Ayatollah Behbahani, a prominent cleric."

According to the document "Review of Recent Crisis," dated September 2, 1953, Mohammad Behbahani was also one of the key figures in the final stages of the overthrow of Mossadegh on the morning of 19 August (1953).