[2][3] Abolfazl Mousavi was born in the city of Tabriz in East Azerbaijan to a religious family.

His father's family were a religious clerical family in Tabriz and as a result of this, at the age of 13 Abolfazl Mousavi began his Islamic studies at the Hasaneh Padshah School in Tabriz.

After these studies, he attended classes of Grand Ayatollah Mohammad Kazem Shariatmadari.

[4] Before the Iranian Revolution Abolfazl Mousavi was involved with spreading the tapes of Khomeini and getting the people to back him in Tabriz during his exile.

In the Seyyed Hamzeh Mosque in Tabriz, he called on people to follow the path of Khomeini, this led to him being arrested by SAVAK.