Ayatollah Ataullah Ashrafi Esfahani was born in 1902 in a city near Isfahan. After accomplishing preliminary studies in his hometown and Isfahan, he departed for Qom, where he could achieve the level of Ijtihad. With outset of the Islamic movement of Imam Khomeini in 1963 he strenuously accompanied him, so as he was threatened with exile and imprisonment by SAVAK (a secret police and intelligence service operated from 1957 to 1979, when the Pahlavi dynasty was overthrown) due to his struggle activities. With culmination of the movement in 1978, Martyr Ashrafi Esfahani led popular struggles of people of Kermanshah and by inviting the combatant clergies to guide people played a prominent role in the victory of the Islamic movement. During a protesting demonstration he was attacked by regime officers and injured. Some days later, SAVAK trespassed his house and comprehended him. But upon his release, he continued his anti-regime activities and go went on to lead people of Kermanshah. After the victory of Islamic Revolution, he was appointed by Imam Khomeini as the Friday Imam of Kermanshah. With outbreak of the Iraqi imposed war on Iran, he rushed to the war fronts, encouraging the soldiers of Islam. After two failed assassination attempts, the blind hypocrites (People’s Mujahedin) eventually martyred him on October 15, 1982, during the Friday Prayer and while he was prostrating, via launching a grenade and left Imam and the nation mournful for his loss. In a part of his message on the occasion of Ayatollah Ashrafi Esfahani’s martyrdom Imam Khomeini said, “He was an encouraging figure for the youths in the war fronts.”

(Source: Islamic Revolution Document Center)