1
00:00:00,107 --> 00:00:04,086
The place of study I went to was not a school but a maktab.

2
00:00:04,260 --> 00:00:12,720
I was maybe four or five years old. My older brother—
about three and a half years older than me

3
00:00:12,720 --> 00:00:22,800
—and I were placed together in a girls' maktab, meaning one whose teacher
was a woman; there were mostly girls and a few boys; we boys,

4
00:00:22,800 --> 00:00:29,920
I was the youngest there. They had us learn the Qur'an—
naturally, since maktabs taught Qur'an.

5
00:00:30,160 --> 00:00:39,320
In schools at that time Qur'an was not usual; they didn't teach it.
From early on when we went to school I wore a qaba;

6
00:00:39,320 --> 00:00:45,120
for many summers I went bareheaded;
in winter my mother would wrap a turban on my head.

7
00:00:45,120 --> 00:00:54,120
My mother wrapped turbans because she herself was a cleric's daughter
and had clerical brothers; she knew well how to tie a turban. On our

8
00:00:54,120 --> 00:01:02,640
heads she tied turbans and we went to school. Seyyed Ali at age five,
along with his brother Seyyed Muhammad, entered primary school.

9
00:01:02,640 --> 00:01:10,400
The principal noticed Seyyed Ali's fine voice
and chose him to recite the Qur'an at the head of the line.

10
00:01:10,400 --> 00:01:20,440
So Seyyed Ali became the school's Qur'an reciter—
though our school was what you might call a private one,

11
00:01:20,440 --> 00:01:29,920
also a religious school whose teachers and administrators were chosen
from devout people and ran with programs

12
00:01:30,320 --> 00:01:38,680
somewhat more religious than ordinary schools of that day—
because schools generally had no proper religious program;

13
00:01:38,680 --> 00:01:45,080
this school did. In religious lessons
I did well—I recited the Qur'an aloud a lot.

14
00:01:45,080 --> 00:01:58,000
I was the school's Qur'an reciter: "Bismillahi'r-Rahmani'r-Rahim."
Seyyed Ali in this period gained a fine reputation for his voice,

15
00:01:58,000 --> 00:02:04,880
so much that he became the reciter at the welcome ceremony
for Ayatollah Seyyed Abu'l-Qasim Kashani,

16
00:02:04,880 --> 00:02:11,200
and when Ayatollah Seyyed Nur al-Din Husayni Shirazi
came to Mashhad to visit Imam Rida (peace be upon him),

17
00:02:11,200 --> 00:02:20,960
nine-year-old Seyyed Ali at the reception for him also recited
verses from the Qur'an. Seyyed Ali's bond with the Qur'an

18
00:02:20,960 --> 00:02:23,400
began from this time.