Rijal Al Kashi Report: 176 -2021-

Mehdi Kashani was a mid-level telecom engineer and a Friday prayer regular at the Imam Zadeh Saleh mosque in north Tehran. His beard was regulation length. His phone contained no music, only Quranic recitations. By all measures, he was thiqa .

The lead investigator—a soft-spoken man with a ring bearing the seal of Imam Reza—placed a folder on the table.

Mehdi did not reply. He deleted the message, wiped the app, and recited Ayat al-Kursi twice before sleeping. Rijal Al Kashi Report 176 -2021-

For the first time, Mehdi spoke.

“Who is ‘they’?”

“They are watching people like you,” the investigator said. “Not the government. Someone else. Someone using the old nomenclature. Someone who knows Al Kashi better than the seminarians.”

The next morning, two men in navy jackets were waiting by his car. Mehdi Kashani was a mid-level telecom engineer and

The file was not supposed to exist.