It’s said that “the family name was changed to Navvab Safavi to identify with the famous Shi’ite dynasty of the Safavids, who in the sixteenth century made Shi’ism the state religion of homeland.” Growing up during this period of militant secularization, after briefly working in Abadan’s petroleum installations in Khuzestan province, for the British-owned persian Oil Company, he decided, in 1943, to pursue religious studies at Najaf.