In 1967, Reyshahri fled to Najaf and stayed there for a while. Upon his return to Iran, he was imprisoned. Until the revolution, he was banned from preaching. During the revolution, Reyshahri claimed to have discovered two abortive coups d’état: the Nozheh coup, which was supposed to happen on 8 July 1980 by supporters of Shapour Bakhtiar, and was reported to Reyshahri by Saeed Hajjarian, and the Ghotbzadeh coup, which led to the execution of Sadegh Ghotbzadeh and the removal of grand ayatollah Ayatollah Kazem Shariatmadari from being a marja by the Society of Teachers of the Qom Hawza.