Rijal Al Kashi Report 176 -2021- [SAFE]

Mehdi Kashani still prays at Imam Zadeh Saleh. He still helps the janitor with his phone. But now, when he walks home, he glances at the traffic cameras differently.

Mehdi, the report argued, was not a spy. He was not a dissident. He was a node. His daily commute, his choice of bakery, his habit of helping an elderly Kurdish janitor with his phone settings—these created a lattice of trust that someone, somewhere, was mapping. Rijal Al Kashi Report 176 -2021-

For the first time, Mehdi spoke.

Traditional rijal divides narrators into thiqa (reliable) and dha’if (weak). But Report 176 proposed a third category, which the clerical committee had not yet ratified: Mehdi Kashani still prays at Imam Zadeh Saleh

The lead investigator—a soft-spoken man with a ring bearing the seal of Imam Reza—placed a folder on the table. Mehdi, the report argued, was not a spy

Because Report 176 ends with a question in Arabic, written in the margin:

The next morning, two men in navy jackets were waiting by his car.