Professor Ali Fanaei is a moral philosopher and prominent Iranian public intellectual. He studied at the Ḥawza ʿIlmiyya of Qom for seventeen years, including seven years of advanced studies (dars al-khārij) under leading scholars such as Ayatollah Sheikh Javad Tabrizi, Ayatollah Seyyed Kaẓim al-Ḥaʾiri, and Ayatollah Seyyed Ahmad Madadi. He completed an MA in Islamic Theology under the supervision of Professor Ahmad Ahmadi and Professor Mostafa Malekian at the University of Qom before undertaking an MPhil and PhD at the University of Sheffield under the supervision of Professor Richard Joyce and the late Professor Robert Stern. His doctoral thesis was entitled “The Methods of Moral Thinking: An Inquiry into the Problem of Justification in Moral Epistemology.”

He has taught at Al-Mahdi Institute since 2007 as a Senior Lecturer in Islamic Theological Studies and currently serves as Research Lead for Qurʾānic Studies at AMI. He is the author of numerous books and articles on ethics, Islamic mysticism, Islamic theology, and the method of ijtihad.