Shaykh Muḥammad Taqī Isfahānī (1845–1914), also known as Agha (Āqā) Najafī, was a wealthy and powerful mujtahid (Ar./Pers. high-ranking Shīʽī jurisprudent) in Isfahan and prayer leader at the Masjid-i Shāh, its most important mosque. With the help of his younger brother, Nūrullāh,  Agha Najafī instigated resistance to the rapid growth of foreign trade and other forms of foreign influence in the last two decades of the nineteenth century under Qajar rule. He participated in the Tobacco Protests of 1891 to 1892, the ca…