Born in Fasa (Fars Province) to a politically active family, Mohsen Kadivar completed his primary and secondary education in Shiraz before being admitted into electronics engineering at Shiraz University in 1977. He became politically active as a student and was arrested by the shah's police in May 1978 for his political activities. In 1980 he switched his focus to religious education and began attending Shiraz Seminary. He moved to Qom in 1981 to pursue his studies in fiqh and philosophy. In Qom, he was taught by prominent teachers like Ayatollah Hossein-Ali Montazeri. Kadivar graduated with a degree in ijtihad in 1997. He got his PhD in Islamic philosophy and theology from Tarbiat Modares University in Tehran in 1999.
