Allegations regarding Hassan Rouhani's plagiarism were first raised in 2013 when it was claimed that he had probably "lifted" sentences from a book by Afghan author, Mohammad Hashim Kamali. Glasgow Caledonian University, Rouhani's graduation school, argued that the sentences were both cited properly. The issue was raised again amid 2017 Iranian presidential election when a student campaign claimed that they had for the first time investigated Rouhani's whole thesis using plagiarism detection tool iThenticate and that chapters one through four of Rouhani's thesis had been plagiarized at least 39%, 43%, 40% and 82%, respectively. Ayatollah Ali Akbar Kalantari, a member of Assembly of Experts, Shiraz University faculty member and one of the alleged victims, said that "major segments" of Chapter 4 of Rouhani's thesis had been translated from his book without being referenced.[1]
Sadegh Zibakalam, reformist political science professor at University of Tehran, accused Rouhani's rival of politicizing the case right before the elections. Mohammad Mehdi Zahedi, head of Iranian Parliament's Commission on Education and Research, said that he had found major plagiarisms in chapter 4 of Rouhani's thesis and that the case would be investigated in Education and Research Commission. 50 student-run organizations as well as Shiraz University faculty professors asked Ali Akbar Kalantari to prosecute the case in separate letters.