Sayyid Mir Muhammad Baqir Khatunabadi (d. 1715), the first rector and teacher of the Madrasa-yi Sultani, the biggest Shi‘ite madrasa in early modern times, gained unrivalled prominence at the court of Shah Sultan Husayn, the last effective Safavid ruler (d.1722). A number of scholars have commented on the first Safavid mulla-bashi’s influence on Shah Sultan Husayn, but little has been written on Khatunabadi himself. This paper investigates Muhammad Baqir Khatunabadi’s educational and intellectual formation and then links him to the socio-political role he played in the troubled milieu of early eighteenth-century Iran. It affords us a new perspective on the conditions of early modern Iran’s religious and scholarly community which was in disarray —religious scholars had lost their influence and respect among the elite and the public alike. I argue the office of mulla-bashi did not give Safavid clergy more power than the office of Shaykh al-Islamate and the first mulla-bashi was not as powerful and influential as Vladimir Minorsky and Saïd Amir Arjomand depict in their work. When Khatunabadi’s house was set on fire in the bread riot of 1715 and he was fatally wounded, his death went unpunished.