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Mehdi Bazargan

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Mehdi Bazargan
مهدی بازرگان
Bazargan in 1979
41stPrime Minister of Iran
In office
4 February 1979[a]– 6 November 1979
Appointed byRuhollah Khomeini
Preceded byShapour Bakhtiar
Succeeded byMohammad-Ali Rajai(1980)
Minister of Foreign Affairs
Acting
In office
1 April 1979 – 12 April 1979
Prime MinisterHimself
Preceded byKarim Sanjabi
Succeeded byEbrahim Yazdi
Member of the Parliament of Iran
In office
28 May 1980 – 28 May 1984
ConstituencyTehran, Rey and Shemiranat
Majority1,447,316 (68%)
Personal details
Born
Mehdi Bazargan

1 September 1907
Tehran,Sublime State of Persia
Died20 January 1995(1995-01-20)(aged 87)
Zürich,Switzerland
Resting placeQom,Iran
NationalityIranian
Political party
Other political
affiliations
SpouseMalak Tabatabayi
Children5, includingAbdolali
Alma mater
Signature
Military service
AllegianceIran
Years of service1935–1937
  1. ^The office was disputed between him andShapour Bakhtiarfrom 4 to 11 February 1979.

Mehdi Bazargan(Persian:مهدی بازرگان;1 September 1907 – 20 January 1995) was an Iranian scholar, academic, long-time pro-democracy activist and head ofIran's interim government.

One of the leading figures ofIranian Revolutionof 1979, he was appointedprime ministerin February 1979 byAyatollah Khomeini,making him Iran's first prime minister after the revolution. He resigned his position in November of the same year, in protest at thetakeover of the U.S. Embassy in Iranand as an acknowledgement of his government's failure in preventing it.[5]

He was the head of the first engineering department ofUniversity of Tehran.

Early life and education[edit]

Bazargan in his youth

Bazargan was born into anAzerbaijanifamily[6][7]inTehranon 1 September 1907.[8][9]His father, Hajj Abbasqoli Tabrizi (died 1954) was a self-made merchant and a religious activist inbazaarguilds.[8]

Bazargan went toFranceto receive university education through an Iranian government scholarship during the reign ofReza Shah.[10]He attendedLycée Georges ClemenceauinNantesand was a classmate ofAbdollah Riazi.Bazargan then studiedthermodynamicsand engineering at theÉcole Centrale des Arts et Manufactures(École Centrale Paris).[11][12][13]

Following his return to Iran, Bazargan was called up forconscription,and served from 1935 to 1937.[14]According toHouchang Chehabi,Bazargan was firstly tasked with shifting pebbles in a barracks but was then moved to translate technical articles from French.[15]

Career[edit]

After his graduation, Bazargan became the head of the first engineering department atTehran Universityin the late 1940s. He was a deputy minister under PremierMohammad Mosaddeghin the 1950s.[16]Bazargan served as the first Iranian head of theNational Iranian Oil Companyunder the administration of Prime Minister Mosaddegh.[17]

Bazargan co-founded theLiberation Movement of Iranin 1961,[16]a party similar in its program to Mossadegh's National Front. Although he accepted the Shah,Mohammad Reza Pahlavi,as the legitimate head of state, he was jailed several times on political grounds. A strong admirer ofMahatma Gandhi,he praisedMahatma Gandhi's ideas and theIndian independence movementin his writings in jail as an ideal example for Iranians.[18][19]

Iranian Revolution[edit]

On 4 February 1979, Bazargan was appointed prime minister of Iran byAyatollah Khomeini.[20][21]He was seen as one of the democratic and liberal figureheads of the revolution who came into conflict with the more radical religious leaders – including Khomeini himself – as the revolution progressed. Although pious, Bazargan initially disputed the nameIslamic Republic,wanting anIslamic Democratic Republic.[22]He had also been a supporter of the original (non-theocratic) revolutionary draft constitution, and opposed theAssembly of Experts for Constitutionand theconstitutionthey wrote that was eventually adopted as Iran's constitution. Seeing his government's lack of power, in March 1979, he submitted his resignation to Ayatollah Khomeini.[23]Khomeini did not accept his resignation,[23]and in April 1979, he and his cabinet members were reported to have escaped an assassination attempt.[24]

Bazargan resigned, along with his cabinet, on 4 November 1979, following the taking of hostages at the U.S. Embassy.[5][25]His resignation was considered a protest against the hostage-taking and a recognition of his government's inability to free the hostages, but it was also clear that his hopes for liberal democracy and an accommodation with the West would not prevail.

Bazargan sworn in as prime minister behindRuhollah Khomeiniin the absence ofParliament

Bazargan continued in Iranian politics as a member of the firstParliament(Majles) of the newly formed Islamic Republic. He openly opposedIran's cultural revolutionand continued to advocate civil rule and democracy. In November 1982, he expressed his frustration with the direction the Islamic Revolution had taken in an open letter to the then speaker of parliamentAkbar Hashemi Rafsanjani.

The government has created an atmosphere of terror, fear, revenge and national disintegration.... What has the ruling elite done in nearly four years, besides bringing death and destruction, packing the prisons and the cemeteries in every city, creating long queues, shortages, high prices, unemployment, poverty, homeless people, repetitious slogans and a dark future?[26]

Bazargan withYasser Arafat

His term as a member of parliament lasted until 1984.[7]During his term, he served as a lawmaker ofthe Iran Freedom Movement,which he had founded in 1961, and which was abolished in 1990.[7]In 1985, theCouncil of Guardiansdenied Bazargan's petition to run for president.

Views[edit]

Bazargan is a respected figure within the ranks of modern Muslim thinkers, known as a representative of liberal-democratic Islamic thought[27]and a thinker who emphasized the necessity of constitutional and democratic policies.[28]In the immediate aftermath of the revolution Bazargan led a faction that opposed the Revolutionary Council dominated bythe Islamic Republican Partyand personalities such asAyatollah Mohammad Hossein Beheshti.[29]He opposed the continuation of theIran–Iraq Warand the involvement of Islamists in all aspects of politics, economy and society. Consequently, he faced harassment from militants and young revolutionaries within Iran.[30]

Attacks[edit]

Duringthe Pahlavi era,Bazargan's house in Tehran was bombed on 8 April 1978.[31]The underground committee for revenge, a reputed state-financed organization, proclaimed the responsibility of the bombing.[31]

Laws of social evolution[edit]

Bazargan is known for some of the earliest work in human thermodynamics, as found in his 1946 chapter "A Physiological Analysis of Human Thermodynamics" and his 1956 bookLove and Worship: Human Thermodynamics,the latter of which being written while in prison, in which he attempted to show that religion and worship are a byproduct ofevolution,as explained in English naturalistCharles Darwin'sOn the Origin of Species(1859), and that the true laws of society are based on thelaws of thermodynamics.

Death[edit]

Bazargan died of a heart attack on 20 January 1995 in Switzerland.[7]He died at a hospital inZürichafter collapsing atthe airport.[7]He was travelling to the United States for heart surgery.[7]

Personal life[edit]

Bazargan married Malak Tabatabai in 1939.[8]They had five children, two sons and three daughters.[8]

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^Abrahamian, Ervand (1982).Iran Between Two Revolutions.Princeton University Press. pp.190–191.ISBN0-691-10134-5.
  2. ^Afshari, Reza (2011),Human Rights in Iran: The Abuse of Cultural Relativism,University of Pennsylvania Press, p. 358,ISBN9780812201055
  3. ^Bahman Bakhtiari (1996).Parliamentary Politics in Revolutionary Iran: The Institutionalization of Factional Politics.University Press of Florida. p. 69.ISBN0813014611.
  4. ^Chehabi, Houchang (1995). "A Knife Without a Blade".Between States: Interim Governments in Democratic Transitions.Cambridge University Press. p. 132.ISBN978-0-521-48498-5.
  5. ^abGodsel, Geoffrey (9 November 1979)."Bazargan resignation increases Iran risks to American hostages".The Deseret News.Retrieved9 November2012.
  6. ^The Rising Tide of Cultural Pluralism: The Nation-State at Bay?,Crawford Young, p. 127, 1993
  7. ^abcdef"Mehdi Bazargan, Former Iran Premier, Dies".The New York Times.21 January 1995.Retrieved9 November2012.
  8. ^abcdBarzin, Saeed (21 January 1995)."Mehdi Bazargan".The Guardian.Archivedfrom the original on 12 May 2022.Retrieved22 August2013.
  9. ^Biography: Mehdi BazarganBBC Persian2009
  10. ^Vakili Zad, Cyrus (Spring 1990)."Organization, Leadership and Revolution: Religiously-Oriented Opposition in the Iranian Revolution of 1978–1979".Conflict Quarterly:5–25.Retrieved13 February2013.
  11. ^Sahimi, Muhammad (6 August 2009)."If I Confess..."Tehran Bureau via PBS.Retrieved18 October2012.
  12. ^Boroujerdi, Mehrzad (1996).Iranian Intellectuals and the West: The Tormented Triumph of Nativism.Syracuse University Press. p. 190.ISBN9780815604334.Retrieved18 October2012.
  13. ^"Mehdi Bazargan".Encyclopædia Britannica.Retrieved18 October2012.
  14. ^Dabashi, Hamid (2006).Theology of Discontent: The Ideological Foundation of the Islamic Revolution in Iran.Transaction Publishers. p. 327.ISBN1-4128-0516-3.
  15. ^Chehabi, Houchang Esfandiar (1986).Modernist Shi'ism and Politics: The Liberation Movement of Iran(PhD Dissertation). Vol. I/II. Yale University. p. 204.ASINB0007CAVDC.
  16. ^ab"Iran's Political Elite".United States Institute of Peace.11 October 2010.Retrieved28 July2013.
  17. ^Kinzer, Stephen (2003).All the Shah's men: an American coup and the roots of Middle East terror.Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley & Sons. pp.93–94.ISBN0471265179.
  18. ^Reframing the Implications of Knowledge of History, Philosophy and Socio-political Science in the Prospect of Democratisation in Iran(PDF).Griffith University. p. 222.
  19. ^Dabashi, H. (2012).Shi'ism: A Religion of Protest.Harvard University Press. p. 272.ISBN978-0-674-05875-0.
  20. ^Martin, Richard C., ed. (2003).Encyclopedia of Islam and the Muslim World.Vol. 1. Macmillan Reference USA. p. 106.ISBN9780028656045.
  21. ^Nikou, Semira N."Timeline of Iran's Political Events".United States Institute of Peace.Retrieved27 July2013.
  22. ^Abrahamian, Ervand (2008).History of Modern Iran.Cambridge University Press.ISBN9780521821391.
  23. ^ab"Bazargan talked out of resigning".The Palm Beach Post.Tehran. 10 March 1979.Retrieved9 November2012.[permanent dead link]
  24. ^Branigin, William (25 April 1979)."Reports of Attack on Prime Minister Set Tehran on Edge".The Washington Post.Retrieved2 November2019.
  25. ^Rakel, Eva Patricia (2008).The Iranian Political elite, state and society relations, and foreign relations since the Islamic revolution.University of Amsterdam.
  26. ^"Khomenin's grip appears at its tightest".The New York Times.21 November 1982.
  27. ^Mahdavi, Mojtaba (2004)."Islamic Forces of the Iranian Revolution: A Critique of Cultural Essentialism".Iran Analysis Quarterly.2(2). Archived fromthe originalon 14 September 2021.Retrieved22 July2007.
  28. ^Barzin, Saeed (1994). "Constitutionalism and Democracy in the Religious Ideology of Mehdi Bazargan".British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies.21(1): 85–101.doi:10.1080/13530199408705593.JSTOR195568.
  29. ^Behrooz, Maziar (October 1994). "Factionalism in Iran under Khomeini".Middle Eastern Studies.27(4): 597–614.doi:10.1080/00263209108700879.JSTOR4283464.
  30. ^Leicht, Justus (20 November 2001)."Mass trial of opposition group in Iran".World Socialist Website.
  31. ^abNikazmerad, Nicholas M. (1980). "A Chronological Survey of the Iranian Revolution".Iranian Studies.13(1/4): 327–368.doi:10.1080/00210868008701575.JSTOR4310346.

Further reading[edit]

External links[edit]

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Political offices
Preceded by Prime Minister of Iran
1979 		Succeeded by
Preceded by Foreign Affairs Minister of Iran
1979 		Succeeded by
Party political offices
Preceded by
None
 Secretary-General ofFreedom Movement of Iran
1961–1995 		Succeeded by
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