Mehdi Bazargan

Mehdi Bazargan (Persian: مهدی بازرگان; Azerbaijani: Mehdi Bazərgan; 1 September 1907 – 20 January 1995) was a prominent Iranian scholar, academic, long-time pro-democracy activist and head of Iran's interim government, making him Iran's first prime minister after the Iranian Revolution of 1979. He was the head of the first engineering department of Tehran University. A well-respected religious intellectual, known for his honesty^[1] and expertise in the Islamic and secular sciences, he is credited with being one of the founders of the contemporary Islamic intellectual movement in Iran.

Background

Bazargan was born to an Iranian Azeri family in Azerbaijan,^[2] but grew up in Tehran. His father, Hajj 'Abbasqoli Tabrizi (d.1954) was a self-made merchant and a devout religious activist who was the head of the Azarbaijani mosque and community in Tehran.

Bazargan was educated in thermodynamics and engineering at the École Centrale des Arts et Manufactures in Paris. After his graduation, Bazargan voluntarily joined the French army and fought against Nazi Germany.^[3] Bazargan then came back from France and became the head of the first engineering department at Tehran University in the late 1940s. In 1951, with the leadership of Dr. Mohammad Mossadegh, Iranian parliament nationalized the Iranian oil industry (National Iranian Oil Company) and removed it from British control. Bazargan served as the first Iranian head of the National Iranian Oil Company under the administration of Prime Minister Mossadegh.

After the fall of the Mossadegh government, Bazargan co-founded the Liberation Movement of Iran, a party similar in its program to Mossadegh's National Front. Although he accepted the Shah as the legitimate head of state, he was jailed several times on political grounds.

Iranian Revolution

On 4 February 1979, after the revolution forced the Shah to leave Iran, Bazargan was appointed prime minister of Iran by Ayatollah Khomeini..^[4] 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 Ayatollah Khomeini himself – as the revolution progressed. Although pious, Bazargan initially disputed the name Islamic Republic, wanting an Islamic Democratic Republic.^[5] He had also been a supporter of the original (non-theocratic) revolutionary draft constitution, and opposed the Assembly of Experts for Constitution and the constitution they wrote that was eventually adopted as Iran's constitution.

Bazargan resigned along with his cabinet on 4 November following the US Embassy takeover and hostage-taking. 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 continued in Iranian politics as a member of the first Parliament (Majles) of the newly formed Islamic Republic. He openly opposed Iran's cultural revolution and 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 parliament Akbar 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?^[6]

In 1985 the Council of Guardians denied Bazargan's petition to run for president. He died of a heart attack on 20 January 1995 while travelling from Tehran to Zurich, Switzerland.

Bazargan is considered to be a respected figure within the ranks of modern Muslim thinkers, well known as a representative of liberal-democratic Islamic thought^[7] and a thinker who has emphasized the necessity of constitutional and democratic policies.^[8] He opposed the continuation of Iran-Iraq war and the involvement of clerics in all aspects of politics, economy and society. Consequently, he faced harassment from militants and young revolutionaries within Iran.^[9]

Laws of social evolution

Bazargan is noted for having done some of the first work in human thermodynamics, as found in his 1946 chapter “A Physiological Analysis of Human Thermodynamics” and his 1956 book Love 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 of evolution, as explained in English naturalist Charles Darwin's 1859 Origin of Species, and that the true laws of society are based on the laws of thermodynamics.

Notes

See also

• Intellectual Movements in Iran
• Mehdi Bazargan speech on democracy and election