Mostafa Chamran

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Mostafa Chamran
Chief commander of the IRGC
In office
1980–1981
Succeeded by Mohsen Rezaee
Minister of Defense
In office
1979–1980
Preceded by Ahmad Madani
Succeeded by Ali Khamenei
Personal details
Born 8 March 1932
Tehran, Iran
Died 20 June 1981 (aged 48-49)
Khuzestan Province, Iran
Resting place Behesht-e Zahra, Tehran
Nationality Iranian
Spouse(s) Ghadeh Jaber
Alma mater Tehran University
Texas A&M University
UC Berkeley
Profession Scientist
Religion Islam
Military service
Allegiance Islamic Republic of Iran
Service/branch IRGC
Years of service 1978 - 1981
Rank Chief Commander
Battles/wars Iran–Iraq War

Mostafa Chamran Savei (8 March 1932 – 20 June 1981) was an Iranian scientist who served as first defence minister of post-revolutionary Iran and as member of parliament, as well as commander of paramilitary volunteers in Iran–Iraq War. He was killed during the war. He helped found the Amal Movement in southern Lebanon.

Early life and education

Chamran was born into a religious family on 8 March 1932 in Tehran.[1] Earlier he was educated by Ayatollah Taleqani and Morteza Motahari.[2] He studied at Alborz High School and then graduated from Tehran University with a bachelor's degree in electro mechanics.[1]

In the late 1950s, he moved to the United States for higher education, obtaining a M.S. degree from the Texas A&M University.[3] He then went on to obtain his Ph.D. in electrical engineering and plasma physics in 1963 from the University of California, Berkeley.[4]

He was then hired as a senior research staff scientist at Bell Laboratories and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in the 1960s.[2][5] He was fluent in Persian, English, Arabic, French, and German.

Career and activities

Chamran was one of the senior members of the Freedom Movement led by Mehdi Bazargan in the 1960s.[1][6] He was part of the radical external wing together with Ebrahim Yazdi, Sadegh Ghotbzadeh and Ali Shariati.[7]

Following graduation, Chamran went to Cuba to receive military training.[8] In December 1963, he along with Ghotbzadeh and Yazdi left the US for Egypt where he was trained in guerilla warfare.[9][10] They met the Egyptian authorities to establish an anti-Shah organization in the country, which was later called SAMA, special organization for unity and action.[7] Chamran was chosen as its military head.[7] Upon his return to the US in 1965 he founded a group, Red Shiism, in San Jose with the aim of training militants.[9] His brother, Mehdi, was also part of the group.[9] In 1968, he founded another group, the Muslim Students’ Association of America (MSA), and it was led by Ebrahim Yazdi.[9] The group managed to establish branches in the United Kingdom and France.[9]

In 1971 Chamran left the US for Lebanon[9] and joined the camps of the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Amal movement.[8] He became a leading and founding member of the Islamic revolutionary movement in the Middle East, organizing and training guerrillas and revolutionary forces in Algeria, Egypt, Syria. During the civil war in Lebanon he actively cooperated with Musa Al Sadr, founder of the Amal movement.[11] Chamran also became an Amal member and "right-hand man of Sadr".[12][13]

Chamran along with Sadegh Ghotbzadeh was part of the faction, called "Syrian mafia", in the court of Khomeini, and there was a feud between his group and the Libya-friendly group, led by Mohammad Montazeri.[14]

With the Islamic Revolution taking place in Iran, Chamran returned to Iran.[15] In 1979, he served as deputy prime minister in the cabinet of Mehdi Bazargan.[16][17] He was appointed commander of Iran's Pasdaran (March 1979 – 1981)[18] and led the military operations in Kurdistan where Kurds rebelled against the Islamic regime.[16] He served as minister of defense from September 1979 to 1980,[19] being the first civil defense minister of the Islamic Republic.[20]

In March 1980, he was elected to the Majlis of Iran (the Iranian Parliament) as a representative of Tehran.[21] In May 1980, he was named the Ayatollah's representative to the Supreme Council of National Defense.[22]

Personal life

Chamran was married to Ghadeh Jaber.[23]

Death

Tomb of Mostafa Chamran in the Behesht-e-Zahra cemetery in Iran

Chamran led an infantry unit during the Iran–Iraq War and was shot twice in his left leg by shrapnel from a mortar shell.[5] However, he refused to leave his unit.[5] He was killed in Dehlavieh on 20 June 1981 as the war was raging on.[1][24][25][26][27] His death was regarded as "suspicious" and the related details have remained unclear.[15][28][29] Chamran was buried in the Behesht-e Zahra cemetery in Tehran.[5]

Legacy

Khomenei publicly proclaimed Chamran as a "proud commander of Islam."[5] Chamran was posthumously given a hero status, and many buildings and streets in Iran and Lebanon, as well as major expressway.[5] In 2012, Mohsen Alavi Pour published Chamran's biography.[30] A species of moth were named after him in 2013.[31][32] Nick Robinson published an English biography of Chamran in the United Kingdom in 2013, 22: Not a new lifestyle for those who thirst for humanity!.[33]

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Moezzinia, Vida. "Dr. Mostafa Chamran". IICHS. Retrieved 17 February 2013. 
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 "Shahid Mostafa Chamran has been known for his life of sacrifices". ABNA. 26 June 2010. Retrieved 17 February 2013. 
  3. ↑ "An integrator based on motion and electrostatic charge. (Book, 1959)". [WorldCat.org]. Retrieved 17 February 2013. 
  4. ↑ "Ph.D. Dissertations; EECS at UC Berkeley". CS. 9 January 2013. Retrieved 17 February 2013. 
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5 Scott Peterson (21 September 2010). Let the Swords Encircle Me: Iran--A Journey Behind the Headlines. Simon & Schuster. p. 701. ISBN 978-1-4165-9739-1. Retrieved 5 August 2013. 
  6. ↑ "Mehdi Bazargan's biography". Bazargan website. Retrieved 3 August 2013. 
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 Houchang Chehabi; Rula Jurdi Abisaab; Centre for Lebanese Studies (Great Britain) (2 April 2006). Distant Relations: Iran and Lebanon in the Last 500 Years. I.B.Tauris. p. 182. ISBN 978-1-86064-561-7. Retrieved 8 August 2013. 
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 Zabih, Sepehr (September 1982). "Aspects of Terrorism in Iran". Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. International Terrorism (Sage Publications) 463: 84–94. Retrieved 28 July 2013. 
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 9.3 9.4 9.5 Barsky, Yehudit (May 2003). "Hizballah" (Terrorism Briefing). The American Jewish Committee. Retrieved 5 August 2013. 
  10. ↑ Samii, Abbas William (1997). "The Shah's Lebanon policy: the role of SAVAK". Middle Eastern Studies 33 (1): 66–91. Retrieved 21 August 2013. 
  11. ↑ Ostovar, Afshon P. (2009). "Guardians of the Islamic Revolution Ideology, Politics, and the Development of Military Power in Iran (1979–2009)" (PhD Thesis). University of Michigan. Retrieved 26 July 2013. 
  12. ↑ "Musa al Sadr: The Untold Story". Asharq Alawsat. 31 May 2008. Retrieved 5 August 2013. 
  13. ↑ Ataie, Mohammad (Summer 2013). "Revolutionary Iran’s 1979 endeavor in Lebanon". Middle East Policy XX (2). Retrieved 21 August 2013. 
  14. ↑ Gayn, Mark (20 December 1979). "Into the depths of a boiling caldron". Edmonton Journal. Retrieved 27 July 2013. 
  15. ↑ 15.0 15.1 John H. Lorentz (1 April 2010). The A to Z of Iran. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 69. ISBN 978-0-8108-7638-5. Retrieved 2 August 2013. 
  16. ↑ 16.0 16.1 "Iran Unleashes Might on Kurds". The Pittsburgh Press (Tehran). UPI. 2 September 1979. Retrieved 8 August 2013. 
  17. ↑ "Kurds claim town siege". The Palm Beach Post. 17 August 1979. Retrieved 8 August 2013. 
  18. ↑ Schahgaldian, Nikola B. (March 1987). "The Iranian Military Under the Islamic Republic". RAND. Retrieved 18 February 2013. 
  19. ↑ Sepehr Zabir (23 April 2012). The Iranian Military in Revolution and War (RLE Iran D). CRC Press. p. 277. ISBN 978-1-136-81270-5. Retrieved 17 February 2013. 
  20. ↑ Rose, Gregory F. (Spring-Summer 1984). "The Post-Revolutionary Purge of Iran's Armed Forces: A Revisionist Assessment". Iranian Studies 17 (2-3): 153–194. Retrieved 19 August 2013. 
  21. ↑ Bahman Baktiari (1996). Parliamentary Politics in Revolutionary Iran: The Institutionalization of Factional Politics. University Press of Florida. p. 79. ISBN 978-0-8130-1461-6. Retrieved 27 July 2013. 
  22. ↑ "Khomenei's hard-liners triumph". The Spokesman Review. AP. May 1980. Retrieved 4 August 2013. 
  23. ↑ "Mostafa Chamran’s Lebanon converted into Arabic". Iran Book News Agency. 12 December 2012. Retrieved 4 August 2013. 
  24. ↑ Bernard Reich, Political Leaders of the Contemporary Middle East and North Africa p.466
  25. ↑ Daniel Brumberg, Reinventing Khomeini p.272
  26. ↑ Houchang Chehabi; Rula Jurdi Abisaab (2 April 2006). Distant Relations. I.B.Tauris. p. 208. ISBN 978-1-86064-561-7. Retrieved 19 February 2013. 
  27. ↑ Houchang E. Chehabi, Iranian Politics and Religious Modernism p.293
  28. ↑ Manouchehr Ganji (2002). Defying the Iranian Revolution: From a Minister to the Shah to a Leader of Resistance. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 109. ISBN 978-0-275-97187-8. Retrieved 1 August 2013. 
  29. ↑ Augustus R. Norton (19 January 2009). Hezbollah: A Short History. Princeton University Press. pp. 30–. ISBN 978-0-691-14107-7. Retrieved 9 August 2013. 
  30. ↑ "Martyr Chamran’s biography book unveiled". Taqrib News. 20 June 2012. Retrieved 4 August 2013. 
  31. ↑ Esfandiari, M.; Gyulai, P.; Rabieh, M.; Seraj, A.; Ronkay, L. (2013). "Anagnorisma chamrani sp. n. (Lepidoptera, Noctuidae) from Iran". ZooKeys 317: 17. doi:10.3897/zookeys.317.5515. 
  32. ↑ "New Anagnorisma Moth Species from Beautiful Binaloud Mountain Iran". Science Daily. 17 July 2013. Retrieved 8 August 2013. 
  33. ↑ "Book on lifestyle of Iranian veteran Chamran published in UK". Tehran Times (Tehran). 10 July 2013. Retrieved 8 August 2013. 
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Mostafa Chamran.
Political offices
Preceded by
Ahmad Madani		 Minister of Defence
1979 - 1980 		Succeeded by
Ali Khamenei
Military offices
Preceded by
None		 Chief commander of the
IRGC
1980 - 1981 		Succeeded by
Mohsen Rezaee
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