Mehdi Bazargan

Mehdi Bazargan Persian: مهدی بازرگان‎‎ Azerbaijani: Mehdi Bazərgan
75th Prime Minister of Iran 1st Prime Minister of the Islamic Republic
In office 11 February 1979 – 6 November 1979
Deputy	Abbas Amir-Entezam
Preceded by	Shapour Bakhtiar
Succeeded by	Mohammad-Ali Rajai
Minister of Foreign Affairs Acting
In office 1 April 1979 – 12 April 1979
Prime Minister	Himself
Preceded by	Karim Sanjabi
Succeeded by	Ebrahim Yazdi
Member of Parliament of Iran
In office 4 May 1980 – 6 May 1984
Constituency	Tehran
Personal details
Born	1 September 1907 Tehran, Persia
Died	Zurich, Switzerland
Nationality	Iranian
Political party	Freedom Movement
Spouse(s)	Malak Tabatabai (1939–1995, his death)
Children	Zahra Abdolali Abolfazl Fereshteh Mohammad Navid
Alma mater	École Centrale Paris
Religion	Shia Islam
Signature
Website	Official website

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 resigned his position as prime minister in November 1979, in protest of the US Embassy takeover and as an acknowledgement of his government's failure in preventing it.

He was the head of the first engineering department of University of Tehran. A well-respected religious intellectual, known for his honesty and expertise in the Islamic and secular sciences, he is credited with being one of the founders of the contemporary intellectual movement in Iran.

Early life and education

A young Bazargan

Bazargan was born into an Azeri family in Tehran on 1 September 1907. His father, Hajj Abbasquoli Tabrizi (died 1954) was a self-made merchant and a religious activist in Bazaar guilds.

Bazargan was sent by the government to France to receive university education as a scholar of the Reza Shah scholarship fund. He studied thermodynamics and engineering at the École Centrale des Arts et Manufactures in Paris.

Career

After his graduation, Bazargan voluntarily joined the French army and fought against Nazi Germany. Bazargan then came back from France and became the head of the first engineering department at Tehran University in the late 1940s. He was a deputy minister under Premier Mohammad Mossadeq in the 1950s. Bazargan served as the first Iranian head of the National Iranian Oil Company under the administration of Prime Minister Mossadegh.

Bazargan co-founded the Liberation Movement of Iran in 1961, 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.

Iranian Revolution

On 4 February 1979, Bazargan was appointed prime minister of Iran by Ayatollah Khomeini. 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 name Islamic Republic, wanting an Islamic Democratic Republic. 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. In March 1979, he submitted his resignation due to his government's lack of power to Ayatollah Khomeini. However, Khomeini did not accept his resignation. In April 1979, he and the members of cabinet escaped an assassination attempt.

Bazargan resigned along with his cabinet on 4 November 1979 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 sworn in as prime minister behind Ruhollah Khomeini in the absence of Parliament

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?

Bazargan with Yasser Arafat

His term as a member of parliament lasted until 1984. During his term, he served as a lawmaker of the Iran Freedom Movement, which he had founded in 1961 and abolished in 1990. In 1985, the Council of Guardians denied Bazargan's petition to run for president.

Views

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 and a thinker who emphasized the necessity of constitutional and democratic policies. In the immediate aftermath of the revolution Bazargan led a faction that opposed the Revolutionary Council dominated by the Islamic Republican Party and personalities such as Ayatollah Mohammad Hossein Beheshti. He opposed the continuation of the 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.

Attacks

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

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.

Death

Bazargan died of a heart attack on 21 January 1995 in Switzerland. He died at a hospital in Zurich after collapsing at the airport. He was travelling to the United States for heart surgery.

Personal life

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

See also

• Intellectual Movements in Iran
• Iranian Revolution
• Interim Government of Iran
• Iran hostage crisis

External links

• Mehdi Bazargan speech on democracy and election on YouTube

Political offices
Preceded by Shapour Bakhtiar	Prime Minister of Iran 1979	Succeeded by Mohammad Ali Rajai
Preceded by Karim Sanjabi	Foreign Affairs Minister of Iran 1979	Succeeded by Ebrahim Yazdi
Party political offices
Preceded by None	Leader of Freedom Movement of Iran 1961–1995	Succeeded by Ebrahim Yazdi