Bazargan, Mehdi (1907–1995)

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BAZARGAN, MEHDI (1907–1995)

The son of a merchant from Tabriz, Mehdi Bazargan was born in Tehran, Iran. Educated both in traditional Islamic madrasa and modern schools, he completed his studies at Ecole Polytéchnique and Ecole Normale in France. Muhammad Mosaddeq (b. 1882) admired Bazargan's engineering approach to social organization, such as Tehran's fresh water project (c. 1952), and commissioned him to fill the gap resulting from the departure of British experts after the nationalization of Iran's oil industry. He became a founder of the Engineering Association of Iran in 1945 and of the National Liberation Movement in 1961.

Bazargan was one of a group of Islamic thinkers who convened to discuss current issues in the early 1960s, and was especially interested in adapting Shi˓ite Islam to the technological world without importing its ideology. Most people in this group became prominent leaders of the Iranian Revolution. Bazargan was imprisoned along with other nationalist leaders in 1963. After the revolution of 1979, he became the prime minister of the provisional government. Bazargan was later ousted due to the occupation of the American embassy and hostage taking by students and his meeting with Brzezinski in Algiers.

See alsoIran, Islamic Republic of ; Liberation Movement of Iran ; Reform: Iran ; Revolution: Islamic Revolution in Iran .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Chehabi, H. E. Iranian Politics and Religious Modernism: TheLiberation Movement of Iran Under the Shah and Khomeini. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1990.

Mazyar Lotfalian

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Bazargan, Mehdi (1907–1995)

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