Ahmad Kasravi

Ahmad Kasravi
احمد کسروی
Born
Ahmad Hokmabadi Tabrizi

(1890-09-29)29 September 1890
Tabriz, Sublime State of Persia
Died11 March 1946(1946-03-11) (aged 55)
Tehran, Imperial State of Iran
NationalityIranian
Known forAncient Languages, history, Politics, religion.
Notable workThe Constitutional History of Iran; The Forgotten Kings; Shi'ism; Zabân-e Pâk; Azari or the Ancient Language of Azerbaijan (all in Persian)
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Ahmad Kasravi
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Ahmad Hokmabadi Tabrizi (Persian: سید احمد حکم‌آبادی تبریزی, romanized: Ahmad-e Hokmabadi-ye Tabrizi;‎ 29 September 1890 – 11 March 1946), later known as Ahmad Kasravi, was a pre-eminent Iranian historian, jurist, linguist, theologian, a staunch secularist and intellectual.[1][2][3] He was a professor of law at the University of Tehran, as well as an attorney and judge in Tehran, Iran.

Born in Hokmavar (Hokmabad), Tabriz, Iran, Kasravi was an Iranian Azerbaijani.[4][5] During his early years, Kasravi enrolled in a seminary. Later, he joined the Iranian Constitutional Revolution. He deserted his clerical training after this event and enrolled in the American Memorial School of Tabriz. Thenceforward he became, in Roy Mottahedeh's words, "a true anti-cleric."[6]

Kasravi was the founder of a political-social movement whose goal was to build an Iranian secular identity. The movement was formed during the Pahlavi dynasty. Kasravi authored more than 70 books, mostly in the Persian language. The most important works from his body of work are History of the Iranian Constitutional Revolution, Azari or the Ancient Language of Azerbaijan and The 18 Year History of Azerbaijan.

He was attacked vehemently by the Shi'ite clergy for his secular ideas and by the court for his anti-monarchical statements. In his early period he was linked with the Democrat Party in Iran.[7] In 1941 he established a political party, Azadegan.[8] Kasravi was eventually assassinated by followers of Navvab Safavi, the founder of the Shi'ite fundamentalist Fada'iyan-e Islam group. Many of the prominent members of the then Iranian clergy, including the later Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, supported the act of Kasravi being murdered, and Navvab and the Fada'iyan were proclaimed heroes following the assassination.[9] Kasravi was the first Iranian Azerbaijani intellectual to take a firm position against pan-Turkists from the Ottoman Empire, and authored the most important work on the Iranian identity of the Azerbaijan region and the region's Old Azeri language, an Iranian language.[10] Kasravi is widely despised by pan-Turkists in the Republic of Azerbaijan and Iran, who view him as a "traitor" to Azerbaijanis.[11]

  1. ^ Ridgeon 2018.
  2. ^ Multiple Authors 2012, p. 87.
  3. ^ Jahanbakhsh, Forough (2001). "Opposition Groups". Islam, Democracy and Religious Modernism in Iran, 1953–2000: From Bāzargān to Soroush. Vol. 77. Brill Publishers. p. 52. ISBN 9004119825.
  4. ^ V. Minorsky. (1957). Mongol Place-Names in Mukri Kurdistan (Mongolica, 4), Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, Vol. 19, No. 1, pp. 58–81, p. 66. JSTOR
  5. ^ Iran and Its Place Among Nations, Alidad Mafinezam, Aria Mehrabi, 2008, p.57
  6. ^ Mottahedeh, Roy (2009). The mantle of the prophet : religion and politics in Iran (Rev. ed.). Oxford [England]: Oneworld Publications. p. 104. ISBN 9781851686162.
  7. ^ Lloyd Ridgeon (2005). Religion and Politics in Modern Iran: A Reader. I.B.Tauris. p. 55. ISBN 978-1-84511-073-4.
  8. ^ Lloyd Ridgeon (2006). Sufi castigator. Ahmad Kasravi and the Iranian mystical tradition. London: Routledge. p. 20. ISBN 9780415665131.
  9. ^ Amini, Moḥammad (2012). "KASRAVI, AḤMAD ii. ASSASSINATION". In Yarshater, Ehsan (ed.). Encyclopædia Iranica, Volume XVI/1: Kashan–Kašši , Abu ʿAmr Mohammad. London and New York: Routledge & Kegan Paul. pp. 92–94. ISBN 978-1-934283-33-2.
  10. ^ Ahmadi, Hamid (2017). "The Clash of Nationalisms: Iranian response to Baku's irredentism". In Kamrava, Mehran (ed.). The Great Game in West Asia: Iran, Turkey and the South Caucasus. Oxford University Press. p. 121. ISBN 978-0190869663.
  11. ^ Ahmadi, Hamid (2017). "The Clash of Nationalisms: Iranian response to Baku's irredentism". In Kamrava, Mehran (ed.). The Great Game in West Asia: Iran, Turkey and the South Caucasus. Oxford University Press. p. 299 (note 111). ISBN 978-0190869663.