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Dr. Mohajerani served as minister of culture and speaker of the cabinet in President Mohammad Khatami's government.

Ata'ollah Mohajerani (Persian: عطاالله مهاجرانی), born 1954 in Arak, Iran, is an Iranian historian, politician, journalist, and author.

Mohajerani was Mohammad Khatami's first Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance of Iran. He survived an impeachment by the 5th Majlis which was dominated by the conservatives but eventually resigned due to heavy criticisms by the Iranian Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, because of his "liberal" policies. He also served as the speaker of the cabinet during that time. He later became the president of the Iranian International Centre for Dialogue among Civilizations, but resigned from the post possibly after ethical allegations. During his ministership, he officially announced and pursued a policy of "leniency" (Persian: تساهل و تسامح) towards the field of culture and arts and removed many restrictions. Publishers, film makers, musicians and artists in general, enjoyed vast freedoms (relative to the previous years of the Islamic Republic) during his term in office.

Dr. Mohajerani received his B.S. in History from University of Isfahan, his M.S. in History and Iranian Culture from Shiraz University and his PhD in History from Tarbiat Modares University.

Mohajerani has been a representative from Shiraz in the first round of the parliamentary elections after the Iranian Revolution, where he was among the very critical opponents of Abolhassan Banisadr. Later, he became the Parliamentary Deputy to the Prime Minister Mir-Hossein Mousavi, when he started to write the weekly column Naghd-e Haal in the Ettela'at newspaper, and then Vice President of Parliamentary Affairs under Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani.

He is a member and a founder of Executives of Construction Party, which is considered a backer of Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani.

Mohajerani participated in the burying of Mehdi Bazargan, when few Iranian officials dared doing so because of Bazargan's very unpopular status among the higher ranks of the Islamic Republic government.

He has written a few books, most famous of which are a book in critique of Salman Rushdie's Satanic Verses, a book in support of Ferdowsi (and against attacks by Ahmad Shamlou), and a book on Zaynab bint Ali's role in and after Aashurah. The mentioned books are considered by some critics to be actually official positions and opinions of the Islamic Republic government on the matters, not his personal ones.

He is married to Dr. Jamileh Kadivar, who is also a reformist politician and a former member of parliament. A scandal has been going on in July and August, 2004, about a possible second and third marriage by Mohajerani, to Mahsa Youssefi and Ms Valizadeh. Some people consider this a scandal to make him lose his public face, in order to remove him from the list of candidates for the Iranian presidential election of 2005, while others consider it a good reason for not trusting Mohajerani anymore with a political office. It should be noted that under the current Iranian law, it is allowed for a Muslim man to marry up to four women, but the act is considered unethical and backward in the major Iranian belief, especially among the intellectuals.

Mr. Mohajerani left Iran after the scandals and currently lives in England with his wife Dr. Jamileh Kadivar. They share a website together called www.maktoub.ir which also has a separate subdomain for each of their personal weblogs (See External Links).

• Mohajerani's Persian weblog
• Kadivar's (Mohajerani's wife) Persian weblog
• Biography of Mohajerani (in Persian)
• Mohajerani at the ICCNC in Oakland, California

• (Persian) Mohajerani's letter to Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance