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Young Mehdi Bazargan

Mehdi Bazargan (مهدی بازرگان In Persian) (September, 1907? - January 20, 1995) (also spelled Mahdi Bazargan) was a prominent Iranian scholar, academic, long-time pro-democracy activist and head of Iran's interim government, virtually Iran's first prime minister after the Iranian Revolution of 1979. He was one of the architects of the Iranian revolution and head of the first engineering department of Tehran University.

Bazargan was educated in thermodynamics and engineering at the École Centrale des Arts et Manufactures in Paris.

After his graduation, Bazargan came back from France and became the head of the first engineering department of Tehran University in the late 1940s. In 1951 with the leadership of Dr. Mossadegh, Iranian parliament nationalized the Iranian oil industry (National Iranian Oil Company) and removed it from British control. Mr. Bazargan served as the first Iranian head of National Iranian Oil Company under command of Prime Minister Mossadegh.

After the fall of the Mossadegh government, he co-founded the Liberation Movement of Iran, a party similar in program to Mossadegh's National Front. He was jailed several times by Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi for political reasons.

On February 5, 1979, after the revolution forced the Shah to leave Iran, Bazargan was appointed prime minister of Iran by the Ayatollah Khomeini. He was seen as one of the figureheads of the democratic and liberal revolutionaries and came increasingly into conflict with theocratic religious clerics including the leader of revolution Ayatollah Khomeini. Although pious, Bazargan disputed the name Islamic Republic, wanted an Islamic Democratic Republic. He had been a supporter of the original revolutionary draft constitution, and opposed the Assembly of Experts for Constitution and the theocratic constitution they wrote that was eventually adopted as Iran's constitution. Bazargan resigned along with his cabinet on November 4 following the US Embassy takeover and hostage-taking. Though it was considered to be a protest against the hostage-taking and his inability to free the hostages, it was also clear that his liberal views and resistance to the clergy had already convinced him that he could not make the democratic changes he had planned.

Bazargan was openly against Iran's cultural revolution. He was also an advocate of civil society and democracy. Bazargan was a member of the first Parliament (Majles) of the newly formed Islamic Republic. The Council of Guardians denied Bazargan's petition to run for president in 1985. He died of a heart attack on January 20, 1995 while travelling from Tehran to Zurich, Switzerland.

Bazargan is considered to be an iconic figure within the ranks of modern muslim thinkers, well known as a representative of liberal-democratic Islamic thought^[1] and a thinker who has emphasized the necessity of constitutional and democratic policies. ^[2] A long time pro-democracy activist, Bazargan voluntarily enterd French army and fought against Nazi Germany in his early life.^[3] He opposed the continuation of Iran-Iraq war and the involvement of incompetent clerics in all aspects of politics, economy and society. Consequently, he faced harassment from militants within the Iranian regime.^[4]

• Imam [Khomeini] wants Iran for Islam and we want Islam for Iran.
• The greatest threat to Islam in Iran since the revolution has been the experience of living under the Islamic Republic!^[5]

• Intellectual Movements in Iran
• Mehdi Bazargan speech on democracy and election

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