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Ahmad Kasravi

 

1890 - 1946

Iranian writer and reformer.

Born into a religious family in Tabriz, Ahmad Kasravi received a religious education and for a brief time was a preacher. As a young man, he joined the Tabriz branch of the reformist Democrat party, which had acquired a reputation in the national assembly for being anticlerical. Kasravi was expelled from the party in 1917 for his opposition to a growing trend among Tabriz Democrats to emphasize provincial concerns over national concerns. In 1921, he moved to Tehran, where he spent the remainder of his life working as a social reformer, activist, and historian. Kasravi was one of the most prolific and influential writers of early twentieth-century Iran. His important works include History of Iran's Constitutional Revolution, An Eighteen-Year History of Iran, Shiʿigari, and Piramun-e Islam (all of them in Arabic). Kasravi often criticized the Shiʿite clergy in his writings, especially in the two latter works, both of which were condemned by some clergy. He was assassinated by a member of the radical Fedaʾiyan-e Islam.

Bibliography

Kasravi, Ahmad. On Islam and Shiʿism, translated by M. R. Ghanoonparvar. Costa Mesa, CA: Mazda Publishers, 1990.

ERIC J. HOOGLUND

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Ahmad Kasravi

Ahmad Kasravi
Birth name Ahmad Kasravī-ye Tabrīzī
Born 29 September 1890(1890-09-29)
Tabriz, Iran
Died March 11, 1946 (aged 55)
Tehran, Iran
Nationality Iranian
Field Ancient Languages, history, Politics, religion, and Philosophy.
Works The Constitutional History of Iran; The 18 Year History of Azarbaijan; The Forgotten Kings (all in Persian)

Ahmad Kasravi (29 September 1890 - March 11, 1946) (Persian: احمد کسروی), was a notable Iranian linguist, historian, and reformer.

Born in Hokmabad (Hohmavar), Tabriz, Iran, Kasravi was an Iranian Azeri[1] Initially, Kasravi enrolled in a seminary. Later, he joined the Iranian Constitutional Revolution. He experienced a sort of conversion to Western learning when he learned that the comet of 1910 had been identified as a reappearance of Halley's comet. He abandoned 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."

It was in Tbilisi where he first became acquainted with a wide spectrum of political ideas and movements, and he soon was employed by the government of Iran in various cultural posts.

A prolific writer, Kasravi was very critical of both the Shi'a clergy and of the policies of the central government. He had liberal views on religion, was a strong supporter of democracy, and expressed them in satirical pamphlets like What Is the Religion of the Hajis with Warehouses? that infuriated many readers. His views earned him many powerful enemies such as Ayatollah Khomeini.

His detailed account of the Constitutional Revolution still stands out as one of the most important sources on the events, even though Kasravi was a teenager at the time of the revolution and cannot claim the full authority of a contemporary witness that his writing at times suggests.

Kasravi is known for his solid research work on the ancient Azari language and origin of the Azerbaijani people. He showed that the ancient Azari language was an offshoot of Pahlavi language. Due to this discovery, he was granted the membership of London Royal Asiatic Society and American Academy [2].

Arguing that ancient Azari language had been closely related to Persian language and the influx of Turkic words began only with the Seljuq invasion, Ahmad Kasravi believed that true national language of Iranian Azerbaijan was Persian and therefore advocated the linguistic assimilation of Persian in Azarbaijan.[3]

In 1927-8 Ahmad Kasravi led the way in establishing the ancestry of the Safavids dynasty with the publication of three influential articles and disputed the validity of the `official' Safavid family tree contained in the Safvat al-Safa, and argued convincingly that the ancestors of Shaykh Safi al-Din, who founded the Safavid Order (tariqa), were indigenous inhabitants of Iran and were of pure Aryan stock. Today, the consensus among Safavid historians is that the Safavid family hailed from Persian Kurdistan .[1]

On March 11, 1946, while being tried on charges of "slander against Islam," Kasravi and one of his assistants were knifed and killed in open court in Tehran by followers of Navvab Safavi, a Shi'a extremist cleric who had founded a terrorist organization called the Fadayan-e Islam (literally Devotees of Islam). The same group had failed in assassinating Kasravi earlier in April 1945 in Tehran. Ayatollah Borujerdi and Ayatollah Sadr[who?] issued fatwas for killing Ahmad Kasravi.[4]

Some of his more famous books are:

  • The 18 Year History of Azarbaijan (Persian: تاریخ هجده‌سالهٔ آذربایجان)
  • The Constitutional History of Iran (Persian: تاریخ مشروطهٔ ایران)
  • The Forgotten Kings (Persian: شهرياران گمنام)
  • The 500 Year History of Khuzestan (Persian: تاریخ پانصد سالهٔ خوزستان)
  • A Brief History of The Lion and Sun (Persian: تاریخچهٔ شیر وخورشید)
  • Sheikh Safi and His Progeny (Persian: شیخ صفی و تبارش)
  • Azari or the Ancient Language of Azerbaijan (Persian: آذری یا زبان باستان آذربایجان)
  • varjavand bonyad (Persian: ورجاوند بنیاد)
  • Shi'aism (Persian: شيعيگرى)
  • Bahaism (Persian: بهاييگرى)
  • Sufism (Persian: صوفيگرى)

Contents

Books by Ahmad Kasravi

  • Ahmad Kasravi, Tārikh-e Mashruteh-ye Iran (تاریخ مشروطهٔ ایران) (History of the Iranian Constitutional Revolution), in Persian, 951 p. (Negāh Publications, Tehran, 2003), ISBN 9643511383. Note: This book is also available in two volumes, published by Amir Kabir Publications in 1984. Amir Kabir's 1961 edition is in one volume, 934 pages.
  • Ahmad Kasravi, History of the Iranian Constitutional Revolution: Tārikh-e Mashrute-ye Iran, Volume I, translated into English by Evan Siegel, 347 p. (Mazda Publications, Costa Mesa, California, 2006). ISBN 1568591977

See also

Notes

  1. ^ V. Minorsky. 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 (1957), p. 66. JSTOR
  2. ^ احمد کسروی؛ پژوهشگری،سرکشی و خرده نگری Khosro Naghed
  3. ^ Tadeusz Swietochowski, Russia and a Borderland in Transition Azerbaijan, 122-289 p. (Columbia University Press, 1995). ISBN 0231070683
  4. ^ IICHS موسسه مطالعات تاريخ معاصر ايران

References

External links



 
 

 

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