Ahmad Kasravi Quotes

Ahmad Hokmabadi Tabrizi , later known as Ahmad Kasravi , was a pre-eminent Iranian historian, jurist, linguist, theologian, a staunch secularist and intellectual. He was a professor of law at the University of Tehran, as well as an attorney and judge in Tehran, Iran.

Born in Hokmavar , Tabriz, Iran, Kasravi was an Iranian Azerbaijani. 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."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. In 1941 he established a political party, Azadegan. 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. 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. Kasravi is widely despised by pan-Turkists in the Republic of Azerbaijan and Iran, who view him as a "traitor" to Azerbaijanis. Wikipedia

✵ 29. September 1890 – 11. March 1946