Fakhreddin Shadman

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Fakhreddin Shadman
Born
Fakhreddin Shadman Valari

1907
Tehran, Qajar Iran
Died26 August 1967 (aged 59–60)
London, United Kingdom
TitleProfessor
SpouseFarangis Namazi
Parent
  • Hājj Sayyed Abu Torab (father)
Academic background
Alma materLondon School of Economics and Political Science
ThesisThe Relations of Britain and Persia, 1800-15 (1939)
Doctoral advisorCharles Kingsley Webster
Academic work
DisciplineHistorian
Sub-discipline
  • History of Islam
  • History of Iran
InstitutionsUniversity of Tehran

Fakhreddin Shadman, also known as Fakhreddin Shadman Valari, (1907–1967) was one of the leading scholars, writers and statesmen in the Pahlavi Iran. He was a faculty member at the University of Tehran. He also held various cabinet posts in 1948 and in 1953–1954.

Early life and education[edit]

Shadman was born in Tehran in 1907 into a family composed of clerics.[1] His father, Hājj Sayyed Abu Torab, was a cleric.[1] He was the eldest child of his parents and had five brothers and one sister.[1]

Shadman completed his secondary education at the Darolfonun school in Tehran.[2] He attended the Teachers Training College where he graduated in 1925 and had a degree from the School of Law in Tehran in 1927.[1] He received a PhD in history from the London School of Economics and Political Science in 1939.[1] Charles Kingsley Webster was his advisor,[3] and his thesis was entitled The Relations of Britain and Persia, 1800-15.[4]

Career[edit]

Following his graduation Shadman joined the Iranian judiciary system[1] and served as the deputy public prosecutor of Tehran.[5] Between 1932 and 1935 he worked at the Anglo-Persian Oil Company.[1] During his studies at the London School of Economics and Political Science he also taught Persian there and also, at the School of Oriental and African Studies.[1] During World War II he left Britain for the United States where he worked as a visiting scholar at Harvard University.[1]

He returned to Iran and began to work at various state institutions.[1] On 15 June 1948 he was appointed minister of national economy to the cabinet led by Prime Minister Abdolhossein Hazhir.[6] In 1950 he joined the University of Tehran where he became a professor of the history of Iran and Islam.[2] Shadman was appointed minister of economy in 1953 and then minister of justice in 1954 to the cabinet headed by Fazlollah Zahedi.[1] He continued to serve as minister of national economy in the next cabinet formed by Hossein Ala' in the spring of 1955 when Zahedi resigned from office.[7] Retiring from politics Shadman taught at the University of Tehran until 1967.[1] He was also the administrator of Imam Reza Shrine Properties, a member of the Iranian Academy and the Cultural Council of the Imperial Court of Iran and a board member of Pahlavi Library.[5]

Shadman was one of the individuals who contributed to the establishment of the Oil College in Abadan, known as Petroleum University of Technology.[5]

Views[edit]

Shadman was a nationalist and one of the early Iranian scholars who emphasized the negative effects of the modernization on the Iranian society.[2] He adopted Martin Heidegger's notion that in each historical period there is a truth "which obscures competing truths."[8] Based on this he argued that the Western-origin views should be avoided to maintain the spiritual origins and political unity of Iran.[8] His views are regarded as the basis for the nationalistic approach of the Islamic left figures.[8]

Personal life and death[edit]

Shadman married Farangis Namazi in London in 1941.[1] In 1967 he was diagnosed with cancer and went to London for treatment.[1] He died there on 26 August 1967 and was buried in Mashhad near the shrine of Imam Reza shrine.[1]

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Ali Gheissari (1 January 2000). "Shadman, Sayyed Fakhr-al-Din". Encyclopædia Iranica.
  2. ^ a b c Mohsen M Milani (2018). The Making Of Iran's Islamic Revolution: From Monarchy To Islamic Republic (2nd ed.). New York; Abingdon: Routledge. pp. 96–97. ISBN 978-0-429-97408-3.
  3. ^ Oliver Bast (2016). "Occidentalism and Historiography in Modern Iran: Fereydun Adamiyat, One of Twentieth-Century Iran's Foremost Historians, and His Assessment of the Rise of National Socialism in Germany and the Fall of the Weimar Republic". Iran: Journal of the British Institute of Persian Studies. 54 (1): 73–98. doi:10.1080/05786967.2016.11882302. S2CID 192304896.
  4. ^ Denis Wright; et al. (2020). "Great Britain". Encyclopaedia Iranica. doi:10.1163/2330-4804_EIRO_COM_11039.
  5. ^ a b c Mehrzad Boroujerdi (2020). "Rethinking the Legacy of Intellectual-Statesmen in Iran". In Ramin Jahanbegloo (ed.). Mapping the Role of Intellectuals in Iranian Modern and Contemporary History. London: Lexington Books. p. 123. ISBN 978-1-7936-0007-3.
  6. ^ T. A. Votichenko (October 1948). "Developments of the Quarter: Comment and Chronology". The Middle East Journal. 2 (4): 454–455. JSTOR 4322013.
  7. ^ Abdolreza Ansari (2017). The Shah's Iran - Rise and Fall: Conversations with an Insider. London; New York: I.B. Tauris. p. 48. ISBN 978-1-78673-164-7.
  8. ^ a b c Daniel Brumberg (2001). Reinventing Khomeini: The Struggle for Reform in Iran. Chicago; London: University of Chicago Press. p. 64. ISBN 978-0-226-07758-1.
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