Mehdi Bazargan
Mehdi Bazargan (مهدی بازرگان In Persian) (September, 1907? - January 20, 1995) (also spelled Mahdi Bazargan) was 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. Bazargan was educated in thermodynamics and engineering at the École Centrale des Arts et Manufactures in Paris. A pro-democratic activist, Bazargan came back from France and become the head of first engineering department of Tehran University in 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 Mossadeq government, he co-founded the Liberation Movement of Iran was jailed several times by Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi of Iran . Bazargan was appointed to the prime ministership by Ayatollah Khomeini on February 5, 1979 after the revolution forced Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavito leave Iran . Bazargan was seen as one of the figureheads of the democrat and liberal revolutionaries and increasingly came into conflict with the religious clerics including the leader of revolution Ayatollah Khomeini. Bazargan resigned with his cabinet on November 5, 1979, immediately after US Embassy takeover and hostage-taking on November 4. Though it was considered to be a protest to hostage-taking crisis, but it was also clear that his liberal viwes and resistance from religious figuers had already convinced him that he could not make the democratic changes he had planned. Bazargan was a member of first Islamic Parliament of Iran (Majlis). He died on January 20, 1995 while travelling from Tehran to Zurich, Switzerland from heart attack.
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