Ahmad Kasravi

Ahmad Kasravi (1890 to 1946), born Ahmad Hokmabadi Tabrizi in Hokmavar near Tabriz, was an Iranian historian, jurist, linguist, theologian and secular intellectual. Trained in a seminary, he left clerical training after the Iranian Constitutional Revolution and studied at the American Memorial School of Tabriz. He became a professor of law at the University of Tehran as well as an attorney and judge in Tehran, scoring highest in an examination of judges, and he wrote of his ten years in the judiciary and of why he left the Ministry of Justice. The author of more than 70 books, mostly in Persian, among them a history of the Iranian Constitutional Revolution, he founded a political and social movement to build a secular Iranian identity and in 1941 a political party called Azadegan. Attacked by the Shiite clergy for his secular ideas and by the Pahlavi court for his anti-monarchical statements, he was knifed to death in open court in Tehran in March 1946 by followers of Navvab Safavi while on trial on a charge of slander against Islam.