Ebrahim Hakimi

Ebrahim Hakimi

Ebrahim Hakimi ( Persian ابراهیم حکیمی; also known asحکیم‌الملک Hakim-al-Molk ; * 1871 in Tabriz ; † October 19, 1959 in Tehran ) was an influential Iranian politician, minister and prime minister of Iran .

Life

Ebrahim Hakimi was born in Tabriz in 1871. His family provided doctors at the court of the Iranian kings since the early 17th century. So it was already predetermined for Ebrahim that he should one day become a doctor. After attending school at Dar-ol Fonun, studied medicine in Paris from 1894 . In 1902 he returned to Iran. After the death of his uncle he inherited the title Hakim al-Molk.

In 1905 the Constitutional Revolution broke out in Iran . Ebrahim Hakim was elected as a member of the first Iranian parliament ( Majles ) and quickly developed into a leading politician in the Democratic Party. When Mohammed Ali Shah opposed the constitutional movement, it was Ebrahim Hakimi who, together with Ali Akbar Dehchoda and Seyyed Hassan Taqizadeh, founded a committee of the national revolution to defend parliament and the constitution.

When Mohammed Ali Shah dissolved parliament in 1908 and had the leaders of the constitutional movement arrested, Ebrahim Hakimi took himself to safety at the French embassy. After the defeat of Mohammad Ali Shah and his flight to the Russian embassy, ​​it was Hakimi who took over the affairs of state with his remaining former parliamentary colleagues, formally dismissed Mohammad Ali Shah and appointed his underage son Ahmad Shah as Shah. Ebrahim Hakimi was also a member of the parliamentary committee that negotiated the financial terms for the change of regent with Mohammad Ali Shah and the Russian embassy (Mohammad Ali Shah received a lifelong pension of $ 80,000 annually and had to leave Iran for the rest of his life).

Hakimi took over the business of the court as a kind of parliamentary court minister and was thus also responsible for the education and training of Ahmad Shah. In 1910, Hakimi became finance minister in Prime Minister Hassan Mostofi's cabinet . Hakimi became Minister of Education in 1911. As one of his first official acts, he had the first law on training promotion in Iran passed in parliament. According to this law, thirty students per year received a five-year scholarship to study abroad.

Ebrahim Hakimi was arrested in the course of the 1921 coup by Seyyed Zia al Din Tabatabai and was only released from prison after 100 days after Tabatabai was deposed. During the reign of Reza Shah Pahlavi , Ebrahim Hakimi stayed away from the political scene and devoted himself to the publication of a medical dictionary.

It was not until 1942, after Reza Shah's abdication, that Ebrahim Hakimi took part in the political life of Iran again and, on the initiative of Prime Minister Ahmad Qavams, became a minister without portfolio. After the end of the Second World War , Ebrahim Hakimi was proposed to Parliament as Prime Minister by Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi on May 12, 1945. But he lost a vote of confidence on June 6, 1945 and had to resign. The successor Prime Minister Mohsen Sadr also stayed in office for only a few months. Hakimi became Prime Minister again on October 29, 1945. This time Hakimi was Prime Minister for a full three months. Iran found itself on the brink of civil war after the Soviet Union's refusal to withdraw its troops from northern Iran, which had invaded Iran in the course of the 1941 Anglo-Soviet invasion . Josef Stalin supported the Azerbaijani People's Government , which was proclaimed in November 1945, and refused to even see Prime Minister Hakimi. The British and American ambassadors suggested to Hakimi to set up a commission with British, American, Soviet and Iranian representatives to discuss the issue of breakaway provinces and, if necessary, to set up provincial parliaments. Prime Minister Hakimi forwarded this proposal to Parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee for discussion. To the chagrin of the Western allies, the proposal was rejected.

Under pressure from the parliamentary opposition led by Mohammad Mossadegh , Hakimi had to resign on January 20, 1946. Ahmad Qavam took over the post of prime minister again. Qavam was able to persuade Stalin to withdraw the Russian troops at the price of an oil concession in northern Iran, which then also meant the end of the separatist movement in Azerbaijan. When Ahmad Qavam submitted the treaty signed with the Soviet Union to parliament for a vote on October 22, 1947, parliament rejected the treaty. Qavam put the vote of confidence on December 10, 1947. Of the 112 MPs present, only 46 voted for him. On December 21st there was a vote on the new Prime Minister. Ebrahim Hakimi and Mohammad Mossadegh stood for election. Hakimi won the vote with a majority of one vote. This time he was to hold the office for six months until he was replaced by Abdolhossein Hazhir on June 13, 1948. Hakimi had presented an ambitious program for social reforms, a stable budget and an austerity program to parliament, but ultimately failed because of the lack of support from MPs to support the austerity measures.

After the assassination attempt on Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi on February 4, 1949, Mohammad Hakimi became a member of a newly appointed constituent assembly that was supposed to work out an amendment to the existing constitution. The aim of this constitutional amendment was to stabilize the political situation by strengthening the power of the monarch. Iran had seen seven prime ministers in the three years since the end of the war. The only political constant was Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. The most significant constitutional amendment passed by parliament was that the Shah was granted the right to dissolve parliament and call new elections. This gave him a means of political leverage that forced parliamentarians to compromise more than before. In addition, by resolution of Parliament, the second chamber, the Senate, already provided for in the 1906 constitution, was finally set up.

Ebrahim Haikimi became a member of the Senate and for a short time its President. Ebrahim Hakimi was a member of the advisory commission convened by the Shah, which in 1958 had to discuss the question of the succession to the throne and the childless marriage of the Shah to Soraya Esfandiary Bakhtiari , and which came to the conclusion that Mohammad Reza Pahlavi would have to divorce and remarry if he wanted to remain a Shah.

Ebrahim Hakimi died on October 19, 1959 at the age of 91.

Ebrahim Hakimi was married twice. The first marriage to a French woman resulted in a son.

literature

• Alireza Avsati: Iran in the last 3 Centuries . Intishārāt-i Pā'kitāb, Tehran 2003, ISBN 964-93406-6-1 (vol. 1), ISBN 964-93406-5-3 (vol. 2) (Persian).
• Abbas Milani: Eminent Persians. The men and women who made modern Iran, 1941–1979. Volume 1. Syracus University Press et al., Syracus NY et al. 2008, ISBN 978-0-8156-0907-0 , pp. 175-180.
• Iranica article on Hakimi .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Abbas Milani: Eminent Persians. Syracuse University Press, 2008, p. 176.
2. ↑ Abbas Milani: Eminent Persians. Syracuse University Press, 2008, p. 176.
3. ^ Hassan Arfa: Under five Shahs. London, 1964, p. 351.
4. ↑ Gholam Reza Afkhami: The life and times of the Shah. Syracuse University Press, 2008, p. 108
5. ↑ Abbas Milani: Eminent Persians. Syracuse University Press, 2008, p. 179.