Seyyed Hassan Taqizadeh

Seyyed Hassan Taqizadeh ( Persian سيدحسن تقی‌زاده; * September 1878 in Tabriz ; † January 28, 1970 Tehran ) was an Iranian scientist, publicist, parliamentarian, minister, diplomat and ambassador to Iran. Taqizadeh married a German woman in Berlin in 1923. The couple remained childless.

Childhood and youth

Seyyed Hassan Taqizadeh (as a member of the first Iranian parliament, around 1906)

Seyyed Hassan Taqizadeh's father was a Shiite clergyman who also saw his son as a clergyman. From the age of 5, Seyyed Hassan began his education with Koran studies, astronomy and Arabic. In addition, he trained in traditional medicine . This traditional training was supervised and encouraged by his father. He secretly learned French and later English at the American Memorial School and studied European literature intensively. For several years he lived a double life . During the day he attended the Shiite seminar and in the evening he dealt with the intellectual history of the West and with more recent Iranian publications that called for modernity and change in Iran. It was primarily Iranian exiles who called for democracy and the rule of law to be introduced in Iran. Backwardness and traditionalism were criticized, which was mainly accused of the clergy, which advocated the cultural independence of Iran. In contrast, the modernists took the view that only a turn to the West and the adoption of Western values could advance Iran both economically and socially. Taqizadeh was to become the advocate of a modern, western-influenced Iran.

At the age of 20, after the death of his father, he tried to found a secular school in Tabriz with his friend Mohammad Ali Tarbiyat in 1898. The clergy, who until then had an educational monopoly with their Koran schools, were shocked and organized resistance against Taqizadeh's plans, so that Taqizadeh had to give up his plans first. A little later, however, he managed to open a bookshop for modern literature, in which books on democracy, the rule of law and reforms were offered. From 1902 he published the magazine Majmou-eye Fonoun (Almanac of Sciences) for a period of one year , in which articles about new scientific developments as well as translations and excerpts from European literature appeared.

Constitutional Revolution

Seyyed Hassan Taqizadeh in the USA, 1914

From 1904 Taqizadeh went on an educational trip. He visited all the important cities in the Middle East (Istanbul, Damascus and Cairo) as well as the Caucasus region. He met writers and scholars and, more than ever, returned to Iran convinced of his political ideas that Iran must renew itself by turning to Western ideas. The Constitutional Revolution had broken out there, which initially led to his bookstore in Tabriz being burned down by his opponents. Taqizadeh supported the revolution and was elected as a member of Tabriz after the establishment of the first parliament in 1906. Taqizadeh became the leader of a radical faction that advocated an amendment to the 1906 constitution. He drafted the articles supplementing the constitution, which dealt with the development of civil rights and the division of power between the government, parliament and the judiciary. In doing so, he clearly opposed the clergy, who in the constitutional amendment aimed primarily at the compatibility of the laws passed by parliament with Islam. In the end there was a compromise. Both the Ecclesiastical Amendment and the Taqizadeh drafts were adopted by Parliament on October 7, 1907. At this point Taqizadeh could not have suspected that in the end his opponent Fazlollah Nuri would prevail. Nuri declared in 1907: “The constitutional movement has written the words freedom and equality on the flags. These two demands contradict Islam. Islam demands obedience and not freedom, inequality and not equality. ” Taqizadeh had to flee from his opponent to the British embassy and shortly afterwards left Iran under British protection. He found a new home in London and taught at Cambridge University .

However, after a few months he returned to Iran and in 1908 fought alongside Sattar Khan against Mohammed Ali Shah , who had dissolved parliament and wanted to restore the old absolutist order. After the victory of the constitutional movement, Taqizadeh was elected to the newly constituted parliament. As a member of a ruling triumvirate, Mohammad Ali Shah was formally dismissed and Ahmad Shah was appointed as his successor. When a clergyman was murdered in the course of the later clashes, Tarqizadeh was accused of having participated in the attack. Again he had to leave his home and went to London.

Stay in the USA and Berlin

Seyyed Hassan Taqizadeh in Berlin, 1916

In 1913 Taqizadeh moved to the United States, where he spent the next two years. Meanwhile the First World War had broken out. Taqizadeh was contacted by German agents who invited him to Berlin. Taqizadeh accepted the invitation, moved to Berlin and, together with Mohammad Ali Jamalzade and Mohammad Ghazvini, published the magazine Kaveh , which is considered to be one of the best exile magazines ever published. Together with other exiled Iranians, he founded the " German-Persian Society EV " on January 29, 1917

The Kaveh editorial staff called the newspaper an "organ of the Persian nationalists". The newspaper appeared twice a month. The aim of the publication was

“To spread the opinion among our compatriots in Persia and abroad that the time has now come when Persia can regain its independence, and the time when the English and Russian invaders can be driven out of the country. ... Our newspaper stands up for a great new uprising, which is supposed to drive today's foreign servants of Persia out of the country. "

In his articles, Taqizadeh took the view that the Iranians should fundamentally reorient themselves with the help of Western values.

Mohammad Ali Jamalzade's “Farsi Shekar Ast” and “ Ganj Shaygan” were also published as supplements to Kaveh . Mohammad Ali Jamalzade was one of the most famous Persian writers and short story tellers.

After the end of the First World War, Kaveh was no longer financed by the German government, so that the newspaper had to cease publication in 1921.

After Kaveh had ceased its publication, Hossein Kazemzadeh founded the oriental magazine publisher Iranschähr (Iranschahr, name of Iran at the time of the Sassanids ) as the successor to Kaveh in Berlin . The publications published by this publisher as well as the bimonthly "IRANSCHÄHR" had a great influence on the development of an Iranian national feeling.

Member of Parliament and advisor to Reza Shah

In 1921 Taqizadeh went back to Iran and became part of the delegation negotiating the new treaty for economic cooperation between the Soviet Union and Iran, the Soviet-Iranian Friendship Treaty of 1921 . Prime Minister Reza Khan, who later became Reza Shah Pahlavi , invited Taqizadeh to stay in Iran. Taqizadeh was one of Reza Shah's closest advisers, although he was one of the four MPs who spoke out against this move in the crucial session of parliament in which Reza Pahlavi was to be elected Shah. He was not against the appointment of Reza Pahlavis as Shah, Taqizadeh only spoke out against the chosen procedure, that the change at the top of the state took place solely through a simple constitutional amendment. Taqizadeh suggested that a commission of constitutional experts should be set up to prepare a recommendation for parliament.

Governor and Ambassador

Seyyed Hassan Taqizadeh as Senator

In 1929 Taqizadeh was first governor of Khorasan , then ambassador to London, then minister of transport and finance minister. In 1933 he was sent to Paris as ambassador. In 1941, after Reza Shah's abdication, he was sent to London as ambassador and stayed there for the next six years.

senator

In 1950 Taqizadeh became a member of the newly formed Senate . Taqizadeh also began to give lectures at the newly established theological faculty at the University of Tehran. He founded the Senate Library and made it one of the most important academic libraries in Iran. He helped set up a modern publishing house and printing house, "Sherkate Offset," and continued to publish articles in the fields of science and culture.

In old age Taqizadeh suffered a heart attack and from then on used a wheelchair. Hassan Taqizadeh died on January 28, 1970 in Tehran.

Fonts

HH Taqizadeh, among others: Kaveh. Organ of the Persian Nationalists. Reprint of the editions from 1916–1921, Berlin-Charlottenburg. Tehran, 1977.
SH Taqizadeh, Old Iranian Calendars (Royal Asiatic Society, London, 1938). ISBN 0-7189-0933-X , ISBN 978-0-7189-0933-8 .
Payam Nabarz, and SH Taqizadeh, The Persian 'Mar Nameh': The Zoroasterian 'Book of the Snake', Omens and Calendar and The Old Iranian Calendar (Twin Serpents, Oxford, 2006). ISBN 1-905524-25-0 , ISBN 978-1-905524-25-9 .

literature

Abbas Milani: Eminent Persians. Syracuse University Press, 2008, pp. 321-326.
Sepehr H. Joussefi, Seyyed Hasan Taqizadeh: a Political Biography in the Context of Iranian Modernization , Master Thesis (University of Utrecht, The Netherlands, 1998). [1]
A locust's leg. Studies in honor of SH Taqizadeh , pp. vii and 250 (Percy Lund, Humphries & Co., Ltd., London, 1962). See also: MJ Dresden, Journal of the American Oriental Society , Vol. 85, No. 2, pp. 260-262 (1965). [2]

Web links

Sepehr H. Joussefi, Seyyed Hasan Taqizadeh: a Political Biography in the Context of Iranian Modernization , Master Thesis (University of Utrecht, The Netherlands, 1988). [3]
SH Taqizadeh, Old Iranian Calendars (Printed and published under the patronage of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1938). [4]
A short biography of SH Taqizadeh in Persian. [5]

Individual evidence

↑ Kaveh. (Organ of the Persian Nationalists). (Reprinted by the Berlin-Charlottenburg edition, 1916-1921 in 1 vol. Tehran, 1977.
^ Cyrus Ghani: Iran and the rise of Reza Shah. IB Tauris, 1998, p. 369.

personal data
SURNAME	Taqizadeh, Seyyed Hassan
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	Iranian scientist, publicist, MP, minister, diplomat and ambassador to Iran
DATE OF BIRTH	September 1878
PLACE OF BIRTH	Tabriz
DATE OF DEATH	January 28, 1970
Place of death	Tehran

[1] Kaveh. (Organ of the Persian Nationalists). (Reprinted by the Berlin-Charlottenburg edition, 1916-1921 in 1 vol. Tehran, 1977.

[2] Cyrus Ghani: Iran and the rise of Reza Shah. IB Tauris, 1998, p. 369.