Ibrahim Yazdi was born in 1931 (sources differ on the exact date) in Qazvin, in northwestern Iran. His father was a merchant trader who sold henna. Dr. Yazdi earned a bachelor’s degree in pharmacology from the University of Tehran in 1953. That same year, a military coup supported by the United States deposed the democratically elected prime minister, Mohammed Mossadegh, and installed Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, whose father had abdicated as shah in 1941.
