Mohammad Ali Foroughi (Born, November 1942), also known as Zoka-ol-Molk, was a writer, freemason, diplomat and politician who served three terms as Prime Minister. He wrote numerous books on ancient history and is known for founding the Academy. Mohammad Ali started his studies at the age of five under the supervision of his father, learning Persian, Arabic, French, and English. He was one of the first students and later teachers of Dar al-Funun. He also became the teacher of the political school in his youth, which his father was the head of, and after the death of his father (1325 AH), Mohammad Ali was elected as its head by inheriting his father’s title.
The collected essays of Mohammad Ali Foroughi not only present a portrait of the multifaceted and complex character of one of the most influential cultural, academic, and political figures of modern Iran, but also depict the cultural issues and political and social conditions of the country during the turbulent years of Foroughi’s cultural and political life—from the first Constitutional Assembly to the early years of the reign of the second Pahlavi. Mohammad Ali Foroughi was among the most brilliant figures of a generation of Iranian scholars, historians, men of letters, and researchers who emerged from the Constitutional Revolution. During the tumultuous years of that revolution, World War I, and throughout the two-decade reign of the first Pahlavi monarch, they published their works and were so rich and creative in their fields that, apart from perhaps one or two exceptions, no one in later generations managed to take their place.
