Many sources alleged that Foroughi’s ancestors were Baghdadi Jews who came to Isfahan and converted to Islam. During occupation in the second world war, Nazi Germany often emphasized this alleged Jewish ancestry in radio broadcasts. During his early life, Foroughi studied at the élite Dar ul-Funun (House of Sciences) in Tehran.Career In 1907, Foroughi’s father died, and thus Foroughi inherited his father’s title of Zoka-ol-Molk. During the same year, Foroughi became the dean of the College of Political Sciences.
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.
