FORŪGĪ, ABU’L-ḤASAN (b. Isfahan 1301/1884; d. Tehran, 6 Bahman 1338 Š./26 January 1960), educator and author. He had his elementary education at home with his father, Moḥammad-Ḥosayn Forūḡī D ¨okāʾ-al-Molk, and elder brother (Moḥammad-ʿAlī) and later went to Dār al-fonūn and Alliance Française (qq.v.). He continued studying Persian and Arabic literature in the old Sepahsālār School (Madrasa-ye qadīm-e Sepahsālār) and became interested in philosophy, spending much of his time studying ancient and modern philosophy. He joined the staff of his father’s newspaper, Tarbīat, at the age of eighteen and later became its administrative manager. The publication of Tarbīat stopped in 1908, and Forūḡī started teaching in Dār al-fonūn and ʿElmīya schools. In 1918, he was appointed as the principal of the newly founded Teachers Training School (Dār al-moʿallemnīn-e markazī; Maḥbūbī Ardakānī, Moʾassasāt I, pp. 416-17). The school was enlarged in 1928 when the Ministry of Education founded Dār al-moʿallemīn-e ʿālī (see EDUCATION xix) and joined the two together. In 1920, Mīrzā Aḥmad Khan Naṣīr-al-Dawla, the minister of education, entrusted Forūḡī with the management of the ministry’s monthly Oṣūl-e-taʿlīm. The periodical carried scholarly articles on literary, scientific, and philosophical questions, mostly written by Forūḡī and his colleagues at the school, but its publication stopped after six issues. In 1921 Forūḡī founded the new periodical, Forūḡ-e-tarbīat, which lasted for only a few issues (Ṣadr Hāšemī, Jarāʾed o majallāt I, pp. 185-89).
In 1933, Forūḡī was appointed by his brother Moḥammad-ʿAlī, then the prime minister, as minister plenipotentiary to Switzerland, where he served as such for a year and then spent another year in Geneva as the Persian Delegate to the League of Nations. He returned to Persia in 1935 and received a position at Tehran University and, later, was made a permanent member of the Persian Academy of Language (Farhangestān-e zabān; q.v.). His published works are: Sarmāya-ye saʿādat, Tehran, 1327/1909; Awrāq-e mošawwaš, Tehran, 1330/1912; Majmūʿa-ye ašʿār, Tehran, 1330/1912; Civilisation et synthèse, Paris, 1936; Systéme de philosophie, 2 vols., Paris, 1940; and Šīdūš o Nāhīd, Tehran, 1340/1922.
Bibliography (for cited works not given in detail, see “Short References”):
B. ʿĀqelī, Ḏokāʾ-al-Molk Forūḡī wa Šahrīvar-e 1320, Tehran, 1367 Š./1988.
A.-M. Sepahrom, Tārīḵ-e bargozīdagān wa ʿedda-ī as mašāhīr-e Īrān o Arab, Tehran, 1341 Š./1962.
Ḥ. Yaḡmāʾī, “Dāstān-e dūstān: Mīrzā Abu’l-Ḥasan Ḵān Forūḡī,” Yaḡmā 21/10, 1347 Š./1969, pp. 574-76.
Wezārat-e omūr-e ḵāreja, Sāl-nāma-ye Wezārat-e omūr-e ḵāreja, 1314 Š./1935.
(Bagher Agheli)
Originally Published: December 15, 1999
Last Updated: January 31, 2012
This article is available in print.
Vol. X, Fasc. 1, pp. 107-108
