Mostafa Chamran | |
|---|---|
مصطفی چمران | |
 | |
| Member of the Parliament of Iran | |
| In office 28 May 1980 – 21 June 1981 | |
| Constituency | Tehran, Rey and Shemiranat |
| Majority | 1,100,842 (51.5%) |
| Minister of Defence and Armed Forces Logistics | |
| In office 30 September 1979 – 28 May 1980 | |
| Prime Minister | Mehdi Bazargan |
| Preceded by | Taghi Riahi |
| Succeeded by | Javad Fakoori |
| Deputy Prime Minister of Iran for Revolutionary Affairs | |
| In office 29 April 1979 – 30 September 1979 | |
| Prime Minister | Mehdi Bazargan |
| Preceded by | Ebrahim Yazdi |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Mostafa Chamran Save'ei 2 October[citation needed] 1932 |
| Died | 21 June 1981(1981-06-21) (aged 48) |
| Resting place | Behesht-e Zahra, Tehran |
| Nationality |
|
| Party | Freedom Movement of Iran Amal Movement |
| Spouse(s) | Tamsen H. Parvaneh (1961– div. 1973) Ghadeh Jaber (1977–1981) |
| Children | 4 |
| Alma mater |
|
| Profession | Scientist |
| Nickname | Jamal[2] |
| Military service | |
| Allegiance |  Iran Lebanon[3] |
| Branch/service | Lebanese Resistance Regiments Irregular Warfare Headquarters Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps |
| Years of service |
|
| Battles/wars | |
| Part ofa series on the |
| Amal Movement |
|---|
 |
Military activities
|
People
|
Mostafa Chamran Save'ei (Persian:مصطفی چمران ساوهای) (2 October[citation needed] 1932 – 21 June 1981) was anIranianphysicist,politician,commander andguerrilla fighter who served as the firstdefense minister of post-revolutionary Iran and amember of parliament as well as the commander of paramilitary volunteers inIran–Iraq War, known as "Irregular Warfare Headquarters". He was killed during the Iran–Iraq War.
Chamran was born into a religious family on 2 October[citation needed] 1932 in Tehran.[4][5] He received religious education fromAyatollah Taleqani andMorteza Motahari.[6] He studied atAlborz High School and then graduated fromUniversity of Tehran with a bachelor's degree inelectromechanics.[4]
In the late 1950s, he moved tothe United States for higher education, obtaining an M.S. degree from theTexas A&M University.[7] He then went on to obtain his PhD in electrical engineering andplasma physics in 1963 from theUniversity of California, Berkeley.[8]
In the bookSelf-construction and development he said he was hired as a research staff scientist atBell Laboratories andNASA'sJet Propulsion Laboratory in the 1960s.[9][10]
Chamran was one of the senior members ofthe Freedom Movement led byMehdi Bazargan in the 1960s.[4][11] He was part of the radical external wing together withEbrahim Yazdi,Sadegh Ghotbzadeh andAli Shariati.[12]
Following graduation, Chamran went to Cuba to receive military training.[13] In December 1963, he along with Ghotbzadeh and Yazdi left the US forEgypt where he was trained in guerilla warfare.[14][15] They met the Egyptian authorities to establish an anti-Shah organization in the country, which was later called SAMA, special organization for unity and action.[12] Chamran was chosen as its military head.[12] Upon his return to the US in 1965 he founded a group, Red Shiism, inSan Jose with the aim of training militants.[14] His brother,Mehdi, was also part of the group.[14] In 1968, he founded another group, the Muslim Students' Association of America (MSA), and it was led by Ebrahim Yazdi.[14] The group managed to establish branches in the United Kingdom and France.[14]
In 1971 Chamran left the US forLebanon[14] and joined the camps ofthe Palestine Liberation Organization andthe Amal movement.[13] He became a leading and founding member of the Islamic revolutionary movement in the Middle East, organizing and training guerrillas and revolutionary forces inAlgeria,Egypt,Syria. Duringthe civil war in Lebanon he actively cooperated withMusa Al Sadr, founder of the Amal movement.[16] Chamran also became an Amal member and "right-hand man of Sadr".[17][18]
Chamran along with Sadegh Ghotbzadeh was part of the faction, called the "Syrian mafia", in the court of Khomeini, and there was a feud between his group and the Libya-friendly group, led byMohammad Montazeri.[19]
With theIslamic Revolution taking place in Iran, Chamran returned to Iran.[20] In 1979, he served as deputy prime minister in the cabinet of Mehdi Bazargan.[21][22] He led the military operations inKurdistan whereKurds rebelled against theInterim Government of Iran.[21] He served as minister of defense from September 1979 to 1980,[23] being the first civil defense minister of the Islamic Republic.[24]
In March 1980, he was elected to theMajlis of Iran (the Iranian Parliament) as a representative of Tehran.[25] In May 1980, he was named the Ayatollah's representative to theSupreme Council of National Defense.[26]
Chamran was married to a woman from Lebanon, Ghadeh Jaber.[27]
Chamran led an infantry unit during theIran–Iraq War and received two wounds in his left leg by shrapnel from a mortar shell.[9] However, he refused to leave his unit.[9] He was killed inDehlavieh on 21 June 1981 as the war was raging on.[4][28][29][30][31] His death was regarded as "suspicious" and the related details have remained unclear.[20][32][33] Chamran was buried in theBehesht-e Zahra cemetery in Tehran.[9]
Ayatullah Khomeini publicly proclaimed Chamran as a "proud commander of Islam".[9] Chamran was posthumously designated a hero and many buildings and streets in Iran and Lebanon were named for him, includingmajor expressway.[9] In 2012, Mohsen Alavi Pour published Chamran's biography.[34] Aspecies of moth was named after him in 2013.[35][36] Nick Robinson published an English biography of Chamran in the United Kingdom in 2013,22: Not a new lifestyle for those who thirst for humanity!.[37]
In 2014 a film namedChe (Persian: چ) directed byEbrahim Hatamikia, was released to honour Chamran; the film portrays two days of Chamran's life after the Islamic Revolution.
In 2017 Iranian film directorReza Mirkarimi made an animated film about Chamran.[38][39]
Media related toMostafa Chamran at Wikimedia Commons
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
