- Reza Pahlavi
Reza Pahlavi is the former Crown Prince of Iran, the eldest son of late Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and his Empress Consort, Farah Diba. He succeeded his father as Head of the House of the Pahlavi dynasty and is currently the successor to the former Pahlavi throne of Iran. As such he is referred to by supporters as "His Imperial Majesty Reza Shah II".
- Shirin Ebadi
Shirin Ebadi is an Iranian lawyer, human rights activist and founder of Children's Rights Support Association in Iran. On December 10, 2003, Ebadi was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her significant and pioneering efforts for democracy and human rights, especially women's and children's rights. She is the first Iranian and the first Muslim woman to receive the prize.
- Shaul Mofaz
"'"' (born 1948 in Tehran, Iran) is the current Israeli Minister of Transportation and a Deputy Prime Minister, and a former Minister of Defense. Previously he was the 16th Chief of the General Staff of the Israeli Defence Forces, and was the first Israeli of Iranian origin to achieve that post. Mofaz was born in Tehran, although his parents came from Isfahan. Mofaz has had the unique distinction of serving under four different Israeli Prime Ministers, …
- Mohammad Reza Pahlavi
Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, Shah of Iran (October 26, 1919, Tehran – July 27, 1980, Cairo), styled His Imperial Majesty, and holding the imperial titles of Shahanshah ("King of Kings"), and Aryamehr ("Light of the Aryans"), was the monarch of Iran from September 16, 1941 until the Iranian Revolution on February 11, 1979. He was the second monarch of the Pahlavi dynasty and the last Shah of the Iranian monarchy.
- Vali Nasr
Vali Reza Nasr (b. 1960) is an Iranian-American academic and scholar, as well as Professor of International Politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy of Tufts University. An expert in contemporary Middle Eastern affairs and Islam and politics, in January, 2006, Nasr was named the Adjunct Senior Fellow for Middle Eastern Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, a nonpartisan think-tank focusing on foreign policy.
- Abbas Kiarostami
Abbas Kiarostami is an internationally acclaimed Iranian film director, screenwriter, and film producer. An active filmmaker since 1970, Kiarostami has been involved in over forty films, including shorts and documentaries. Kiarostami attained critical acclaim for directing the "Koker trilogy", "A Taste of Cherry", and "The Wind Will Carry Us". Kiarostami has worked extensively as a screenwriter, film editor, …
- Farah Pahlavi
Farah Pahlavi is the widow and third wife of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi (the late Shah of Iran) and the only Shahbanu (Empress) of modern Iran. Though the titles and distinctions of the Iranian imperial family were legally abolished by the new government, she often is styled Empress or Shahbanou, out of courtesy, by foreign media as well as by supporters of the former monarchy. She does use the title "Empress Farah Pahlavi", …
- Forough Farrokhzad
Forough Farrokhzad. A new English translation of a selection of her poems by Maryam Dilmaghani is published on-line by the name of "Forough Farrokhzad: The Sad Little Fairy" to commemorate the 40th anniversary of her death. Nasser Saffarian has directed three documentaries on her; "The Mirror of the Soul" (2000), "The Green Cold" (2003), and "Summit of the Wave" (2004). [See discussion.]
- Bahá'U'Lláh
Bahá'u'lláh (November 12, 1817 - May 29, 1892), born Mírzá usayn-`Alí, was the founder of the Bahá'í Faith. He claimed to fulfill the Bábí prophecy of "He whom God shall make manifest", but in a broader sense he also claimed to be the "supreme Manifestation of God"., referring to the fulfillment of the eschatological expectations of a prophetic cycle beginning with Adam, and including Abrahamic religions, as well as Zoroastrianism, …
- Amir-Abbas Fakhravar
Amir-Abbas Fakhravar ("Amir-Abbās Fakhr-āvar", also known as "Siavash" (Persian: سیاوش), born 6 July, 1975 in Tehran) is an Iranian writer, and former journalist for the now banned pro-reform daily newspapers Mosharekat and Khordad. He is known for his political activism and has been described as one of Iran’s student leaders. He is currently based in Washington, DC.
- Mohsen Makhmalbaf
Mohsen Makhmalbaff (born May 29, 1957, Tehran) is an influential and controversial Iranian film director, writer, editor, and producer. He is currently the president of Asian Film Academy. His films have been widely presented in international film festivals in the past 10 years. As of 2002, he had gained 26 international prizes. He belongs to the "new wave" movement of Iranian cinema.
- Reza Aslan
Reza Aslan earned a Bachelor of Arts in Religion from Santa Clara University, a Master of Theological Studies from Harvard University, a Master of Fine Arts in Fiction from the University of Iowa, and is currently a Doctoral Candidate in History of Religions at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Until recently, he was both Visiting Assistant Professor of Islamic and Middle East Studies at the University of Iowa and the Truman Capote Fellow in Fiction at the Iowa Writers' Workshop.
- Nazanin Afshin-Jam
Nazanin Afshin-Jam (born 1979 in Tehran, Iran) is an Iranian-Canadian Singer, Songwriter, International Human Rights Activist, model, musician, actress and a former Miss World Canada, and Miss World 1st runner up. She immigrated to Canada with her family in 1981.
- `abdu'L-Bahá
`Abdu'l-Bahá was born in Tehran, Persia on May 23, 1844, the eldest son of Bahá'u'lláh and Ásiyih Khánum, Navváb. He was born on the very same night on which the Báb declared his mission. During his youth, `Abdu'l-Bahá was shaped by his father's station as a prominent member of the Bábís.
- Reza Abedini
Reza Abedini, (born 1967 in Tehran) is a world renowned Iranian designer and a professor of graphic design and visual culture at Tehran University. Abedini is one of the most famous graphics designer in Iran because of his modern Persian Typography. He combined modern and traditional themes in his unique style. Reza Abedini has won dozen of national and international design awards.
- Hossein Nasr
Nasr is an internationally acclaimed scholar .Seyyed Hossein Nasr, (1933-), a University Professor of the department of Islamic studies at George Washington University, is a leading Iranian Muslim philosopher. He is the author of many scholarly books and articles. Nasr is a Persian philosopher and renowned scholar of comparative religion, a lifelong student and follower of Frithjof Schuon, and a prominent authority in the fields of Islamic esoterism, Sufism, …
- Simin Behbahani
Simin Behbahani (born July 20, 1927, Tehran, Iran) is one of the most prominent figures of the modern Persian literature and one of the most outstanding amongst the contemporary Persian poets. She is Iran's national poet and an icon of the Iranian intelligentsia and literati who affectionately refer to her as "the lioness of Iran". Behbahani started writing poetry at twelve and published her first poem at the age of fourteen.
- Fereydoon Moshiri
Fereydoon Moshiri (b. August 1926 in Tehran, Iran - d. October 24 2000 in Tehran) was one of the most prominent contemporary Persian poets who versified in both modern and classic styles of the Persian poem. He is best known as conciliator of classical Persian poetry at one side with the New Poetry initiated by Nima Yooshij at the other side. One of the major contributions of Moshiri's poetry, …
- Mehdi Mahdavikia
Mehdi Mahdavikia is an Iranian football player who currently plays for Eintracht Frankfurt in the German Bundesliga. He is captain of the Iranian national football team and usually plays as a right winger or full-back.
- Majid Majidi
Majid Majidi (born 1959 in Tehran) is an internationally acclaimed Iranian film director, film producer, and screenwriter. Born in an Iranian middle class family, he grew up in Tehran and at the age of 14 he started acting in amateur theater groups. He then studied at the Institute of Dramatic Arts in Tehran. After the Iranian Revolution in 1979, his interest in cinema brought him to act in various films, most notably Mohsen Makhmalbaf's "Boycott" in 1985.
- Hossein Alizadeh
Hossein Alizadeh is an Iranian composer, Radif-preserver, researcher, teacher, and excellent tar and setar instrumentalist and improvisor, dubbed by many as an Ostad (Master of Persian music). He is considered by critics to be one of the most promising artists of his generation.
- Shohreh Aghdashloo
Shohreh Aghdashloo, born 11 May 1952) is an Academy Award-nominated Iranian-American actress and self-proclaimed activist.
- Niki Karimi
Niki Karimi, born on 10 November 1971 in Tehran, is a multi-award winning Iranian actress and movie director.
- Vahid Hashemian
Vahid Hashemian (born July 21, 1976 in Tehran, Iran) is an Iranian football player who currently plays for Hannover 96 in the German Bundesliga and the Iran national football team. He usually plays in the centre forward position. He is nicknamed "helicopter", or "hubschrauber" in German, due to his outstanding ability to hang in the air.
- Sheema Kalbasi
Sheema Kalbasi is a human right activist, an award winning poet, and literary translator. She is the director of Dialogue of Nations through Poetry in Translation, director of Poetry of Iranian Women Project, the poetry editor of The Muse Apprentice Guild and the co- director of the Other Voices International. She has authored two collections of poems, Echoes in Exile in English, and Sangsar (Stoning) in Persian.
- Bijan
Bijan Pakzad (generally known simply as Bijan) (born 1944) is a well-known Iranian American designer of menswear and fragrances. Born in Teheran, Iran, Bijan immigrated to the United States in 1973. His exclusive boutique on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills was established in 1976 and can be visited by "appointment only". It has been described as "the most expensive store in the world". Bijan dresses the worlds most powerful men.
- Ali Javan
Ali Javan is an Iranian inventor and physicist at MIT. He co-invented the gas laser in 1960, with William R. Bennett.
- Darvish Khan
Darvish Khan (Gholam Hossein Darvish, b. 1872 in Tehran - d. 1926) was an Iranian contemporary musician. His teachers were from the most respected musician family of the 19th century in Iran. He was a member of the Aziz Soltan music group. Later, he attended the Dar ol-Fonoon Music School. He received the First-Class medal from the French government for his works and concerts for poor people.
- Homa Katouzian
Homa Katouzian is an economist, historian, political scientist and literary critic, with a special interest in Iranian studies. Katouzian’s formal academic training was in economics and the social sciences but he concurrently continued his studies of Persian history and literature at a professional academic level. He began studying the life and works of the greatest modern Persian writer, Sadeq Hedayat, as well as that of Iran’s Prime Minister in the early 1950s, …
- Dariush Mehrjui
Darius Mehrjui is an Iranian director, screenwriter, producer, and film editor. As an Iranian New Wave cinema icon, Mehrjui is regarded to be one of the intellectual directors of Iranian cinema. Most of his films are inspired by literature and adopted based on Iranian and foreign novels and plays. "Pari" (1995), a reworking of J.D. Salinger's "Franny and Zooey" by Mehrjui, …
- Davoud Hermidas-Bavand
Davoud Hermidas-Bavand is a renowned Iranian political scientist. Bavand obtained with honors a bachelor’s degree in law and political sciences from Tehran University in 1957. He left Iran in 1958 and he was conferred a doctorate in international relations by American University, Washington DC, in 1963.
- Shahrnush Parsipur
Shahrnush Parsipur (born February 17, 1946 in Tehran, Iran) is an influential Iranian novelist. She is the daughter of an attorney in the Justice Ministry originally from Shiraz.
- Goli Ameri
Goli Ameri was sworn in as Assistant Secretary of State for Educational and Cultural Affairs on March 19, 2008. She leads the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA), which fosters mutual understanding between the people of the United States and the people of other countries around the world. Assistant Secretary Ameris previous positions include service as a Presidentially nominated Representative to the 60th Session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA).
- Mahmoud Hessaby
Mahmoud Hessaby (February 23, 1903 - September 3, 1992) was a prominent Iranian scientist, researcher and distinguished professor of the University of Tehran. Hessaby was born in Tehran; at the age of seven he moved to Beirut where he began attending school. At the age of seven he memorised the "Qur'an" by heart and later he started to read the masterpieces of Persian literature.
- Ali Amini
Ali Amini (1905-1992) was the Prime Minister of Iran from May 6, 1961 to July 19, 1962. Born in 1905 in Tehran, his grand father was a chancellor of the Qajar Dynasty. He completed his studies first in Darolfonoon and then in France where he graduated with a degree in Law from Grenoble University, followed by his Ph.D in Economics from Paris. He became involved in politics through the help of Ali Akbar Davar who gave him a position in the Judiciary.
- Leila Hatami
Leila Hatami (born September 30, 1972 in Tehran) is an award-winning Iranian actress. She is the daughter of famous director Ali Hatami and actress Zari Khoshkam, and is married to actor Ali Mosaffa.
- Bahman Kiarostami
Bahman Kiarostami (b. 11 August 1978- in Tehran) is an Iranian film director, cinematographer, film editor and film producer, son of the critically acclaimed Abbas Kiarostami. In 1996 he made his first film " Morteza Momayez: Father of Iranian Contemporary Graphic Design". The main theme in Bahman Kiarostami's films is "art and music".
- Ali Parvin
Ali Parvin (born September 25, 1947 in Tehran) is an Iranian football coach and former player. He is one of the most famous footballers ever to play in Iran.
- Mohammed Mosaddeq
Dr. Mohammed Mosaddeq ("Moḥammad Moṣaddeq", also Mosaddegh or Mossadegh served as the Prime minister of Iran from 1951 to 1953. He was democratically elected to the parliament, and as leader of the nationalists was twice appointed as prime minister by Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the Shah of Iran, after a positive vote of inclination by the parliament. Mossadegh was a nationalist and passionately opposed foreign intervention in Iran.
- Ahmad Shamlou
Ahmad Shamlou (December 12, 1925 — July 24, 2000) was a Persian poet, writer, and journalist. His poetry was initially very much influenced by and was in the tradition of Nima Youshij. Shamlou's poetry is complex. Yet his imagery, which contributes significantly to the intensity of his poems, is simple. As the base, he uses the traditional imagery familiar to his Iranian audience through the works of Persian masters like Hafez and Omar Khayyám.