The History of Modernization of Law
AbstractMohammad Ali Khan, Zokā’ al-Molk, later Forughi, became Minister of Justice in December 1911 (until June 1912 and again from August 1914 to April 1915), following Moshir al-Dawla Pirniā and continuing the legal reform the latter had initiated in 1911. Forughi also served as Prime Minister of Iran several times, lastly in 1941-42 (1320), when he arranged the abdication of Reza Shah and the succession of his son, Mohammad-Reza Pahlavi, shortly before his death in November 1942. This lecture was given at the Faculty of Law and Political Science at the new University of Tehran is an important historical document that throws considerable light on the early stage of the modernization of Iran’s legal system. We are therefore publishing it in a translation which preserves the lecture format with only slight abridgement. Forughi’s informed account of legal modernization is prefaced by acute observations on the intrusion of modernity into the culture of Iran in the early twentieth century. (The Editor)