Mossadegh, Muhammad

Born 1881 in Ahmadabad; died there on Mar. 5, 1967. Iranian politician and statesman.

Educated as a lawyer, Mossadegh held various ministerial posts from 1921 to 1924. In 1949 he was one of the founders of the National Front, a bourgeois national organization that played an important role in the movement to nationalize the Iranian oil industry, then controlled by the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. As prime minister from April 1951 to August 1953 (with an interruption in July 1952), Mossadegh fought for an independent foreign policy for Iran. During the coup d’etat of Aug. 19, 1953, he was arrested and sentenced to three years in prison. After his imprisonment, he was exiled to his estate in Ahmadabad near Tehran, where he lived under the surveillance of the authorities. Mossadegh was the author of several works on Muslim law and on finance and jurisprudence.