# Fathollah Mojtabaei

Fathollah Mojtabaei (Persian: فتح‌الله مجتبایی; born December 10, 1927, Tehran) is an Iranian author and historian. He is a permanent member of Academy of Persian Language and Literature and a member of the faculty of the Center for the Great Islamic Encyclopedia.

## Early life

Dr. Fathollah Mojtabaei was born on December 10, 1927, in Tehran, Iran. A few months after his birth, his mother took him to Farahan County, Markazi Province, Iran. He stayed in Farahan until he was fourteen. His father and his grandfather were Sufi elders. He received his basic education in such a family, which led him to study the history of religions and philosophy of the East and India later.

## Education and career

Until the age of fourteen, he taught basics of literature, formal sciences and French language in Farahan County. In 1941, he came to Arak and entered high school there. After finishing high school, he came to Tehran and continued his education at the University of Tehran. In 1953, he received a bachelor's degree in English Language and Literature from the Faculty of Letters and Humanities of the University of Tehran. From 1953 until 1959, he taught literature and foreign languages in Arak and Tehran high schools. He also began writing and several his poems and stories were published in magazines, he also translated Aristotle's Poetics.
In 1960, he was sent abroad by the Ministry of Culture to get acquainted with new methods of writing textbooks. After a period of study and research in this field in the Columbia University in United States, he returned to Iran and was in charge of preparing and compiling literature textbooks for high schools.
In 1962, he was appointed as Iranian Cultural Counselor in Pakistan and the management of Iranian cultural houses in the city of Lahore. Until 1965 he was engaged in cultural services and research on Islamic-Iranian culture of the subcontinent there. There he learned Sanskrit and studied the history of the Islamic period in India and Persian culture and literature.
In 1966, he went to the United States at the invitation of Professor Wilfred Cantwell Smith, a renowned Islamologist and Hinduologist and director of the Center for the Study of World Religions at Harvard University, where he researched the history of world religions and taught Persian literature and mystical texts in Persian. He also received Masters in Comparative history of Religions from Harvard University. Then he continued his studies in History of Eastern Religions and Philosophy and finally in 1971 received his PhD in this field.
During these years he traveled to India several times to study the traditional methods of interpreting Hindu texts as well as to observe the situation and religious of the Indian Zoroastrians in Varanasi, Delhi and Mumbai.
After completing his studies, he returned to Iran and began to teach in universities. For a while, he taught Persian literature at Damavand College and in philosophy group of Faculty of Letters and Humanities of the University of Tehran, he taught Eastern Philosophy. Then he was transferred to the Faculty of Theology and Islamic Studies of the University of Tehran and served in the Department of Comparative Religions and Mysticism.
In 1974, he was assigned as Iranian Cultural Counselor in India, and until the fall of 1977, he was engaged in services related to the study and research on the intellectual and cultural relations between Muslims and Hindus in the subcontinent, and published several books and articles in this field.
After completing his mission and returning to Iran, he continued to teach at the Faculty of Theology and Islamic Studies of the University of Tehran and was in charge of the management of the Department of Religions and Mysticism for several periods. He also taught history of religions, methodology and comparative mysticism there.
During his cultural services, he has published nearly 200 titles of books, articles, poems and book reviews in the form of authorship, translation and correction in Persian and English in Iran and abroad.