Ali-Akbar Fayyaz

Who is Ali-Akbar Fayyaz?

Ali-Akbar Fayyaz was a distinguished professor of Islamic heresiography and Persian language and literature at Tehran University and the Ferdowsi University of Mashhad. Fayyaz was born into a family of Shiite clerics in Mashhad, northeastern Iran. His father, Sayyid Abdul-Majid Thaqat al-Islam, was his first teacher inculcating in him a profound knowledge of Arabic and the basics of Islamic sciences. Fayyaz completed his official studies in Mashhad and secured a job in the administration of the Mashhad holy shrine endowments. In 1929, Fayyaz became the principal at the Shah-Reza High School, one of the first and most accredited modern schools in Mashhad. In 1936, the Ministry of Education appointed him to the post of principal at the Teachers' Training College in Mashhad.

Two years later in 1938, Fayyaz became a librarian in the Faculty of Letters at Tehran University and started his studies in the field of Persian language and literature only to receive a Ph.D. in 1943. In 1943, Fayyaz was promoted to a teaching position in the Faculty of Theology at Tehran University. During this period, he was teaching the history of Islam and Islamic heresiography.