Jafar Shahidi

Who was Jafar Shahidi?

Jafar Shahidi was born on 13 January 1919. He was a distinguished scholar of the Persian language and literature and a renowned historian of Islam. Born in Boroujerd, Iran, Shahidi dedicated his life to Persian studies, acting as the director of the Dehkhoda Dictionary Institute and International Centre for Persian language, serving as the Dean of the Faculty of Literature and Humanities at the University of Tehran and mastering the fields of jurisprudence and Islamic history.

Shahidi was a prominent disciple of Ali Akbar Dehkhoda and Badiozzaman Forouzanfar at Tehran University. He served as a seminary in Qom and Najaf under notable figures such as Tabatabaei, Seyed Hossein Boroujerdi, S. Khoi A. under whom he attained his degree in ijtihad. He is most notable for his works on the Dehkhoda encyclopedic dictionary of the Persian language and his research in Islamic history and religion.

In his later years, he served as the President of the Dehkhoda Institute and founder of the International Center for Persian Studies.