Hossein Ziai

Hossein Ziai (July 6, 1944 – August 24, 2011) was a professor of Islamic Philosophy and Iranian Studies at UCLA where he held the inaugural Jahangir and Eleanor Amuzegar Chair in Iranian Studies until his passing. He received his B.S. in Intensive Physics and Mathematics from Yale University in 1967 and a Ph.D. in Islamic Philosophy from Harvard University in 1976. Prior to UCLA, Ziai taught at Tehran University, Sharif University, Harvard University, Brown University, and Oberlin College. As Director of Iranian Studies at UCLA, where he taught since 1988, Ziai established an undergraduate major in Iranian in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures—the first such degree in North America—and developed the strongest and most rigorous Iranian Studies program in the U.S.
Ziai authored eleven books on Islamic philosophy, published numerous articles and encyclopedia entries, and as founding editor of Bibliotheca Iranica: Intellectual Traditions Series, published fourteen titles on a variety of subjects related to Iranian thought, literature and civilization. Beginning with his Ph.D. dissertation under the direction of Professor Muhsin Mahdi (d. 2007) in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures at Harvard (NELC), he focused his research and publications on elucidating the rationalist principle in Iranian Illuminationist philosophy and its founder, Shihab al-Din Yahya Suhravardi (1154-1191) otherwise known as Sheikh al-Ishraq (Master of Illumination).
In December 2010, Ziai was elected President of Société Internationale d'Histoire des Sciences et de la Philosophie Arabes et Islamiques (SIHSPAI), an international academic society for the study of Persian and Arabic Islamic philosophical and scientific heritages.
Outside his academic career he also had an interest in art, producing oil paintings, pen and ink drawings, calligraphy and watercolors.
Biography.
Born in Mashhad, the capital of the Khorasan province of Iran, on the 6th of July 1944, he belonged to a family known for producing politicians and academicians, one of his earliest well-known ancestors being Mirza Abu'l-Qasem Qa'em-Maqam, a man of letters who briefly served as Prime Minister of Iran in the 19th century.
Outside Persian and classical Arabic, he had a reading knowledge of German and classical Greek and studied Sanskrit with Daniel H. H. Ingalls Sr.
Education.
He received his B.S. in Intensive Math and Physics from Yale University in 1967.
He received his Ph.D. in Islamic Philosophy from Harvard University in 1976.
Death.
On 24 August 2011, at the age of 67, Hossein Ziai died in Los Angeles, United States.