Abolhassan Banisadr

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Lore & Background

Banisadr was born on 22 March 1933 in Baghcheh, a village north of Hamadan. His father, Nasrollah, was a Shia cleric originally from Bijar, Kurdistan. He studied law, theology, and sociology at the University of Tehran. As a member of the National Front, he participated in the anti-Shah student movement during the early 1960s, resulting in his imprisonment on two occasions and his wounding during the 1963 demonstrations. Due to his political activities, he fled Iran for France, where he studied finance and economics at the University of Paris. While there, he wrote a book on Islamic finance, *Eghtesad Tohidi* ('The Economics of Monotheism'), and led the Islamic Association of Students, a religious faction affiliated with the National Front. In 1972, Banisadr's father died; at the funeral in Iraq, Banisadr met Ruhollah Khomeini and subsequently became his advisor. Both later returned to Iran on 1 February 1979, as the Iranian Revolution neared its conclusion. Upon the establishment of a post-revolutionary Interim Government, Banisadr was named Deputy Minister of Finance. At Khomeini's direction, he also became a member of the Council of the Islamic Revolution, taking the seat vacated by Mehdi Bazargan. On 12 November 1979, following the dissolution of the Interim Government in response to the Iran hostage crisis, Banisadr replaced Ebrahim Yazdi as Minister of Foreign Affairs. That same month, on 17 November, he was promoted to Minister of Finance. He openly criticized the hostage crisis, arguing that the ordeal was isolating Iran from the Third World and forming 'a state within a state.' In January 1980, Banisadr registered as a candidate for Iran's newly formed presidency. Though he lacked religious credentials, he remained protected by Khomeini, who had insisted that members of the clergy not run for office. On 25 January 1980, the election was held and Banisadr received 75.6 percent of the vote, winning a four-year term as president. Inaugural ceremonies took place on 4 February at a hospital where Khomeini was recuperating from a heart ailment. While in office, Banisadr led Iran's response to the outbreak of the Iran-Iraq war in September 1980, during which he survived two helicopter crashes near the border. Additionally, he oversaw the release of the American embassy hostages on 20 January 1981. By May 1981, Iran was experiencing difficulties on the front line, a decline in human rights, stricter media censorship, increased corruption, and heavy social upheaval. Banisadr, long engaged in a power struggle with religious hardliners, called for a new referendum. Amid calls for his impeachment, Khomeini told him he could retain the presidency if he publicly apologized, but Banisadr refused, instead asking for 'resistance' from the public. On 10 June 1981, Khomeini stripped Banisadr of his title as commander-in-chief. The Islamic Consultative Assembly debated his ouster; only one legislator, Salaheddin Bayani, spoke in his favor. Legislators filed articles of impeachment on 21 June, which Khomeini endorsed and signed off on the next day. In the days before his removal, Banisadr went into hiding in Tehran as the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps seized presidential buildings and imprisoned writers at newspapers aligned with him. Street violence escalated as Hezbollah and the IRGC attacked a large pro-Banisadr rally, killing 50, wounding 300, and arresting nearly a thousand. Throughout June and July of 1981, several of Banisadr's closest friends and advisors were executed. On 29 July 1981, Banisadr and MEK leader Massoud Rajavi were smuggled aboard an Iranian Air Force Boeing 707 piloted by Colonel Behzad Moezi, deviating to Turkish airspace and eventually landing in Paris. A news service report noted that government spokesman Behzad Nabavi told state radio that Banisadr attempted to disguise himself as a woman by wearing a skirt and shaving his eyebrows and mustache. Banisadr and Rajavi found political asylum in France, conditional on abstaining from anti-Khomeini activities inside the country, a restriction effectively ignored after the French embassy evacuated from Tehran. Banisadr, Rajavi, and the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan established the National Council of Resistance of Iran in Paris in October 1981. By 1984, however, Banisadr had withdrawn from the coalition after a disagreement with Rajavi. In 1991, Banisadr released an English translation of his 1989 text *My Turn to Speak: Iran, the Revolution and Secret Deals with the U.S.* In the book, he alleged covert dealings between the Ronald Reagan presidential campaign and leaders in Tehran to prolong the Iran hostage crisis before the 1980 United States presidential election. He also claimed that Henry Kissinger plotted to set up a Palestinian state in the Iranian province of Khuzestan and that Zbigniew Brzezinski conspired with Saddam Hussein to plot Iraq's 1980 invasion of Iran. In a 2008 interview with Voice of America, Banisadr claimed that Khomeini was both directly responsible for the violence originating from the Muslim world and for breaking the promises he had made while in exile. In July 2009, Banisadr publicly denounced the Iranian government's conduct after the disputed presidential election, alleging that 'Ali Khamenei ordered the fraud in the presidential elections and the ensuing crackdown on protesters.' He stated that the regime was 'holding on to power solely by means of violence and terror', accusing its leaders of amassing individual wealth to the detriment of Iranian citizens. In 1961, Banisadr married Ozra Hosseini. They had two daughters and one son. Beginning in 1981, he lived with his family in the commune of Auvers-sur-Oise, under close guard by French police, until later moving to Versailles. His daughter, Firouzé, married Massoud Rajavi in 1982, but the couple divorced in 1984 following Banisadr's withdrawal from the NCRI. After a long illness, Banisadr died at Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital in Paris on 9 October 2021, at the age of 88. He is buried in Versailles, in the cemetery of Gonards.

Reader's Guide

Abolhassan Banisadr's significance lies in his role as Iran's first president after the 1979 revolution, a position he held for only 18 months before being impeached. His presidency was marked by the Iran-Iraq war, the hostage crisis resolution, and internal power struggles with theocratic factions. His impeachment and subsequent exile highlighted the consolidation of clerical authority under Khomeini. Banisadr's later writings and activism, including co-founding the National Council of Resistance of Iran and his allegations of U.S.-Iran secret deals, made him a persistent critic of the Islamic Republic. His legacy is contested: supporters view him as a democratically elected leader undermined by hardliners, while critics see his claims as self-serving. His life reflects the turbulent transition from monarchy to theocracy and the fate of secular and moderate voices in post-revolutionary Iran.

Did You Know?

• Banisadr received 75.6 percent of the vote in the January 1980 presidential election, winning a four-year term.
• He survived two helicopter crashes near the border during the Iran-Iraq war.
• On 29 July 1981, Banisadr and Massoud Rajavi were smuggled out of Iran aboard an Iranian Air Force Boeing 707 piloted by Colonel Behzad Moezi.
• A government spokesman claimed Banisadr attempted to disguise himself as a woman by wearing a skirt and shaving his eyebrows and mustache during his escape.
• Banisadr's daughter Firouzé married Massoud Rajavi in 1982; they divorced in 1984 after Banisadr withdrew from the NCRI.