Taqi Arani

Taghi Arani, (Persian: تقی ارانی‎‎, born on September 5, 1903 in Tabriz, died in 1940 in Tehran, Iran) He moved to Tehran with his family when he was 4 years old. In 1920, he graduated from Dar ul-Funun School in Tehran and pursued his studies in Germany studying Chemistry at Berlin Institute of Technology . While studying in Germany, he started to attend political studies as well. Upon finishing his studies, he returned to Iran in 1928 and started Donya Magazine (The World) and for the first time in modern Iranian intellectual history he tried to develop a scientific discussion on a variety of philosophic and social subjects in Donya. Many people consider Donya as his most important contribution to modern intellectual life in Iran. In 1937, he and 52 of his colleagues, The Fifty-Three, were arrested and charged with being involved in communist activities. He died (or as claimed by many, was killed) in jail in February 1940.

For a long time the Tudeh party, (previously major Iranian communist party), considered him as the founder of the party. He was even introduced as the Martyr Doctor by the party. However this claim has been rejected in a research by H. Ahmadi introducing him as just a political activist and blaming..