Abdolghafour Rawan Farhadi

Abdolghafour Rawan Farhadi, a distinguished Afghan scholar of Persian language and literature, has passed away.

The late Rawan Farhadi was born in Kabul in 1929. He received his early education in his hometown and studied law at the University of Kabul. He was later sent by the Afghan government to Paris to pursue studies in political science and international relations, where he earned his university degree. For many years, he served as Afghanistan's diplomat to the United Nations. However, he was best known for his distinguished career as a scholar and professor of Persian language and literature.

Rawan Farhadi studied the Avestan and Sanskrit languages at the Sorbonne University. He also devoted himself to the study of classical Persian literature and wrote his university thesis on the life and thought of Khwaja Abdullah Ansari, the renowned Sufi master known as the "Pir of Herat." This work was later published in Iran.

Fluent in Persian, Pashto, French, English, and Arabic, Rawan Farhadi conducted extensive research on Jalal al-Din Rumi and his philosophical and mystical thought. Among his most significant contributions was his English translation of two thousand of Rumi's quatrains, a work regarded as an important scholarly resource for the study of Iranian mysticism.

Another notable achievement was his Persian translation of The Passion of al-Hallaj by the eminent French Orientalist Louis Massignon. This work has become well known in Iran and has been reprinted several times. He also contributed numerous scholarly articles to the Aryana Encyclopedia, published in Afghanistan.

Rawan Farhadi produced important academic studies on the Shahnameh, Persian-speaking mystics, the Tajik language, and the Pashto language. His other works include The Constitutional Movement at the Beginning of Afghanistan's Independence, a translation of Rabindranath Tagore's Prayer Hymns, The Life and Works of Amir Khusrau Dehlavi, and a Persian translation of Albert Camus's The Misunderstanding.

Abdolghafour Rawan Farhadi taught Persian language and literature at the University of Paris and the University of California, Berkeley. He spent the final years of his life in California, United States, where he passed away at the age of 97.

May his memory be honored.