Career

A graduate of the University of Bradford, he is a professor at University of Tehran and appears frequently on international news outlets including the British Broadcasting Corporation and Aljazeera. His books "How Did We Become What We Are?" and "An Introduction to Islamic Revolution" are among bestsellers and prominent books on Iranian contemporary politics. Zibakalam has become a familiar face in Iran for his passionate and daring debates with hardliners in which he publicly challenges the state line on many sensitive topics.

Zibakalam’s Facebook page has attracted more than 350k likes.

His name literally means “eloquent speaker” in Persian language. While teaching at Islamic Azad University of Zanjan, Zibakalam registered as a candidate for the Iranian legislative election, 2000 from Zanjan, but he was disqualified by the Guardian council.

Achievements

• Zibakalam has questioned achievements of nuclear program of Iran and for this he has been charged with "weakening the system".

Views

In January 2014, he wrote an open letter to Hassan Rouhani and criticized him for not focusing on his campaign promises including freeing political prisoners and ending house arrest of the 2009 presidential candidates (Mir-Hossein Mousavi, Zahra Rahnavard, and Mehdi Karroubi). This was in reaction to a recent Ruhani"s speech in praise of pro-government protests against Green Movement protests on Ashura of 2009.

Zibakalam has questioned achievements of nuclear program of Iran and for this he has been charged with "weakening the system". In February 2014, Zibakalam publicly stated that he recognizes the State of Israel because the United Nations recognises it as a state.