Background
Rahnavard was born in Borujerd, Iran. Her father Haj-Fathali was a Sh"ia and anti-Communist.
essayist journalist sculptor university professor
Rahnavard was born in Borujerd, Iran. Her father Haj-Fathali was a Sh"ia and anti-Communist.
She also has master"s and Doctor of Philosophy degrees from Islamic Azad University in Political science.
After hearing of a gathering of Sh"ia clerics in Iran, Haj-Fathali emigrated to Khomein, Markazi Province where Zahra was raised. Zahra Rahnavard earned her bachelor and master"s degrees in art and architecture from University of Tehran. Rahnavard was among the early revolutionaries against the Shah.
In the last years of the Shah, she was close to Ali Shariati, a dissident Islamist leader.
Rahnavard served as the Chancellor of Alzahra University in Tehran from 1998 to 2006, and as a Political Adviser to the former Iranian President Mohammad Khatami. Rahnavard was the first Iranian woman appointed as a chancellor of a university since the Iranian Revolution of 1979.
She was nominated to this post by former Minister of Science, Research and Technology, Mostafa Moin. After the election of president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2005 and the purging of reformist officials from the government, Rahnavard was removed or resigned from her position as the Chancellor of First Rate (at Lloyd's)-zahra University in 2006, replaced by Mahboubeh Mobasheri.
Rahnavard is also the author of 15 books
Now she is a member of The Green Path of Hope and is one of the Leaders of Opposition.
