KHANSARI, MOHAMMAD

 

KHANSARI Dehkordi, MOHAMMAD (Moḥammad Ḵˇānsāri Dehkordi, b. 1922, Isfahan; d. 4 March 2010, Tehran; FIGURE 1), logician, scholar and a permanent member of the Academy of Persian Language and Literature (Farhangestān-e zabān va adab-e fārsi; see FARHANGESTĀN).

Khansari began his education at a maktab in Isfahan and was subsequently enrolled in a primary school, graduating in 1935. He completed the first three years of his secondary education at Saʿdi Secondary School in Isfahan. Meanwhile he studied Arabic language and grammar, and also attended lectures on Koranic interpretation in the religious schools (Khansari, 2005, pp. 23- 33; idem, 2008, pp. 96-97).

He graduated from Isfahan’s Teachers Training School (Dānešsarā-ye moqaddamāti) in 1940, ranking second among his fellow-students. Entitled to continue his education in Tehran’s Teachers Training College (Dānešsarā-ye ʿĀli), he enrolled in the Department of Philosophy and Educational Sciences. His teachers in the first year of general studies of the College included such scholars as Moḥammad Taqi Bahār, ʿAbbās Eqbāl Āštiāni, Moḥammad Moʿin (1914-1971), and ʿAli Akbar Siāsi. He continued his education in the Department of Philosophy and Educational Sciences and came under the intellectual sway of such scholars as Yaḥyā Mahdavi, Ḡolām-Ḥosayn Ṣadiqi, Moḥammad-Ḥosayn Fāżel Tuni, and ʿIsā Ṣadiq, among others. He graduated in 1944, at the top of his class. His dissertation, on “Epicurean Philosophy,” was recognized as the best dissertation of the year by the Council of Professors of Philosophy (Khansari, 2005, pp. 25-27; idem, p. 103, 2008). After achieving his BA, he attended the classes held by Fāżel Tuni at his residence, and he studied such texts as Mollā ʿAbd-al-Allāh Yazdi’s commentaries on Taftāzāni’s Tahḏib-al-manṭeq, as well as Šarḥ-e hedāyat-al-aṯiriyya and Šarḥ-e šamsiyya. After teaching for three years at ʿAẓimiya Secondary School in Rey, he was invited in 1947 by ʿAli-Akbar Siāsi, the then President of Tehran University, to join the Faculty of Letters and Humanities, where he taught educational psychology and was also in charge of the Faculty’s Psychological Laboratory. At around the same time, he also enrolled at the Department of Literature of the Faculty of Letters and Humanities, and he graduated in 1950 ranking first in his class. Badiʿ-al-zamān Foruzānfar, Jalāl-al-Din Homaʾi, Aḥmad Bahmanyār, Ṣādeq Kiā, and Ebrāhim Purdāvud were among his teachers.  He entered the University’s doctoral program in Persian literature the same year and completed his course works at 1953. Upon the retirement of Fāżel Tuni, he began to teach logics in the Department of Philosophy of the Tehran University. In 1958, before defending his PhD dissertation on “Towṣif-e keyfiyyāt-e nafsāni dar Maṯnavi-e Mowlavi,” he embarked for France, to pursue his doctoral studies at Sorbonne at his own expense. His dissertation on Ḡazāli’s Meʿyār-al-ʿelm, entitled “Le Miʿyār-al-ʿIlm de Gazāli: traduction, notes, et introduction,” which he had completed under the supervision of Robert Brunschvig of Institut d’Etudes Islamiques de l’Université de Paris, was approved in 1961 as très honorable (Khansari, 2005, pp. 29-31; idem, 2008, pp. 107-12). He soon returned to Iran and spent twenty more years teaching logics, Islamic philosophy, and philosophical texts in Persian language in the Philosophy Department of the Faculty of Letters and Humanities of the Tehran University. He was retired, upon his own request, in 1982.

The first volume of his most noted work, Manṭeq-e ṣuri (Formal logic, FIGURE 2), was published in Tehran in 1959, and was followed by the publication of the second volume in 1973. The book, later published in one volume, has been reprinted forty-five times in close to two hundred thousand copies and has remained the most reliable source for teaching classical logic to date. An abridged version of this work was published in 1984 as Dowra-ye moḵtaṣar-e manṭeq-e ṣuri.  The book has been reprinted many times to date, totaling over one hundred thousand copies. Khansari is also the author of the textbook on logics for secondary schools. His textbook on Arabic grammar, Ṣarf-o-naḥv va oṣul-e tajziya o tarkib, was published in 1966 and is still regarded as the standard work of reference in the field. Mention should also be made of his Farhang-e eṣṭelāḥāt-e manṭeqi (FIGURE 3), which was published in Tehran in 1977. The revised edition of the book appeared in 1997.

A few months after its establishment in 1991, Khansari was elected as a permanent member of Farhangestān-e sevvom. He participated in the meetings of the Academy Council, as well as its sessions on neologism and coinage of new terms and words, up to the last weeks of his life.

Khansari’s translation of Porphyry’s Isagoge and his translation of Aristotle’s Categories were published in Tehran in a volume, as Isāḡuji, taʾlif-e Farfurius, va Maqulāt, taṣnif-e Arasṭu: moqaddama, tarjoma va towżihāt in 2005 (FIGURE 4). His annotated critical edition of Mollā Ṣadrā’s Iqāẓ-al-nāʾemin was published in 2008. Khansari also published about sixty articles in the fields of philosophy, logics, mysticism, literature and psychology in literary and scholarly periodicals of the time or as contributions to other publications. His articles on modern psychology and the pioneering psychologists are among the earliest Persian articles in the field. He also contributed the entry “Mahdavi, Yaḥyā” for the Encyclopaedia Iranica Online.

He was buried in the dignitaries’ block of Behešt-e Zahrā Cemetery in Tehran (Bahāri, 2010, p. 126; FIGURE 5). A selection of his articles, edited by Aḥmad Ketābi, was published posthumously as Ḵˇānsāri-nāma in 2011 (Bahāri, 2012, pp. 80- 82).

Bibliography:

Alvand Bahāri, “Ba yād-e Doktor Moḥammd Ḵˇānsāri,” Negāh-e now 19/85, Bahār 1389 Š./Spring 2010, pp. 126-27.

Idem, “Ḵˇānsāri-nāma,” Gozāreš-e mirāṯ, no. 49, Bahman-Esfand 1390 Š./February-March 2012, pp. 80-82.

Moḥammad Ḵˇānsāri, “Šarḥ-e aḥvāl,̤” Jašn-nāma-ye Ostād Doktor Moḥammad Ḵˇānsāri, ed. Ḥassan Ḥabibi, Tehran, 2005, pp. 21-44.

Idem, “Goft-o-gu bā Doktor Moḥammad Ḵˇānsāri,” Ganjina-ye asnād 17/68, Zemestān-e 1386 Š./Winter 2008, pp. 95-114. 

(Alvand Bahari)

Originally Published: August 7, 2014

Last Updated: August 7, 2014

Cite this entry:

Alvand Bahari, "KHANSARI, MOHAMMAD," Encyclopædia Iranica Online, available at http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/khansari-mohammad (accessed on 7 August 2014).