ʿENĀYAT, MAḤMUD (b. Tehran, 23 August 1932; d. Los Angeles, 17 January 2013; Figure 1), Iranian essayist, publisher, and translator.

Maḥmud ʿEnāyat was born in Tehran into a middle-class family of religious scholars and educationalists and was the twin brother of the well-known scholar, Ḥamid ʿEnāyat (q.v., 1932-82). Although trained as a dentist, he enjoyed a career as a prolific writer and essayist as well as the editor and publisher of several significant intellectual publications in Iran.

ʿEnāyat was first drawn to political journalism in the early 1950s amidst the campaign for the nationalization of oil. His first journalistic contributions were to Šāhed (Witness) newspaper, a daily affiliated with the political party, Ḥezb-e zaḥmatkešān-e mellat-e Iran (Toilers Party of the People of Iran), in summer 1951, where he wrote a column entitled “Kand-o-kāv-e ruznāmahā” (Rummaging the Newspapers), and signed “Kand-o-kāvči” (Rummager) (Asadipur, p. 177). Upon the split between Moẓaffar Baqāʾi (1912-87) and Ḵalil Maleki (1901-69), the leaders of the two wings of the Ḥezb-e zaḥmatkešān, over support for Moḥammad Moṣaddeq in 1952, Maleki founded his own newspaper titled Niru-ye sevvom (The Third Force), which was the party’s youth paper (Abrahamian, pp. 256-57). ʿEnāyat who sympathized more with Maleki’s left-leaning approach and support for Moṣaddeq, joined the editorial board of Niru-ye sevvom alongside others like ʿAli Aṣḡar Ḥāj Sayyed Javādi, Jalāl Āl-e Aḥmad (q.v.), Moḥammad ʿAli Ḵonji, Naṣer Voṯuqi and Nāder Nāderpur (q.v.), and wrote his column “Rummaging the Newspapers” in the new publication, until the coup d’état of 1953 (q.v.) when the newspaper was shut down (Asadipur, p. 178).

ʿEnāyat then joined Ferdowsi magazine (q.v.), an influential weekly cultural journal, first as a writer and contributor, and later as its editor in two different rounds. The first round was between 1958 and 1960, and the second, between 1961 and 1964. Under ʿEnāyat’s editorship, especially in the second round, Ferdowsi became a serious intellectual weekly with liberal leanings. However, his differences of opinion with the publisher of Ferdowsi, Neʿmat-Allāh Jahānbānuʾi, regarding the readership for the magazine, were in part what led him to leave. In ʿEnāyat’s own words, “Mr. Jahānbānuʾi had a liking for articles that would appeal to all [ʿomum] whereas I wanted a magazine that addressed a specific social stratum” (Asadipur, p. 178).

It was also in 1960 that ʿEnāyat was appointed the editor of Irān-eābād, a cultural monthly affiliated with the Planning and Budget Organization (Sāzmān-e barnāma va budja), where he had begun to work following his departure from Ferdowsi (Asadipur, p. 178). However, perhaps ʿEnāyat’s most important legacy was Negin, a leading and well-regarded intellectual monthly journal which he founded and was first published in May-June 1965. In the years when censorship was at its height, Negin was able to publish articles that reflected the social and political concerns in a cautious and critical way, while keeping away from overt political commentary. Its aim, as stated in its third issue was to bring about “a forum for thoughtful intellectuals, without any misplaced partisanship or any undue antagonism toward anyone … so that our people get used to the idea that in this country it is possible both to have an opinion and to express it openly” (ʿEnāyat, 1965, p. 5). Negin thus brought together the elite of Iranian essayists and intellectuals; among them, ʿAli Asḡar Ḥāj Sayyed Javādi, Dāryuš Āšuri, Moṣtafā Raḥimi, Moḥammad ʿAli Eslāmi Nadušan, Ḥamid ʿEnāyat, Mehdi Parhām, Eḥsān Narāqi, and Sayyed Abu’l-Qāsem Enjavi Širāzi (q.v.).

Negin, with an average circulation of 1500 copies, continued to be published for fifteen consecutive years and 177 issues. It was shut down in April 1980, in part because of the publication of four articles by ʿAli-Akbar Saʿidi Sirjāni on Shaikh Sanʿān. Based on Farid-al-Din ʿAṭṭār’s (q.v.) parable of a respected old shaikh whose love for a Christian girl led him to renounce his faith, Saʿidi Sirjāni’s rendering told the story of a pious shaikh who engaged in increasing acts of deception upon falling in love with Qodrat Ḵānom (“Lady Power”). Seen as an indirect reference to the post-revolutionary times, and the corruption that set in soon after the new leadership gained power, Saʿidi Sirjāni’s articles were deemed offensive, and the journal in which they were published was banned.

ʿEnāyat’s own style of writing also proved popular with readers. In particular, his editorials titled “Rāport,” published in Negin, often made use of humor as a means to criticize the state of affairs indirectly and thus to enable him to evade censorship. As ʿEnāyat commented in an interview in later years, “[Humor] is a method that has been used since the old times. Humor and satire serve as a sort of cover in societies where direct expression is not possible. Writers have [often] expressed many unpleasant and bitter truths under the cover of humor and parables. Parables, when they are combined with humor or even satire, have much impact on readers” (Asadipur, p. 180).

ʿEnāyat’s choice of title for his editorials was in itself not free of humor either. As he wrote in subsequent years, rāport was in part a reference to the term that was used for the police or spy reports in the Qajar era. A selection of these articles titled Rāporthā was collected in a book edited by ʿAli Musavi Garmārudi and reprinted several times in Tehran.

Following Negin’s ban, ʿEnāyat turned to translation. It was at this time that he translated a number of books on a wide range of topics that included Mahatma Gandhi and His Apostles by Ved Mehta; The Anatomy of Revolution by Crane Brinton; Woman’s Evolution from Matriarchal Clan to Patriarchal Family by Evelyn Reed; and End of Empire by Brian Lapping (Asadipur, pp. 182-83).

ʿEnāyat left Iran in 1987 for the United States, where he settled and eventually resumed publication of Negin, although this time as a quarterly and as a means to counter the feeling of irrelevance in exile (ʿEnāyat, 1997, p. 3). This venture lasted for ten years between 1997 and 2007. He also published two collections of articles and plays, and continued to contribute to literary journals such as Kelk and Boḵārā published in Tehran. He died in Los Angeles in January 2013 (https://www.bbc.com/persian/arts/2013/01/130118_l41_book_mahmoud_enayat_obituary).