Mohsen Kadivar - Family, Education and Career

Family, Education and Career

Born in Fasa to a politically active family, Mohsen Kadivar completed his primary and secondary education in Shiraz before being admitted into electronic engineering at Shiraz University in 1977. He became politically active as a student and was arrested by the shah's police in May 1978 for his political activities. In 1980 he switched his focus to religious education and began attending Shiraz Seminary. He moved to Qom in 1981 to pursue his studies in fiqh and philosophy. In Qom, he was taught by prominent teachers like Ayatollah Hossein-Ali Montazeri. Kadivar graduated with a degree in ijtihad in 1997. Then he went on to get his PhD in Islamic philosophy and theology from Tarbiat Modares University in Tehran in 1999.

Kadivar started his career as a teacher teaching fiqh and Islamic philosophy at Qom Seminary. Later he began teaching Islamic philosophy and theology at Imam Sadegh University, Mofid University, and Shahid Beheshti University. He started a decade of teaching at the department of philosophy at Tarbiat Modarres University. In 2007 political pressures forced Kadivar to leave his teaching appointment for a position at the Research Center of Iranian Institute of Philosophy. He is a faculty member of the Department of Islamic Philosophy at the Iranian Institute of Philosophy and is currently a visiting professor of religious studies at Duke University after spending the 2008-2009 academic year at the University of Virginia.

Kadivar married in 1981 and has four children.