Introduction
Founded by Amir Kabir, then the royal vizier to Nasereddin Shah, the Shah of Iran, Dar al-Funun originally was conceived as a polytechnic to train upper-class Persian youth in Medicine, Engineering, Military Science, and Geology. It was similar in scope and purpose to American land grant colleges like Purdue and Texas A&M. Like them, it developed and expanded its mission over the next hundred years, eventually becoming the University of Tehran.
The institute was planned by the Iranian educated Mirza Reza Mohandes, and built by the architect Muhammad Taqi-khan Memar-Bashi under the supervision of the Qajari prince Bahram Mirza. Facilities such as an assembly hall, a theater, library, cafeteria, and a publishing house were built for the institute.
Many parts of the institute were later on absorbed and merged into the newly establishing Tehran University. The Faculty of Medicine for example, was particularly the successor to the Dar ul-Funun Department of Medicine, established in 1851, which had become the School of Medicine (Madreseh-ye tebb) in 1919.
The elite school was training 287 students by 1889, and had graduated 1100 students by 1891. During this time, the faculty consisted of 16 European, and 26 Iranian professors.
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