Born in Tabriz in Iranian Azerbaijan in 1906, Mohsen was the youngest son of Ismael and Sarah Hachtroudi. A high religious dignitary, Ismael Hachtroudi was a democrat in advance of his time. He never gave in to the temptations of the Court. He educated his four sons in the creed of science and democracy, leaving them great independence of mind in religion and politics. He himself sided with Satar Khan, the hero of the constitutional revolution of 1906, to promote the first Iranian constitution and the establishment of parliament, for which he was twice member for Tehran. On their Mother’s side, the four sons would voluntarily refer to her prodigious memory, and to her notable intelligence which was not negated by the small amount of education given to women at that time.
His family was soon established in Tehran. When he was eight years old Mohsen Hachtroudi could solve mathematical problems set for adults, but without using traditional methods. When he was eleven he taught himself French. At seventeen, already very well-known in the capital, he gave mathematics lessons to the students of the School of Politics. Faithful to his culture and to a lineage of the great Eastern scientists, Mohsen Hachtroudi continued studying science whist being passionately fond of literature. At the same age, seventeen, he was said to have loved and so frequently read the oriental Diwan, the Ghazals of Hafez, that he knew them by heart.
Always up against the existing educational system, he studied medicine for three years but then stopped, despite getting good results.
He was chosen as one of the first students to be given a grant to study abroad, and as the grants were given only to future engineers, he left to study engineering.
After two years in Paris, receiving brilliant exam results and, as he said “exploding laboratory experiments”, he went back to Tehran with many volumes of mathematical books.
Later, with his vocation well-established, the Study Grants Administrator gave him carte blanche to go back to France and study whatever he wished. He chose mathematics and came back in 1936 with a “Doctorat d’Etat”, the highest grade of doctorate in France, supervised by Elie Cartan, the founder of modern mathematics in France. After the examination of the thesis he declared “Here is a good candidate for a future Noble Prize for Science”.
Soon after this he came back and married Robabe Modiri, and they had three children.
His creed explains his future choices: “If I have a mission in life it is to educate the young people of Iran”. In 1941 he was appointed Professor of Mathematics at Tehran University. A year later he was nominated to be Director of Culture of Tehran. Then at the end of 1949 he agreed to teach for a year at Princeton, where everyone wished he would stay, but he refused. Mohsen Hachtroudi returned to Iran, to his home town of Tabriz, and became Vice-Chancellor of the University there.
In 1957 he was nominated to be Dean of the Faculty of Science of Tehran, but four years later he left this post and became a professor again. There is an anecdote from this period: the best student of the year in each of the four branches of instruction, mathematics, physics, geology and chemistry, was endowed automatically with a grant, but one year the young woman who had been given this reward was in danger of being deprived of it by another student “helped” by the Court. Clashing with the hierarchies the Professor declared “My daughter, maybe you will not be able to leave, but this young man most certainly will not”.
The term of Professor remained forever linked to his name. Professor Hachtroudi manifested great independence, inherited from his childhood, and wove solid links with his students. Dogma and absolutism could not help but make him furious, he who had devoted his life to the profundities of relativity.
“The medieval absolute theorems have been fragmented in this century, losing their legitimacy to other theories, which in turn are not in any way absolutes (...) Today, when relativity controls all affirmations, how can we tolerate fratricide in the name of an absolute commandment (...) For us this is intolerable”. Page 152, of no. 15 of the Tabriz National Library Journal.
Attentive to the needs of young people, Mohsen Hachtroudi also conscientiously maintained intense relationships with foreign scientist via letters, abstracts at international conferences, and publications. Although he accepted some non-state sponsorships in Iran, he often refused international invitations whose only aim was prestige.
Thus he made his mark on his era, and became what we now call an ethical authority. Besides mathematics he was versed in art, philosophy and poetry. There are poets recognized today that found in him their first guarantor and occasionally recognition. He himself has left some poems, though he always denied being a poet.
In 1976 his coffin was carried by his students, having accomplished his work : existing for them.
“I congratulate valiant youth, the standard-bearer of knowledge in Iran, whose servant we are. I am the humble host of their affection. If convention had authorized it, I would have wished that my mortal remains be buried in the precincts of the university to continue as the earthly repository of the dust raised by the march of youth”. Speech at the Iranian Space Club. Tehran 1973.
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