astronomy

Hassan Rouhani

Hassan Rouhani is a astronomy topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Hassan Rouhani rather than just read about it. In short: Hassan Rouhani (born Hassan Fereydoun, 12 November 1948) is an Iranian politician who served as the seventh president of Iran from 2013 to 2021. He is also a sharia lawyer ("Wakil"), academic, former diplomat and Islamic cleric.

Key takeaways

Hassan Rouhani belongs to astronomy; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Hassan Rouhani to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Hassan Rouhani from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Hassan Rouhani (born Hassan Fereydoun, 12 November 1948) is an Iranian politician who served as the seventh president of Iran from 2013 to 2021. He is also a sharia lawyer ("Wakil"), academic, former diplomat and Islamic cleric. He served as a member of Iran's Assembly of Experts from 1999 to 2024. He was a member of the Expediency Council from 1991 to 2013, and was a member of the Supreme National Security Council from 1989 to 2021. Rouhani was deputy speaker of the fourth and fifth terms of the Parliament of Iran (Majlis) and Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council from 1989 to 2005. In the latter capacity, he was the country's top negotiator with the EU three, the UK, France, and Germany, on nuclear technology in Iran, and has also served as a Shia mujtahid (a senior cleric), and economic trade negotiator. On 7 May 2013, Rouhani registered for the presidential election that was held on 14 June 2013. He campaigned on promises to restore the economy, improve rocky relations with Western nations, and prepare a "civil rights charter" if elected. He also expressed official support for upholding the rights of ethnic and religious minorities. He was elected as President of Iran on 15 June, defeating Tehran mayor Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf and four other candidates; he took office on 3 August 2013. In 2013, Time magazine named him in its list of the 100 Most Influential People in the World. Rouhani is frequently described as a centrist and reformist. In domestic policy, he encourages personal freedom, free access to information, and has improved women's rights by appointing female foreign ministry spokespeople. He has also improved Iran's diplomatic relations with other countries by exchanging conciliatory letters. Rouhani won re-election in the 2017 election with 23,636,652 votes (57.1%). He became the third Iranian President, after Mohammad Khatami and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, to win a presidential victory as an incumbent with an increased electoral mandate. Although Rouhani originally had the support of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei during his second term, their relationship soured as Khamenei criticized Rouhani for presumably being too soft in negotiations with the West over the Iran nuclear agreement. After his second term, Rouhani was not appointed to any senior role by Khamenei. According to The New York Times, Rouhani was one of the potential and likely candidates in the 2026 supreme leader election following Khamenei's assassination. However, Khamenei's son, Mojtaba Khamenei was elected his father's successor.

Early life and education

Hassan Rouhani was born Hassan Fereydoun on 12 November 1948 in Sorkheh, near Semnan, in a religious Persian family. His father, Haj Asadollah Fereydoun (died 2011), had a spice shop in Sorkheh and his mother lived in Semnan until her death in 2015 with her daughters and sons-in-law. Asadollah Fereydoun is reported to have been politically active against Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, the Shah of Iran, and arrested first in 1962, and then more than 20 times before the Iranian Revolution in 1979. Rouhani started religious studies in 1960. First at Semnan Seminary before moving on to the Qom Seminary in 1961. He attended classes taught by prominent scholars of that time including Mostafa Mohaghegh Damad, Morteza Haeri Yazdi, Mohammad-Reza Golpaygani, Soltani, Mohammad Fazel Lankarani, and Mohammad Shahabadi. In addition, he studied modern courses, and was admitted to the University of Tehran in 1969, and obtained a BA degree in Judicial Law in 1972. In 1973, Rouhani entered military service in the city of Nishapur. Rouhani continued his studies at Glasgow Caledonian University in Scotland, and graduated in 1995 with an MPhil degree in Law with his thesis entitled The Islamic legislative power with reference to the Iranian experience and a PhD degree in Constitutional Law in 1999 for a thesis titled The Flexibility of Shariah (Islamic Law) with reference to the Iranian experience. Rouhani's Caledonian research was initially supervised by Iranian lawyer and scholar Sayed Hassan Amin and later by Islamic law scholar Mahdi Zahraa. The website of the Center for Strategic Research, a think-tank headed by Rouhani, misattributed his doctorate to Glasgow University rather than Glasgow Caledonian University and confusion ensued as a result on whether he was a graduate of either university, especially as he was known during his student years by his birth name "Hassan Fereydoun". Glasgow Caledonian University carried out an internal investigation to confirm Rouhani's alumnus status and after confirming it, it published Rouhani's theses abstracts and a video showing him being capped, as Scottish academic tradition provides, during the university's 1999 graduation ceremony.

Allegations of PhD thesis plagiarism

Allegations regarding Rouhani's plagiarism were first raised in 2013 when it was claimed that he had probably "lifted" sentences from a book by Afghan author Mohammad Hashim Kamali. Glasgow Caledonian University, Rouhani's graduation school, argued that the sentences were both cited properly. The issue was raised again amid 2017 Iranian presidential election when a student campaign claimed that they had for the first time investigated Rouhani's whole thesis using plagiarism detection tool iThenticate and that chapters one through four of Rouhani's thesis had been plagiarized at least 39%, 43%, 40% and 82%, respectively. Ayatollah Ali Akbar Kalantari, a member of the Assembly of Experts, Shiraz University faculty member and one of the alleged victims, said that "major segments" of Chapter 4 of Rouhani's thesis had been translated from his book without being referenced. Reformist Sadegh Zibakalam accused Rouhani's rival of politicizing the case right before the elections. Mohammad Mehdi Zahedi, head of Iranian Parliament's Commission on Education and Research, said that he had found major plagiarisms in chapter 4 of Rouhani's thesis and that the case would be investigated in Education and Research Commission. 50 student-run organizations as well as Shiraz University faculty professors asked Ali Akbar Kalantari to prosecute the case in separate letters.

Personal life

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Hassan Rouhani

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Hassan Rouhani claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In astronomy, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Hassan Rouhani before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Hassan Rouhani ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Hassan Rouhani

In research: Hassan Rouhani appears in astronomy research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Hassan Rouhani in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Hassan Rouhani is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1948 births, 20th-century Iranian lawyers, Alumni of Glasgow Caledonian University, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Hassan Rouhani outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Hassan Rouhani in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Hassan Rouhani means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Hassan Rouhani out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Hassan Rouhani in simple terms?

Why does Hassan Rouhani matter?

Because it connects several astronomy ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Hassan Rouhani?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Hassan Rouhani.