Jalal Al-e-Ahmad

Jalal Al-e-Ahmad was born in Tehran into a prominent clerical family and studied Persian literature at the University of Tehran, joining the Tudeh Party before breaking away to support Mohammad Mosaddegh's oil nationalization. Married to novelist Simin Daneshvar, he was a prolific writer of satirical novels like The School Principal (Modir-e Madreseh).

In 1962, Al-e-Ahmad published his explosive sociological critique Gharbzadegi (Occidentosis: A Plague from the West). He diagnosed the non-Western world's uncritical, passive consumption of Western technology and culture as a spiritual disease that alienated Iranians from their indigenous history and moral sovereignty, sparking a cultural revolution across the Middle East.