Amin Banani, founder of the Iranian Studies Program at UCLA, died July 28 in Santa Monica at 86. In 1989, he helped launch the western world’s first bachelor of arts program in Iranian studies.
 
An emeritus professor of history and Persian literature, Banani once served as chair of the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures and acting director of the Center for Near Eastern Studies.
 
Since its founding, the Iranian Studies Program has earned a prominent reputation on campus and in the community. In addition to a B.A., M.A. and Ph.D. curricula which Banani helped establish, the program offers a wide range of courses spanning ancient Persian language, literature, literary criticism, philosophy, metrics, art history, and the religious and intellectual history of Islamic Iran.
 
The program’s library collection is one of the three richest and largest in the United States. UCLA’s special holdings of immediate relevance to Iranian studies include several thousand manuscripts and other material in Arabic and Persian — from the first works on modern medicine in Persian to medieval philosophy, science, mathematics, astronomy, theology, jurisprudence, mysticism and literature.
 
Banani graduated with a major in history from Stanford University in 1947. He obtained his M.A. from Columbia University in 1949 and returned to Stanford for his Ph.D, which he received in 1959.
 
His academic career began in 1956 when he taught history at the Overseas Program of the University of Maryland in Athens, Greece, until 1958. He became an instructor at Stanford University and then taught as an assistant professor of humanities at Reed College from 1959-61. From 1961-63, he worked as a research fellow and assistant professor at Harvard University.
 
In September 1963, he was invited to UCLA by Professor Gustave von Grunebaum to establish a program of Persian studies.
 
Banani served on the Board of Directors of the Middle East Studies Association of North America and on the Executive Council of the Society for Iranian Studies. He was vice president of the American Association of Iranian Studies.
 
He is the author of "The Modernization of Iran" (1961) and editor and contributing author of "The Epic of Kings" (1967), "Islam and Its Cultural Divergence" (1971), "Iran Faces the Seventies" (1971) and "Individualism and Conformity in Classical Islam," among numerous other publications.
 
He is survived by his wife Sheila Wolcott, daughters Susanne and Laila, and two grandchildren.