Jaleh Amouzgar

Recipient of the Nowruz Award from the Pasargad Heritage Foundation, year 1403 of the Iranian Calendar (2024) –

In the field of Cultural Heritage:

Dr. Jaleh Amouzgar is a researcher of ancient Iranian culture and languages, a historian, translator, and university professor. She is this year’s recipient of the Nowruz Award in field of Cultural Heritage for her achievements as outlined below:

• • More than forty years of research and teaching Iranian culture, literature, history, and language.

• • An impressive lifetime of efforts to preserve and promote the cultural and historical heritage of Iran.

• • Tireless efforts to learn the ancient languages of Iran to read from important historical texts.

• • Valuable services in the identification of Pahlavi texts and Iranian myths.

• • Authoring of more than ten books and articles about Iran’s ancient culture and history.

Jaleh Amouzgar Bio

Jaleh Amouzgar was born in December 1939 in Khoy, Iran. She obtained a five-year scientific diploma from Irandokht Highschool in Khoy and a six-year diploma in Tabriz. To continue her studies, she joined the Faculty of Letters and Humanities at the University of Tabriz. As a top student in literature at university, she was awarded a scholarship, as many of the best students were awarded at that time. However, she was unable to benefit from the scholarship as her traditional family did not wish for her to travel abroad alone.

She was married and worked as a teacher in 1964 when the Ministry of Culture later announced that top students who did not initially use their award could reopen their cases. With this, she went to France and continued studying at Sorbonne University, now accompanied by her husband and daughter. Her PhD. dissertation is about Zoroastrian literature in the Persian language, including Zoroastrian writings and texts, which were written after Islam came to Persia but were according to Zoroastrian tradition. She graduated with her PhD and returned to Iran in 1969. She then worked at the Iranian Culture Foundation from the Ministry of Education. In the time, there were not any authentic Persian resources about Iranistics. However, she and other scholars, such as Mehrdad Bahar, Mohsen Abul-Qasemi, Fereydun Vahman, and Mohammed Salim, each started to study one Pahlavi book and wrote a glossary under the supervision of Parviz Khanlari. After two years, she worked as a professor at the University of Tehran. Regarding her studying days and university, she said, “I believed that we do not learn many things when we study, and it is the years later that one become familiar with the essence of working and knowledge.” To her, studentship is just the beginning, and one simply acquires knowledge of the methods of learning. It is just the beginning and not the end when someone acquires their PhD, and one feels before that that their works were immature.

Amouzgar has many works and texts which can be categorized into books, translations, and essays. She wrote Zoroastrian Myth of Life (with the collaboration of the late Ahmad Tafazzoli), Pahlavi Language, Literature, and Instructions, and Mythological History of Iran. As a translator, she translated the Book of Arda Viraf, as well as The actions of the kings in the traditions of ancient Iran, again in collaboration with Ahmad Tafazzoli.

Nasser Karami

Recipient of the Nowruz Award from the Pasargad Heritage Foundation, year 1403 of the Iranian Calendar (2024) –

In the field of Environment and Natural Heritage:

Dr. Nasser Karami is a climatologist, environmental expert, author, and pioneer of environmental journalism in Iran and a global environmental figure. He is this year’s recipient of the Nowruz Award in the field of Environment and Natural Heritage for his achievements as outlined below:

• • His dedicated efforts for more than four decades to preserve Iran’s natural heritage and environment.

• • His constant efforts to advance knowledge and awareness of environmental issues especially in Iran.

• • His timely warnings and clarifications regarding the dangers that threaten Iran’s environment.

• • Research and publication of various effective articles and books related to sustainable development, climate, and weather changes in Iran and abroad.

• • Having a permanent bond with Iran’s natural heritage and environmental issues and a lifetime of dedication to the betterment of Iran’s natural heritage and environment.

Nasser Karami ‌Bio

Dr. Nasser Karami, as a geographer, climatologist, and writer, has thirty years of experience in teaching and research on sustainable development and climate change in Iran and Norway. He worked as an associate professor in the Department of Geography at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. His research interests lie in sustainable development in dry areas, climate change, the relationship of totalitarianism and environment, and sustainable tourism.

His current projects cover the impacts of prolonged drought in the MENA region, Iranian classical techniques on survival and livelihood in arid deserts, impacts of totalitarian policies of some governments in the Middle East on drying up parts of the region, and historical dimensions of water issues in the Middle East. Some books by Dr. Karami, which have been published in Farsi, include Eternity (2011), Iran’s Path-finder (2008), New Concepts in Climatology (1999), Land and people of Oman (2008), Land and people of Kuwait (2008), Sustainable Development in Dry Areas (2001), Talkhak (1998). Iran’s Path-finder is a best-selling book on Iran’s tourism and geography and has been republished several times in the last ten years. Additionally, he has published scientific articles on climate change and the political dimensions of environmental degradation in the Middle East. Dr. Karami also has some experiences in regional planning and managing and advising development projects in some provinces in Iran. In Iran, Dr. Karami is known as an environmentalist journalist due to his twenty years of continuous columns in a best-selling newspaper in Iran, Hamshahri Daily. He has elected one of the thirty best faces of Iran’s environment in the past thirty years.

Herbert Karim Masihi

Recipient of the Nowruz Award from the Pasargad Heritage Foundation, year 1403 of the Iranian Calendar (2024) –

In the field of Visual Arts:

Herbert Karim Masihi is a photographer of historical monuments and a photojournalist in the photographic genre of historical monuments. He is this year’s recipient of the Nowruz Award in the field of Visual Arts for his achievements as outlined below:

• • Tireless efforts in presenting Iran’s cultural and historical sites and monuments as subjects of his photography.

• • Combining of different styles of photography and the creation of a new style of photography of historical work, sites, and monuments, generating a great deal of attention and interest.

• • Encouragement through his photographs of viewers and the public to seeing the architectural details of Iran’s ancient monuments and advancing understanding of their values.

Herbert Karim Masihi

Herbert Karim Masihi was born in January 1980 to a middle-class Armenian family in Tehran, Iran. Masihi credits his family for his love of arts, saying, “art was a main pillar of life in my family and that greatly impacted my education.”

He has been pursuing photography for years. Initially, he wanted to become an archaeologist, but he was not able to find the opportunity to study it. Instead, he turned to photography, becoming a narrator of Iran’s history and culture—or as his friends say, a narrator of stones and shadows.

Some of his photographic works and projects have included:

• • Working in Persepolis as a research photographer with a focus on the Achaemenid era

• • Architectural photography with a focus on ancient works

• • Creating a photographic collection of the signatures of sculptors of the Achaemenid era in Iran

• • Creating a photographic collection of the Susa civilization

• • Creating a photographic collection of Chogha Zanbil, a story of ancient people to today

• • Creating a photographic collection of Isfahan Shah Mosque, Ishtar Gate, and the Islamic era

• • Creating a photographic collection of Arg-e Bam and the beginnings of the desert

• • Creating a photographic collection of Mount Khajeh and clay structures

This press release has been published by the Pasargad Heritage Foundation to the Personalities of the Year for their vision and efforts to preserve the national, cultural, historical, and natural heritage of Iran that also belongs to all humanity.Recipient of Nowruz Award of Pasargad Heritage Foundation, year 1402 Iranian Calendar (2023)

In the field of Cultural Heritage.

Mr. Armin Langroudi is an author, researcher, and historian and is the recipient of the Nowruz Award in the field of cultural heritage for his achievements as outlined below:

• • For his many years of research on the history of religions and especially interrelationship between history of Iran and those religions,

• • For his extensive writings which include many articles and four unique books related to the history and culture of Iran and other countries, including the book “Why did we become Muslims”, the first book in Persian language that challenges hadiths and “Islamic history”,

• • For his courage to reveal the historical facts of different religions, instead of deceptive stories and legends, in the framework of scientific historiography,

• • For his tireless, realistic, measured and unbiased exploration of the history and culture of Iran which has led to many significant areas of research and debates,

• • For his rare book titled “Who are we and what are the Iranians’ religions” which is a detailed and documented research book about the historical and cultural roots of Iranians.

Biography of Armin Langroudi

Armin Langroudi was born in 1962 (1341 on the Iranian calendar) in Tehran. His family’s roots go back to the city of Langarud. Langarud, is a city and capital of Langarud County, in Gilan Province in Iran.

After completing high school in Tehran, he left Iran for Europe and studied computer science and management. However, he has been continuously engaged in fields of philosophy and history of religions

The beginning of Armin Langroudi’s political life goes back to the beginning of the 1979 (1357 on the Iranian calendar) revolution. Like some of his peers, he was influenced by Marxist ideology at the time and in opposition to the rise of the theocracy, but soon separated himself from that way of thinking and independently researched the philosophy and history of this ideology. Langroudi has a close relationship with some researchers at the “Anara” group (research institute on the early history of Islam and the Qur’an) from the University of Saarland, Germany and his scientific and political articles and works have been published both in German and Persian.

Apart from dozens of historical-political articles and writings, Langroudi has published four books in Persian about the origins and nature of religions. Langroudi is also the Persian translator of Papperlapapp’s bilingual quarterly. It has been published in German and in 11 other languages including Farsi. This quarterly magazine for kindergarten and primary school children is published four times a year.

Armin Langroudi’s books in the order of their publication are:

“How did we become Muslims?” about the origin of Islam in Iran, 316 pages, Forough Publications in Cologne

“Apostasy in early Christianity and its role in the emergence and spread of Islam”, 154 pages, Forough Publications in Cologne, Germany.

“And God created man in his own likeness”, 435 pages, Forough Publications in Cologne, Germany.

“Who are we and what are the Iranian religions”, 435 pages, Forough Publications in Cologne, Germany.

Langroudi is currently writing an essay on the concept of “time” in ancient Eastern religions, Greek philosophy, and modern physics and philosophy.

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This press release has been published by the Pasargad Heritage Foundation to the Personalities of the Year for their vision and efforts to preserve the national, cultural, historical, and natural heritage of Iran that also belongs to all humanity.

Recipient of Nowruz Award of Pasargad Heritage Foundation, year 1402 Iranian Calendar (2023)

In the field of Natural Heritage and Environment.

Nilufar Bayani is a conservationist, researcher, lecturer, and a senior expert in the conservation of natural heritage and wildlife, and is the recipient of the Nowruz award in the field of “natural heritage and environment” for her achievements as outlined below:

• For her impressive achievements and outstanding work as one of the few Iranian women in the field of natural heritage and wildlife protection,
• For her many years of efforts towards scientific learning of ways to preserve natural heritage and environment in different countries of the world,
• For her efforts and several years of work in the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), and helping to advance international projects to preserve global natural heritage,
• For her work on managing the planning of wildlife conservation in the Parsian (Persian) Wildlife Heritage Institute,
• For her immense affection and love for preserving the natural heritage of her motherland, Iran, which has caused her to pay such high price including years of imprisonment, mental and physical torture, and sexual threats in the hands of Iranian government.

Bayani and other environmental prisoners started a hunger strike. However, this did not result in any positive outcome. In the second court session, she stated that was repeatedly assaulted sexually and physically threatened by the agents, and every confession she made was made under torture. She said that in order to get a confession from her, they even showed her the dead body of Kavos Seyed Emami.

Sometime later, in 2019, she was accused of “collaborating with the hostile government of America and the Zionist regime and espionage against the Islamic Republic of Iran” and was sentenced to 10 more years in prison and the payment of three hundred and fifty six thousand and sixty dollars (equivalent to the salary she had received when she worked with the UN).

Today, in March.2023 Bayani is still in prison in Iran.