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The Rt. Revd. Hassan Dehqani-Tafti First Persian Anglican bishop. The Rt.Revd. Hassan Dehqani-Tafti died on 29th April at the age of 87. He was the Anglican bishop in Iran for 29 years.

His life and ministry were dramatically affected by the Iranian Revolution of 1979. Life had been difficult under the Shah and the bishop had written to Ayatollah Khomeini pledging support for the building of a just and free Iranian society. He could not have foreseen the response. The consequences of the Revolution were devastating for the Anglican Church. The priest in Shiraz was murdered, other clergy were arrested. Its hospitals, schools and welfare centres for the blind were confiscated with their financial assets. An attempt was made on the bishop’s life, his secretary was shot and abducted and his son Bahram was ambushed and murdered. The prayer he wrote and the words he offered for his son’s funeral (which he could not attend) were quoted around the world. He was eventually persuaded to go into exile where he began to exercise a valuable ministry for Iranians in this country while for ten years he continued to inspire his small Iranian flock from afar. He also became an Assistant bishop in the diocese of his exile, Winchester.

Hassan was born in Central Iran, in the small village of Taft, to a modest Moslem family of traditional cloth shoemakers. His mother, who died when he was five, had wanted Hassan to have a Christian education. This was fulfilled at Yadz, Isfahan and at the Stuart Memorial College where the Principal was William J Thompson who later became bishop in Iran. Among the many influences of his education was a friendship with a convert from Sunni Islam who taught Hassan the love of poetry and Persian culture which never left him and characterised his writing and teaching ministry. It was a Persian expression of Christianity which he sought to build when he became bishop. He was baptised at the age of 18 taking the name of Barnabas (son of consolation) and he offered himself to train for the Christian ministry. He was ordained deacon in 1949 after training at Ridley Hall Cambridge and served for ten years at St. Luke’s Isfahan. When Bishop Thompson resigned in 1959 Hassan was elected bishop and consecrated in the cathedral at Jerusalem the following year. When the Province of Jerusalem and the Middle East was established in 1976 he became the first Presiding bishop, a post to which he was elected for a second term even though he was by then in exile.

Hassan’s life and ministry was distinctive not only because of the political turmoil of his homeland but because he brought to the conflicts a calm wisdom with a love of poetry, painting and traditional Persian culture. He wrote a number of books in English and in Persian including his reflective and moving autobiography ‘The Unfolding Design of my world’ published in 2000. He was a gentle and compassionate man who lived in violent times, his speech was frank and entirely without guile in times of spin and deception.

The bishop’s passing was peaceful and he is laid to rest in the grounds of Winchester cathedral. He is survived by Margaret, the daughter of Bishop Thompson, who he married in 1952 and by his three daughters, one of whom is ordained.

Edited from the national press.

Professor Ann Lambton Scholar and Persianist of highest order. Ann Lambton died in Northumberland on 19th July at the age of 96. Born in 1912, she was the eldest daughter of the Hon. George Lambton, the grand daughter of the second Earl of Durham.

She trained at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) and became the most reliable and erudite source of reference for all things Persian.

Not only was Ann Lambton (‘Nancy’ to her friends) a prolific author, she was an adviser to successive British Governments, a lecturer of international standing and a ‘Reader’ in the Anglican church who led worship until very recently. The Archbishop of Canterbury awarded her the ‘Cross of St. Augustine’ for her lifetime commitment to the cause of Inter Faith understanding.

In the war years she was the Press attaché to the British Legation to Tehran and in peace time became Professor of Persian Studies at the University of London, a post she held for 26 years. In that time she taught all the diplomats who were to hold senior Government posts and became the unrivalled authority on matters of language and culture. In recent years she has been appalled by the failure of diplomats and others to learn the language, without which she believed the culture and the people could not be understood or appreciated. She published works on Persian grammar and dialects, on medieval and modern Islamic political thought, on tribal and local history and on Seljuq Mongol Safavid Qajar and Pahlavi Administrations which remain authoritative to this day. Her greatest works were probably her studies of Persian land tenure ‘Landlord and Peasant in Persia’ followed by ‘The Persian Land Reform of 1962-66’. Others might say her ‘Cambridge History of Islam’ and her ‘Cambridge History of Iran’ have been more widely known and read. Academic honours were poured upon her: Fellowship of the British Academy; Honorary doctorates from Durham, London and Cambridge; Vice Presidency of SOAS, of British Institute of Persian Studies and others.

Ann Lambton was austere in life and manner and a forbidding opponent, not least on the squash court where she defeated successive generations of students. She was happy to spend her later years back in the fell district of her Northumbrian childhood, helping with the sheep. A friend recalls her late in life in boiler suit, fell boots and with strong gauntlets after an altercation with a ram. Some would sympathise with the ram. Another friend recalls her days as an adviser to the chairman of BP ‘she would arrive on her bike which she chained to the railings in front of the chairman’s car, she was always dressed in a severe tailored costume of north country tweed with heavy shoes for cycling. The commissionaire received her with great deference and put her in the lift for the 31st floor. She was unique, a great favourite with everyone in reception’.

It is often said with the death of a prominent person that an era has passed. With the death of Professor Ann Lambton that is unquestionably true.

Editor