Editing Mohammad-Ali Jamalzadeh (section)

==Biography==

===Early years and family===
Sayyed Mohammad-Ali Jamalzadeh<ref>''Jamalzadeh'' is also transliterated ''Jamalzada'', ''Jamal-zadeh'', or ''Jamalzadah''. Further, ''Sayyed'' (a descendant of the [[Islamic prophet]] [[Muhammad]]) is a variant spelling of ''[[Sayyid]]''.</ref> was born in [[Esfahan]] into a middle-class family. The date of his birth is uncertain; years between 1892 and 1896 have been mentioned and, by the end of his life, even he himself was not certain of the actual year. The year 1895 has traditionally been taken as the year of his birth.

His father, [[Sayyid Jamal al-Din Va'iz|Sayyed Jamal ad-Din Esfahani]], was a progressive and popular [[Persian Constitutional Revolution|pro-constitutional]] [[mullah]], [[preacher]] and writer who
became a [[Constitutional Revolution of Iran|constitutional revolutionary]], delivering raging sermons that inspired his son but cost him his life; he was executed in 1908 on the order of [[Mohammad Ali Shah Qajar]] who considered him among the most dangerous of his enemies.

===Living abroad===
[[File:Kaveh-Mag-No9-Sept-1921-Berlin.jpg|150px|thumb|left|''Kāveh ({{lang|fa|کاوه}})'', Vol. 2, No. 9, 4 September 1921, Berlin]]
The young Jamalzadeh lived in Iran only until he was twelve or thirteen. Thereafter, he lived in [[Lebanon]], where he attended the [[Aintoura]] Catholic School (1908) near [[Beirut]], in France (1910), and in Switzerland where he studied law at [[University of Lausanne]] and later at [[University of Burgundy]] in [[Dijon]], France.

After his father's death, Jamalzadeh's life took a turn for the worse, but thanks to many supporting friends and to occasional paid teaching jobs, he survived starvation. By the time of [[World War I]], still in his early age, he joined the Committee of Iranian Patriots (Komita-ye Melliyun-e Irāni) in Berlin and, in 1915, founded a newspaper (''Rastakhiz'') for this group in [[Baghdad]].<ref>See [[Ebrahim Poordavood]].</ref> In a trip from Baghdad to Istanbul, Jamalzadeh  witnessed the [[Armenian genocide]] and encountered many corpses during his journey.<ref name=iranica /> He wrote of his experiences and eyewitness accounts decades later in two books entitled "Qatl-e Amm-e Armanian" (Armenian massacres) and "Qatl o ḡārat-e Arāmaneh dar Torkiye"<ref>M Jamalzadeh: "Qatl o ḡārat-e Arāmaneh dar Torkiye" in:  Mehrdad Mehrin (ed.) Sargozašt o kār-e Jamālzādeh, 1963, pp. 55-69.</ref> (On the [[massacres of Armenians]] in Turkey).<ref name=iranica>{{cite web|title=JAMALZADEH, MOHAMMAD-ALI i|url=http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/jamalzadeh-i|publisher=Encyclopædia Iranica}}</ref> During this time he also worked for the periodical ''[[Kaveh (periodical)|Kāveh]]'' (1916).<ref>See [[Hasan Taqizadeh|Sayyed Hasan Taqizadeh]].</ref> In 1917, he published his first book ''Ganj-e Shayegan'' (The Worthy Treasure). An overview of Iran of the start of the 20th century, ''Ganj-e Shayegan'' deals with Iran's socio-political and economic problems, a major contribution which bridges the gap between literature and science. In the same year he represented the Nationalists at the World Congress of Socialists in [[Stockholm]]. His later years, until 1931 when he settled in Geneva and worked thereafter for the [[International Labour Organization]], were spent in temporary employments, such as one at the Iranian embassy in Berlin.

During all these years, Jamalzadeh had very little contact with Iran but  continued to write about the lives of contemporary Iranians. His preoccupation with the use of language and his [[Dickensian]] style of writing, including repetitions, piling up of adjectives, and using popular phrases, quickly remind the reader of Jamalzadeh's background and of his sincere intentions.