Nadia Maftouni


Nadia Maftouni is a prominent Iranian academic, philosophical author and artist. She is best known as a leading Researcher on Farabian, Avicennian and Suhrawardian philosophy with her modern reading of their works. She is also an established researcher in Jurisprudence and Islamic History. She is an associate professor at University of Tehran, where she is an alumni and a member of the department of Philosophy and Islamic Theology. She is a Senior Research Scholar at Yale Law School. She is also famous for proposing to Iranian artist Hossein Nuri when he was already in a wheelchair.

Early life

As a teenager, she became one of NODET's select students in the second year of its foundation. She was enrolled at Sharif University of Technology and started studying Applied physics.

Marriage

Maftouni first saw Hossein Nuri as he was invited to hold a speech at Sharif. Nuri was already using a wheelchair as a result of being tortured in 1972 for writing a political satire. Maftouni being captivated by his words, fell in love with him and proposed to him. She left her studies and family to live with Nuri who was then residing in the border town of Torbat-e Jam. It was there that she gave birth to two sons. A few years later they moved to Mashhad and then to Tehran.

Academic career

In 1999, Maftouni applied for Philosophy at Ferdowsi University of Mashhad. A year later, she transferred to University of Tehran as the family moved to Tehran. She finished her studies there holding a B.A., an M.A., and a PhD in Philosophy and Islamic Theology and became a member of the Department of Philosophy.

Artistic career

Maftouni learned painting from Nuri and held many exhibitions of her artworks along with Nuri. In 2004 and 2010 the couple had two exhibitions in Paris. In 2005 they displayed their works in Beijing and two years later in Berlin. In 2008 they went to Algiers for their next exhibition and Beirut was their following stop in 2010. The same year Vienna was host to their paintings.

Publications

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