Ali Reza Sheikholeslami (21 July 1941 – 9 January 2018)[1] was Masoumeh and Fereydoon Soudavar Professor of Persian Studies at Wadham College in the University of Oxford from 1990 to 2006.
[2] He was an assistant professor of political science at the University of Washington (1975–85), senior research fellow at Harvard University (1987–88) and a visiting senior fellow at St Antony's College, Oxford (1988–90).
He was appointed the inaugural Soudavar Professor at Oxford in 1990, and held the Chair until 2006.
He was a visiting scholar at the American University of Sharjah, United Arab Emirates (2006–8).
[2] His publications include The Political Economy of Saudi Arabia (1984) and The Structure of Central Authority in Qajar Iran 1871–1896 (1997).