In Memory of my cousin Amir-Mansour Sardari

Not only , Amir-Mansour Sardari who passed away unexpectedly in the summer of 1993 was a very close cousin , but he was also a great patriot who served his country well . Indeed , after practicing medecine for more than twenty years , he joined the government in the late 1960s as deputy minister of health under a friend of ours ,the late Dr Shahgholi who had chosen him in order to introduce family-planning in Iran . In those years the high birth-rate was becoming a serious obstacle to the economic development of the country . Although the General Assembly of the United Nations had recommended family-planning to all developing countries , religious authorities in Muslim countries, including Iran , rejected it . Dr Sardari found himself in a very difficult poisition . But he accepted the formidable challenge and started a tour of the remotest villages and was able after many efforts to enlist the support of several ayatollahs . The program expanded rapidly and in a matter of a few years the birth-rates stabilized at a reasonable level . Unfortunately , Dr Sardari , for personal reasons , left the government and the family-planning program stagnated after his departure . Later he joined the United Nations and ,thanks to his experience ,was able to help many Muslim countries to introduce family-planning in their economic development plans . I often beseeched him to write about his experience in Iran and how he overcame the obstacles and difficulties . Unfortunately he always postponed this task . But his name will remain linked with the success of the program in Iran and in some other Muslim countries.

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