The Many Faces of Hassan Rouhani

Rouhani isn’t an open book: He has a layered, somewhat closeted personality. An attentive observer can’t help noticing something disingenuous or theatrical about him: His real family name is Fereydoun, but he goes by Rouhani, which means “pious” or “a cleric” in Arabic. He wears clerical garb, but two decades before receiving a long-distance Ph.D. from a Scottish university, he wanted others to call him “Doctor” rather than his clerical title, hojjat al-Islam va al-Muslimin, a rank below ayatollah. Beyond appellations, in the run-up to the 2013 presidential elections, Rouhani promised Iranians a “charter of rights.” Yet since 1979, throughout his entire political career, he has systematically violated what even hard-nosed Islamic jurists might consider sacred obligations that rulers owe their subjects.