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 born in Tehran and attended Bell School in Cambridge, England (1960–62). He received a BA from Columbia University (1967), an MA from Northwestern University (1968), an MA from the University of Oxford^{[citation needed]} and a PhD in Islamic studies from the University of California, Los Angeles (1975). His dissertation title was "The Structure of Central Authority in Qajar Iran 1871–1896".^[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).^[2]

He was married to Shahrzad Vigeh Sheikholeslami.^[2]