He was an educator, author and, in the words of Shoghi Effendi, the "establisher and promoter" of the Baha'i Administrative Order in the Cradle of the Faith. Born in Sabzivar, Khurusan, Persia, in 1905, when he was but five years old his father became the first Baha'i in the family, followed immediately by his mother and grandmother. In 1914 he moved with his family to 'Ishqabad, Russia, and attended the elementary Baha'i boys' school, where, on his graduation at age 14, he was asked to teach the children of the first grade. He did this until 1922, when he began his secondary education. This was completed in 1925, and he went to work as principal of the Baha'i schools for a year prior to going on to the University of Moscow (where he graduated in psychology and education). Always active in the Faith, he traveled widely throughout the Caucasus region even while young and also taught in Leningrad and other Russian cities. In 1930 he was expelled from the Soviet Union for his participation in Baha'i activities, an event which seems only to have strengthened his resolve, because from that time forward he immersed himself totally in the administrative affairs of the Faith.
A year (1931) after his return to Iran he married Ata'iyyih Aziz-Khurasani. Together they settled in the remote village of Saysan and established a Baha'i school for girls and another for boys; this was the first access to modem education available to these children (eventually the schools had an attendance of about 700 students). In 1933 he was offered the position of principal of the Tarbiyat School for boys in Tihran but declined in order to remain in Saysan.
In 1934 he was elected to the first National Spiritual Assembly of the Baha'is of Iran and served as its secretary. He was also elected to the local Spiritual Assembly of Tihran and served on both simultaneously often as secretary of both bodies -- for a great many years. Also in 1934, at the request of the Guardian, he accepted the position of principal of the Tarbiyat School. A few months after he took on this role, Reza Shah Pahlavi issued an order to close all the Baha'i schools in Iran.
In 1941, with his wife, mother, and daughter, he went on his first pilgrimage to the Holy Land. In 1946 the Iranian Radio and Broadcasting Service invited him to give a series of lectures on children's education, the text of which was published as Essays on Education, which subsequently was published in English as Mothers, Fathers and Children.
He was elevated to Hand of the Cause in the first contingent, 24 December 1951. He participated in all four of the first Intercontinental Conferences, held in 1953-Kampala, February; Chicago, April-May; Stockholm, July; and New Delhi, October. During 1953-1954 he visited centers in the United States, Canada, France, Spain, and Portugal and more than 40 centers in Australasia. He represented Shoghi Effendi at the convention of Southeast Asia in April 1957 and was one of the Nine Hands of the Cause resident in the Holy Land, 1957-1963. He visited centers in Persia and Turkey from November 1959 to April 1960 and represented the World Centre at the conventions of Brazil and Uruguay in April 1961. Following this he visited centers in Argentina, the British Isles, and Cyprus. Although his many duties in the Holy Land included assisting with the pilgrimage program, during 1963-1 968 he undertook teaching trips in Turkey, Iran, East Africa, and Ethiopia and wrote a pamphlet answering the attacks made on the Baha'is in his native Iran. Again in 1973 and 1975 he toured Western Europe and was in Iran for five months in 1974. In 1976 his travels took him to the United States and Canada, India, and Hong Kong. In 1977 he visited England, the United States, Canada, Alaska, Japan, and Iran and went on to Western Europe in 1978. His travels continued throughout the 1980s, mostly in Europe. But it was not until 1990 that he was able to fulfill his long-held wish to return to Russia, where he visited 'Ishqabad, Dushanbe, Samarkand, Mary, Tashkent, Leningrad, and Murmansk and witnessed the re-formation, after a lapse of more than 60 years, of the first local Spiritual Assembly of Moscow. A year later he represented the Universal House of Justice at the election of the first Spiritual Assembly of the Soviet Union and the following year, the Regional Assembly of the Baltic States and the National Spiritual Assembly of the Baha'is of Hungary. During that Holy Year, 1992, he attended the Second Baha'i World Congress in New York City.
He died, as he had lived, in service to the Faith he loved so much. On 27 November 2004, following his custom of meeting visiting pilgrims, his heart gave out as he was leaving the room where he had, seconds before, been talking with them with no sign of illness or undue fatigue. In the words of the Universal House of Justice, in a letter announcing his passing to the Baha'is of the world, "He had fulfilled his longing to serve the Cause to his last breath." That same letter eulogized him as follows:
“'Ali Akbar Furutan's single-minded devotion to the Faith and its Guardian, the vital role he played in the establishment of the Administrative Order in Iran, his contribution to the spiritual and material education of children, his services as a Hand of the Cause of God, and his unswerving support of the Universal House of Justice together constitute an imperishable record of service in the annals of the Cause. His penetrating mind, his loving concern and his sparkling humour are ineffaceable memories in the hearts of the thousands of believers with whom he spoke. . . . We advise friends in all lands to commemorate his passing and to hold memorial services in his honour in all Mashriqu’l-Adhkar.” (The Baha’i World 2003-2004) (Adapted from ‘Historical Dictionary of the Baha’i Faith’ by Hugh Adamson)