Razi University was founded under the name of 'The Faculty of Science' by Dr Abdul-Ali Guya in January 1973 in Kermanshah - one of the western regions of Iran with a pleasant climate - initially admitting 200 students in four fields of Physics, Chemistry, Biology, and Mathematics for its first academic year. Razi University was developed further afterwards to include Kermanshah Faculty of Medicine, Sanandaj Teacher Training Faculty, and Ilam Faculty of Animal Husbandry, which were all then separated from Razi University after revolution and became independent by the titles of 'Kermanshah University of Medical Sciences', 'University of Kurdistan', and 'Ilam University' respectively.
Razi University is currently composed of 17 faculties and enjoys the knowledge and expertise of 31 Full Professors, 122 Associate Professors, 277 Assistant Professors, and 13 Lecturers - making up a staff of 443 faculty members in 57 departments with approximately 12 thousand undergraduate and graduate students. 


   
Dr Abdul-Ali Guya was born in Qom in 1921, but began to live in Kermanshah with his family from early on, and it was in this city where he completed his early childhood education and received his high school degree in Mathematics in 1938, when he migrated to Tehran in order to start his academic education in Physics and Chemistry in the Faculty of Science of University of Tehran.
In 1941, he successfully accomplished his BSc in Physics and Chemistry, and began his teaching career in Hamedan, where he stayed for three years before he returned to Tehran and continued teaching in high schools as well as a few faculties and Colleges. In 1947, he received a bachelor's degree in Judiciary Law and an MSc in Physics, and then, began to continue his education towards a Ph.D. in France in 1960, where he received his doctorate in Mathematics-Physics in 1963. He returned to Tehran the same year.
After his return, he began to teach in University of Mashhad– Physics in the Faculty of Science and the Faculty of Medical Sciences, and Theology in the Faculty of Theology. He had a unique method of initiating discussions of Physics and Theology with a religious ending, which was new to the students of the faculty of Theology of that time- so much so that they still reminisce about those classes after all these years. In 1971, he was appointed by University of Mashhad to travel to Kermanshah for establishing the Faculty of Science and a few other faculties, and he must, indeed, be called the founder of Razi University. In 1978 (after Iran's Islamic revolution), considering his rich religious background in Tehran, Mashhad, and Kermanshah, he was appointed by Astan-e Qods-e Razavi as the manager of the Malek National Museum and Library in Tehran. Dr Guya passed away on October 1, 1995.