Historians of modern Iran have unanimously agreed on the crucial role of Mehdi Bazargan in the events proceeding to the Revolution of 1979. Bazargan is best known as the prime minister of the Iranian post-revolutionary provisional government. He is also well-known as one of the main founders of several social and professional societies and associations as well as sociopolitical movements -- most notably, the Freedom Movement of Iran. Yet while Bazargan is popularly called “Engineer Bazargan,” the role of his engineering background and professional career in the formation of his religio-political thought has remained unexplored. Most significantly, in 1928 Bazargan was awarded a governmental scholarship to continue his education at École Centrale des Arts et Manufactures in Paris. Indeed, he was among the first group of students that Reza Shah sent to Europe to bring back not only technical knowledge, but also a sense of modern European-style nationalism. This paper investigates the role that Bazargan’s engineering background and French education played in the formation of his religious and political thought. Would he have returned from France with the same vision had he studied sociology or law instead of engineering? Through an examination of Bazargan’s writings (including Purification in Islam, Pragmatism in Islam, Love and Faith: The Thermodynamics of Human Being, The Coefficient of Conversion between Material and Spiritual Matters, and Nature, Evolution and Monotheism), his trial defense, his letters and memoirs, his French engineering curriculum at Nantes and Paris, I argue that Bazargan -- after spending seven years in France studying engineering -- returned home not only with a doctorate in thermodynamics, but also with a pragmatic vision that proved influential in shaping his political career as well as of his interpretation of Islam. Scholars of modern Iran, especially those who have studied the 1979 Revolution, have treated influential Western-educated individuals as belonging to a single bloc and have overlooked the influence of academic training and professional factors in shaping the religious and political thought of such individuals, who were both key players in the Revolution and highly trained in science or engineering. This research project belongs to a larger literature that investigates the relationship between academic and/or professional training and identity formation, and further asks what can be learned from the presence of a large number of scientists and engineers in the Iranian political arena.