article: It was the 1990s and Mr Rouhani was a post-graduate student at Glasgow Caledonian University. He once joked that he should divorce his wife so he'd stand a better chance of getting university accommodation as a single person, rather than requiring family rooms. At that time, he was also the deputy speaker of the Iranian parliament. But those who knew him say he readily accepted the more lowly status of a student. "He was on first (name) terms with fellow students," says Prof Hassan Amin, who has now retired from his post teaching law at Glasgow Caledonian University. "Many times he ate in the students' canteen and sometimes I would take him to the staff restaurant," he says. "People would come and sit down and I would introduce himâ€¦ and he would happily engage in a conversation with them." The thesis Mr Rouhani wrote for his PhD is called "The flexibility of Shariah (Islamic Law) with reference to the Iranian experience." He did the research in Iran while continuing his political duties in Tehran. But he commuted regularly to Glasgow to meet his academic supervisors and discuss the progress he was making. Dr Mahdi Zahraa, who was one of Mr Rouhani's supervisors, remembers him as "a quiet-spoken, very gentle man", with whom he enjoyed "intelligent and challenging" conversations. His spoken English was good. "We had very different views on some matters, on others we found that we held similar opinions," he said. "From our discussions, I ascertained that he had a modern and reformist approach to Shariah law." His thesis can still be brought out and read at the university library. "There has been quite a bit of press interest (in the thesis), interest from the public in general and quite a bit of interest from the Iranian community," says the library director, Robert Ruthven. "The thesis seems to show he has quite a flexible and perhaps modernising outlook." In the first line of the abstract, Dr Rouhani writes: "This thesis verifies that no laws in Islam are immutable." And he goes on to state: "The primary source of the Islamic law (the Quran) is in itself flexible on the basis of the analysis that the Quranic legislation leaves room for flexibility in the evaluation of its injunctions." Experts say this is not something new in recent Iranian thinking, but it does put him in the modernist or pragmatist camp. And while he's not regarded as a reformist, his victory in the election in June has raised expectations amongst the reformist groups which rallied around him that he will bring change to Iran. Since the election, Mr Rouhani has spoken of bringing moderation back to Iranian politics and being more transparent about Iran's nuclear programme, so what he called "cruel" sanctions imposed on Iran by the international community, can be lifted. And it seems his decision to study in Britain back in the 1990s, did to some extent reflect his more liberal outlook. "He chose Great Britain because he has respect for the legal system here, for the judiciary and also for
summary: The cleric, Hassan Rouhani, who is being sworn-in as President of Iran this weekend, used to stroll the streets of the Scottish city, Glasgow, dressed in a smart business suit, his turban removed.