Ali Reza was my friend. I firmly believe that this friendship was mutual. In my long academic career, I had scientific COOPERATION with numerous colleagues (more than 800), but very few of them where my friends. Somewhere in the first years of the present century, I noticed that in Iran there is a mathematician producing remarkable results in Mathematical Chemistry. Soon we got in touch, soon we started to do joint research, soon Ali Reza became member of Editorial Board of our “MATCH Communications in Mathematical and in Computer Chemistry” (where he published a total of 43 contributions). Eventually, we met on many mathematical chemistry conferences held in Iran, when I experienced the unforgettableIranian hospitality. We also met on a couple of conferences in Dubrovnik, Croatia, on one of which Ali Reza was elected member of the International Academy of Mathematical Chemistry (to what I contributed a bit).