Hojjat ol-Islam wa al-Moslimin Mahdi Mahrizi
Hojjat ol-Islam wa al-Moslimin Mahdi Mahrizi was born in Mashad in ۱۹۶۲. After graduation from the primary and secondary schools, he entered the seminary school of Mashad and after graduation from the primary level, he entered the seminary school of Qom and studied fiqh, principles of fiqh and philosophy for twenty years.
His teachers at the primary level of the seminary school were: Sotudeh, Payani, E’temadi, Musavi Tehrani and Seyyed Ali Mohaqiq Damad. His philosophy teachers were: Mohammad Ali Gerami, Hasanzadeh, Javadi Amoli and Ansari Shirazi. His teachers at the Kharij (advanced) level of the seminary school were Vahid Khorasani, Tabrizi, and Fazel Lankarani.
At the same time, he has taught the courses of the seminary school, including Rasaa’il and Makaasib. Since ۱۹۸۵, he has been teaching in different universities around the country. He has also given lectures and presented articles in numerous scientific meetings and conferences.
Besides different scientific and research responsibilities, currently he is the secretary-general of the congress of the Dar al-Hadith Scientific-Cultural Institute.
In the following, we present an interview with him about the activities of the Dar al-Hadith congress center:
Would you please provide a history of the Dar al-Hadith congress center and explain about its activities?
In the Name of God, the Compassionate the Merciful. Praise be to Allah, Lord of the Worlds, and salutation to Mohammad, the messenger of Allah, and to his pure household. “My Lord! Relieve my mind. And ease my task for me; and loose a knot from my tongue, that they may understand my saying.”
The office of the congress, in a period of about four years since ۲۰۱۱ –when it became an independent center–, has held two congresses: the congress of ‘Abd ol-Jalil Razi in May ۲۰۱۲, and the Congress of Ayatollah Meshkini in ۲۰۱۴. The products and charters of these two congresses have already been introduced. During these four years, some other activities have been performed by the office of the congresses, which will be explained in the following.
Currently, we are involved with five types of activities, the major of which is arranging conferences and congresses. We are presently involved with the arrangements for the congress of Sayyid Murtada. During the primary period of occultation, which lasted for ۲۰۰ years, i.e. from about ۲۶۰ to ۴۶۰ (After Hijrah), when Sheikh Tusi passed away, the thoughts and beliefs featuring the Shiite identity have manifested in the works of five characters. In fact when we look back through the history, these five characters have played the major roles in the formation of the Shiite thoughts and beliefs: Koleini, Sadouq, Sheikh Mufid, Sayyid Murtada, and Sheikh Tusi. In fact, the existing creditable works in the seven fields belong to these five characters. Of course, they had different thoughts and tendencies but they were the major founders of the Shiite thought in philosophy, tradition, principles of fiqh, fiqh, history, conduct, literature and poetry. Two conferences were held for two of these characters by other centers: the congress of Sheikh Tusi in Mashad in ۱۹۶۹, before the revolution; the congress of Sheikh Mufid in Qom in ۱۹۹۲, arranged by Jaami’ah Modarrissin. Fortunately, Dar al-Hadith has the honor to arrange commemorations for the other three figures. We held a congress for Koleini in ۲۰۰۹. And we are involved with the arrangements for congresses for Sayyid Murtada and Sheikh Sadouq. In fact, Dar al-Hadith is trying to make the Shiite core thoughts and works available.
You referred to the Congress of the Millennium of Sayyid Murtada 'Alam al-Huda. Would you please explain more about the activities of this scientific congress?
There have already been some works concerning Sayyid Murtada, however the major activity started after holding the congress of Ayatollah Meshkini. These activities are in three lines: first and most, we are involved with the revision of Sayyid Murtada’s works. His works had already been published but they were inappropriate and very different from modern ways of publication. The published works included about nine thousand pages. We recognized about five hundred new copies of his works, some of which were very old dating back to ۴۷۲ (After Hijrah), i.e. about ۳۶ years after Sayyid Murtada passed away. An example is a copy of Al-Zakhirah, which was provided from Moscow. The new versions of his works are being prepared base on the most important and influential works from among those five hundred copies and a group of researchers are taking care of the revisions. In some cases, about eighty percent of the work has been completed and as a whole an average of fifty percent of the total task has been accomplished. We have identified all the copies of these works, some of which have been evaluated and passed to the researchers. We have also arranged several scientific meetings with the team to tackle the problems and make coordinations. It is hoped that the collection is presented in thirty volumes following the current research standards in an organized subject based classification (Qur’an, tradition, theology, principals of fiqh, fiqh and literature).
In addition to the thirty volumes of Sayyid Murtada’s works, there will also be a ten volume collection of the produced works in the congress. One volume is concerned with his thoughts and it is being edited. There are about five to six articles about him, which have not been translated into Persian before. They are being translated and they will be presented in one volume. We have identified about ۱۳۰ Persian and Arabic theses and dissertations at the M.A. and Ph.D. level, about half of which have been written in Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Egypt. In comparison to the works done in Iran, this portion enjoyed the same or even a little higher quality. To tell the truth, the works done in our country are very weak and inattentive. For instance, there are about seven or eight theses concerning Intisaar: a research on and translation of the book of purity in Intisaar; a research on and translation of the book of divorce in Intisaar. They are very shallow and inattentive works. A descriptive/analytic review of these ۱۳۰ theses and dissertations is being prepared in two volumes. The outstanding articles separately published previously will be collected in one volume. A detailed bibliography of Sayyid Murtada’s works, including the copies, publications, articles and other works, will also be published in one volume. There will be a number of additional volumes for the publication of the collection of congress articles. We have received about ۱۷۰ articles, out of which ۳۷ were ordered. It is predicted that the number of articles will mount to ۲۰۰. Of course generally, about two third of the received articles will be accepted. Up to now, about fifty articles have been reviewed, out of which thirty articles have been accepted and twenty have been rejected. It is necessary to mention that the rejected articles are generally the ones written by students in cooperation with one or more university teachers. However, their materials lack coherence. We believe that about the same portion of the remained articles will be accepted (۶۰ percent). Totally, it is hoped that a number of about ۹۰ to ۱۰۰ quite nice articles will be published in three volumes.
What other peripheral arrangements have been planned besides the scientific activities of the congress of Sayyid Murtada?
The peripheral side includes the cultural aspects of the congress. We have planned the followings in this regard: based on the approval of the universal organization of UNESCO, the years ۲۰۱۶ and ۲۰۱۷ are to be named as “The Years of Sayyid Murtada”. This was suggested by three Shiite countries: Iran, Iraq and Lebanon; and Dr. Jalali, Iran’s representative in that organization, along with the national commission of UNESCO in Iran made tremendous efforts in this regard, which needs to be appreciated. From now on, in the Iranian calendar, ۲۵th of Rabi’ al-Awwal will be marked as “The Day of Sayyid Murtada 'Alam al-Huda”; furthermore, the ministry of communication has approved the publication of the commemoration stamp for Sayyid Murtada, which will be accomplished at its due time, if God willing.
Setting up an internet site and publication of a newsletter are among other peripheral arrangements. It is hoped that the plans are fulfilled up to the end of this year with an acceptable level of standard common among scientific communities, if God willing.
Apparently the congress center performs other activities in addition to arranging conferences. Please explain in this regard, as well.
What I explained above was about our major mission. There are some additional duties which have been assigned by the head of the institute to be taken care of by the office of the congresses. Since there has not been any report in this regard, I provide you with a brief explanation:
Part of the activities is concerned with Rey City, which I have called it “Rey Research”. In this part, two major works are in process: the first one is preparing “Rey Encyclopedia” with about two thousand entries. About eighty percent of the project has been completed, and we hope that the work is published in two or three volumes up to the end of this year. The second one is publication of a book titled as “The History of the Sites of Rey City” which is the unpublished dissertation by Dr. Safinezhad, the professor in Tehran University. The book is becoming ready to be published.
The other part is a collection of “Ritual Poetries”, which was one of Ayatollah Reyshahri’s concerns. He suggested the project in the second half of the last year so that appropriate poems are provided in the field of mourning ceremonies and at the events concerning the religious beliefs. We are perusing three tasks in this line, which I think will be ready to present up to the end of this year. One of them is “the theistic poems”, the next one is “’Ashura poems” and the last one is a collection of poems titled as “Qonout-e Sorkh” (raising hands passionately for prayers). The executive manager of this work is Mr. Mojahedi and its scientific supervisor is Mr. Zharfa.
The fourth part of our duties is taking care of the unaccomplished parts of the previous congresses. We are taking care of two tasks in this regard. One was providing a summary of the modification of the book Naqz, fulfilled by Mr. Garmarudi, which is a nice work. The text of Naqz is in ancient language, which is difficult for the current reader to understand. Mr. Garmarudi has re-written the work and presently it is becoming ready to be published. The other task is completing the electronic archive of the works of Ayatollah Meshkini.
The last part of the works we have done – which is in fact giving assistance to some divisions of the Research Center for Tradition Sciences and Knowledge –, includes providing annotations for a number of the entries of the Encyclopedia of Mizan ol-Hikmah.
This was a brief report about what is going on in the office of the congresses. We hope that it is accepted and approved by God.
We appreciate for your explanations and wish you success in your tasks.
