Animosity towards Wisdom and Morality

The collected works of Āqā ‘Ali Modarres-e Tehrāni, the son of Mollā ‘Abdollāh Modarres-e Zonouzi (1818-1889), the most distinguished Iranian philosopher of Qajar period was edited and published twice in the span of nineteen years: Majmou’eh Mosannafat-e Hakim-e Mo’asses Āqā ‘Ali Modarres Tehrāni (The Collected Works of the Pioneer Philosopher, Āqā Ali Modarres Tehrāni. 3 volumes. Introduction, arrangement, edition and annotation by Mohsen Kadivar. Entesharāt-e Ettelā’āt, Tehran, 1999) and Majmou’eh Āthār-e Āqā ‘Ali Modarres-e Zonouzi: Hakim-e Tehrān, (The Collected Works of Āqā ‘Ali Modarres-e Zonouzi: The Philosopher of Tehran. The Committee of Revival and Edit of Advanced Assembly of Islamic Philosophy (Majma’-e ‘Āli-ye Hekmat-e Eslāmi). Qom: Enteshārāt-e Hekmat-e Eslāmi, 2018).

The present book is the review and critique of the second edition by the editor of the first collection of Āqā ‘Ali’s works. Under the title of Animosity towards Wisdom and Morality, it represents the evidence and documents of plagiarism, violation of moral rights, a waste of public purse, and finally the poor-quality work of Majma’-e ‘Āli-ye Hekmat-e Eslāmi. The 2018 collected works was edited by seventeen novice editors (practically without any chief editor or committee of editors) funded by several billion Rials in annual governmental budget.

It is noteworthy that the editor’s name from the 1999 edition is not mentioned even once in the five volumes of the second edition, and the 1999 collected works is virtually absent in all bibliographies in the five volumes of the 2018 collected works of Āqā ‘Ali, while undoubtedly the 1999 collection was the basis for the edition and annotation of the 2018 edition. The creators of the 2018 edition did not find even one notable point in the 1999 edition, while the 2018 edition evidently used the 1999 edition in the 25 works of Aqa ‘Ali. They bit the hand that fed them!

The jury committee of the eighteenth Iran’s Book of the Year Award (1999) in the field of Islamic philosophy selected the collected works of Aqa ’Ali as the 1999 Book of the Year. The office of the Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran contacted the Minster of Islamic Guidance to remove this book before the Book of the Year Award announcement takes place. The book was downgraded to the level of ‘books worthy of appreciation’. The concern of the Leader was: “The convict should not be awarded. Being convicted by the Islamic System is the stain of eternal shame.” After serving an eighteen-month sentence in prison, Kadivar had just been released from the Prison of the Welayat-e Faqih (the guardianship of the jurist-ruler). The evidence of this clear violation of law (and religion and ethics), and the establishment of ‘Militia Platoon of Students of Rational Sciences in Shi’ite Seminaries’ for ‘getting Islamic philosophy out of the hands of the incompetent persons’ were presented in the book’s preface.