The 25th Volume of the Great Islamic Encyclopedia and the Commemorative Logo of the CGIE’s 40th Anniversary are Unveiled

1/19/2025 09:40

The 25th volume of the Great Islamic Encyclopedia and the commemorative logo of the CGIE’s 40th anniversary were unveiled on Wednesday, December 19, 2023, on the eve of Shab-e Yaldā during a ceremony which was attended by the members of the supreme scientific council, the directors, the deputy directors and the staff of the Centre for the Great Islamic Encyclopedia.

CGIE: The 25th volume of the Great Islamic Encyclopedia and the commemorative logo of the CGIE’s 40th anniversary were unveiled on Wednesday, December 19, 2023, on the eve of Shab-e Yaldā1  during a ceremony which was attended by the members of the supreme scientific council, the directors, the deputy directors and the staff of the Centre for the Great Islamic Encyclopedia.

A Determined Effort to Protect the Iranian Culture

At the outset of the ceremony, Kāẓim Mūsavī Bojnurdī, the CEO of the Centre for the Great Islamic Encyclopedia, gave a brief speech and said: “I owe a debt of gratitude to every single one of you. An elderly scholar once said that we are merely encyclopedists and I said in reply that you are doing the best you can do. Here at the CGIE, we were honored to have the assistance of a number of late scholars such as Sharaffudīn Khorāsānī, ʿInāyatollah Reza, Iraj Afshār, ʿAbbās Zaryāb Khoyī, Āẕartāsh Āẕarnūsh, Muḥammad Ḥasan Ganjī, Muḥammad Ibrāhīm Bāstānī Pārīzī, Aḥmad ʾIqtidārī, Aḥmad Tafaḍulī, Qamar Āriyān, Fāṭima Karīmī and Badruzzamān Qarīb, who made an admirable contribution to the Great Islamic Encyclopedia.”

He continued: “I would like to congratulate you on the part you have played in getting through these difficult times. Iran is in an emergency. It is incumbent upon every one of us to preserve our national culture as it is our most valuable asset. We were a nation who connected our Iranian worldview with the Islamic worldview and by doing so, we played an outstanding role in the prosperity of the Islamic Civilization.”

The editor-in-chief of the Great Islamic Encyclopedia (GIE) added: “Every volume of the GIE contains 200 entries, each of which is revised ten times. Thus each volume undergoes 2000 revisions. I hope that we will carry on this great work and keep the lights on since we are determined to protect the Iranian culture.”                

On the Right Path to Protect our Iranian and Islamic Sense of Identity

Aḥmad Masjid-Jāmʿeī, the deputy director of the Centre for the Great Islamic Encyclopedia, said in his speech: “All the figures named earlier are the leading lights of literature, art and wisdom in Iran and they are indeed a hard act to follow.”

He continued: “Let me start my speech by paying tribute to ʿAlī Akbar Dehkhudā, a pioneer in creating Persian encyclopedic dictionaries, and to Ghulām-Ḥussain Muṣāḥab, the author of the Persian Encyclopedia which is still referred to as one of the most comprehensive and authoritative encyclopedias in Farsi. They left us a great legacy to be continued by the Centre for the Great Islamic Encyclopedia, a nonaffiliated centre which was founded after the Iranian Revolution. Despite the fact that some ideas were dismissed and some works were left unfinished, this centre pursued its path and took steps towards protecting our Iranian and Islamic sense of identity. In difficult social and political circumstances, when the top university professors and eminent intellectuals were banished from the academic institutions, it was the CGIE which accepted them with open arms and brought them under its umbrella.”

The ex-minister of culture and Islamic Guidance during the presidency of Muḥammad Khātamī (1997-2005) stated: “We have a rich national heritage and we have the heavy responsibility to preserve it. On the 40th Anniversary of the Establishment of the CGIE, we have reached the halfway stage of this worthwhile project. This notable achievement will bring lasting benefits for the future generations. We saw it as part of our moral responsibility to pursue the same goal as professors Zarrīn-kūb, Zaryāb, Afshār et al would have strived to attain. We must have Iran’s best interests at heart and this is a distinguishing characteristic which all of these figures had in common. In spite of their various ways of thinking and different economic, social and ethnic interests, they set their heart on gathering here and therefore, they donated their private libraries to the CGIE.”

He concluded his speech by saying: “The remaining entries are even more complex to deal with, since they have to meet the high academic criteria which were set by those scholars. Some new entries are to be included due to our adherence to these standards; in any case, I hope that we will attain our ultimate goal.”

The faceted Gemstone 

The next speaker was ʿAlī Ashraf Ṣādiqī, member of the supreme scientific council at the CGIE, who said; “It is most unfortunate that there have been no replacements for the great scholars who have passed away during the last seventy years in Iran. Let’s take the University of Tehran as an example. The Faculty of Humanities at this university which used to be a haven for some renowned intellectuals such as Jalāluddin Homayī, Badīuzzamān Forūzān-far, Saʿīd Nafīsī, Ibrāhīm Pūr-dāvūd, Muḥammad Taqī Mudarris Razavī, Parvīz Nātil Khānlarī, Ẕabīhullah Ṣafā and Ṣādiq Kīyā, is now a picture of sheer misery.”

This emeritus professor of linguistics at the University of Tehran added: “At that faculty, we had the honor to have some great professors like ʿAbbās Zaryāb Khoyī, Aḥmad Tafaḍulī, Badruzzamān Qarīb, Muḥammad Ḥasan Ganjī, ʿInāyatollah Reza et al who were not replaced by anyone. This faculty has fallen into decline ever since their demise and there is no hope for the revival of intellectualism and patriotism in there.”      

He ended his speech by saying: “Aḥmad Masjid-Jāmʿeī has joined the CGIE and some attempts have been made for budgeting, so I hope that the CGIE will manage to thrive again and reclaim its past glories. I hope that you will be able to publish a new volume of GIE every year since it is the faceted gemstone of the CGIE, though I am certain that there are other significant research projects in progress here.”

Great Pains Are Taken to Write a Comprehensive Article

The next speaker who took the podium was Aṣghar Dādbeh, the director of “Literature Department” and member of the supreme scientific council at the CGIE. In his speech, he said: “In the 18th century AD, a society called ‘Encyclopedists’ was established to contribute to the development of an Encyclopedia in Europe; We are three centuries behind the Europeans since we have been held back due to their underlying enmities. The knives are out for our language and culture. Even in our neighbouring country, Afghanistan, shops whose owners are not able to speak Pashto are closed down following a movement for restricting the use of Persian and promoting Pashto as the official language of the ruling government. This means that enemy has reached our door.”  

This formerly ʿAllāmeh Ṭabāṭaba'ī University professor of Islamic philosophy and mystical literature stressed that if we are about to maintain the quality of our articles, we have to give them our undivided attention. At the CGIE, I am a pioneer in providing the young scholars with opportunities in the Literature Department. I approve of recruiting the young and leaving the field clear for them but not at the cost of decreasing the quality of the articles. As Dr. Fatḥullah Mojtabāyī once said “A well-written article is like well-cooked food, so we must cook good articles”; by cutting corners and improvisations, we cannot write original articles, great pains should be taken to write a comprehensive article. It sounds insane if we have materialistic criteria for the assessment of articles, they have to be well-cooked. This way, you serve the interests of the Iranian culture and your name will last forever.

Without a Shadow of Doubt

Sayyid Muṣṭafā Moḥaqiq Dāmād, the director of “Law Department” and member of the supreme scientific council at the CGIE, began his speech by saying: “I look back on the past forty years; Kāẓim Mūsavī Bojnurdī called me over for the compilation of the Great Islamic Encyclopedia. When I attended the first meeting, I found myself sitting before three oceans of knowledge; Sharaffudīn Khorāsānī, ʿAbbās Zaryāb Khoyī and Syed Fatḥullah Mojtabāyī. I was then a young student of Islamic Studies, who had come to Tehran from Qom. I felt like I was standing in front of heavy seas.”

This formerly Shahīd Bihishtī University professor of law continued: “I told myself that his idea cannot be put into practice but he himself knew without a shadow of doubt that he could achieve that goal. He had served a fourteen-year sentence as a political prisoner, as a result of which he had lost faith in armed struggles since he had realized that the pen was mightier than the sword. He admitted to making a mistake. I have seldom seen a person like him in my lifetime, a person who is acutely embarrassed to confess to making a mistake. Tawbah (repentance) in the context of Islam is a curious concept; if it was practiced, the Muslim community would prosper. I am absolutely delighted that his sheer perseverance paid off and he achieved his aims.”

Comprehensiveness Is Falling

ʿAlī Bahramiān, the chief scientific officer and member of the supreme scientific council at the CGIE, said in his speech: “When I joined this centre, the 3rd Volume of the Great Islamic Encyclopedia was unveiled. I am among the young who began working here. We are all contented with the publication of the 25th volume of the Great Islamic Encyclopedia as we endeavored to overcome the severe difficulties and resolve the devastating crises in our way. I do not remember that we had made this amount of endeavor for publishing any of the other volumes of this Great Islamic Encyclopedia in the past.”

He added: “It is of great significance to train a scientific staff who can maintain the acceptable standards; the young graduates and postgraduates are not sufficiently knowledgeable since they have had a poor education. The faults in our educational system must be diagnosed. According to our Iranian and Islamic culture, a successful scholar is the one whose knowledge spans many different subjects. Comprehensiveness is falling. One needs to be a polymath to achieve resounding successes and this point is of more importance at the CGIE. There are no experts at the centre who are able to write some of the articles in the upcoming volumes. To proceed further, we must make serious attempts in order to be comprehensive in our studies. I hope that the remaining volumes will be published one after the other.”

Going Through the Arduous Paths   

Delivering a short speech, Naṣrullāh Pūrjawadī, the director of “Philosophy Department” and member of the supreme scientific council at the CGIE, admired the CGIE’s success in having gone through the arduous paths in the recent years and expressed the hope that the 26th volume of the Great Islamic Encyclopedia will be released in the near future.

At the end of this ceremony which coincided the eve of Shab-e Yaldā, Aṣghar Dādbeh, according to the Iranian cultural tradition, opened the Dīvān of Ḥāfeẓ for a ‘Fāl’ (divination) and read out a ghazal (lyric poem) which begins with this couplet:

If into the curl of Thy two tresses, my head again should reach,

With Thy chaugan, what heads (there are) that like a ball, I shall ply.

(English translation by Henry Wilberforce Clarke)

From Four to Forty

Reza Farzān Yār, the art director and the designer of the commemorative logo of the CGIE’s 40th Anniversary, delivered a speech at the end of this ceremony. He said: “Numbers four and forty have a particular place in Persian literature and culture as they symbolize abundance, perfection and maturity. The design of the Persian Garden, which is divided into four sections known as ‘Chahār Bāgh’, is associated with the idea of earthly Paradise and ‘Shab-e Chelleh’ (the night of forty’) also called Shab-e Yaldā, and Chelleh Neshīnī (worshiping for a forty-day period) are all the best-known features of the Persian culture. The four-time repetition of number forty in this logo symbolizes the four decades of the CGIE’s activities and number one hundred sixty, which is four times forty, represents the Abjad calculation of the numerical value of the letters of Iran and the Centre for the Great Islamic Encyclopedia in Persian.”

He continued: “The repeating forms in this logo represent the continuation of the endeavors the CGIE’s staff make in order to preserve the Iranian culture and its turquoise blue and gold colors are symbols of good fortune and the Persian culture, respectively.”

The ceremony closed with the launch of the 25th volume of the Great Islamic Encyclopedia and the unveiling of the commemorative logo of the CGIE’s 40th anniversary.

[1] The Persian festival ‘Yaldā’ or Shab-e Yaldā is a celebration of the winter solstice in Iran that started in ancient times. It marks the last day of the Persian month of Azar.