Avini

Sayyed Morteza Avini was born on April 9, 1947 in Rey/Iran. Since early childhood he has practiced painting and writing poetry. At age 4 his mother taught him the alpha- bet and he started reading newspapers at 5. At age 7 he listened attentively to his father reading books to him and a day after he brought back a summary of what he had heard. In prime of youth, Avini enters the Faculty of Fine Arts, acting so skillfully on the day of proficiency test that the examiners stand over his head, absorbed in his painting. In 1965, he starts his studies in Architecture at the Faculty of Fine Arts, spending his music, intellectual debates, and avid reading of Dostoevsky, Herman Hesse, Nietzsche and also books of mysticism such as Rumi’s FihiMaFihi (In It What’s In It), Maqalat-e Shams (Shams Letters), and treatises of Sohrevardi. His MA thesis titled Artifice Brain, an attempt to represent the world order by way of architecture and based on the brain model, covers a wide range of studies from philosophy and arts to mysticism, psychology, biology, medicine, mathematics and cybernetics.
During his hajj pilgrimage to Mecca in 1987, coincident with that year’s Mecca massacre, he got injured in the leg And finally in April 1993 Avini was martyred on April 9, 1993 by an Iraqi-deployed landmine remained from Iraq-Iran war while making a documentary about the Operation Valfajr missing soldiers in the former war fronts of southwestern Iran. A large sum of his success is due to the production of television documentary series Revayat-e Fath (Narratives of Conquest). The production of the 70-episode series, portraying the 8-years of the Iran-Iraq war, began in 1986. Avini was the series’ direc- tor, editor, writer and voice narrator; his mystic view of war in the series is often regarded as the main reason for its unique and lasting success. All his voice narrations were later collected and published in a book entitled Heavenly Treasure. The series is still being broadcasted and attracting wide audiences.
Besides directing, Avini was also a prolific journalist. Except for three collections of essays he had selected and compiled him- self, all the rest was collected and published.

Hidden Magic and Narcissus Khalse

Most of the problems we have to face today are the out- comes of the same invisible conflict in our society. That is “the traditional structure of our society has not been prepared to accommodate Western civilization.” The traditional structure of our society is based on religion and it took three to four centuries for the social structure of the west to be- come based on the modern scientific religion.
These two are not heading towards the same end. Most of the people of the world have no longer been deriving the practical rules of their lives of religion for tens of years. In- stead they have turned to modern science and technology.
Various scientific researches in various fields are directives that teach modern man what to do and what not to do. They teach him how to eat, how to sleep and wake up, whom to be friend and whom to evade. The religious man gets all these instructions or practical rules from the religion…
The genus status of all those who have been categorized as the third world against the status of Western civilization is like that of a child who has been haunted by the glitter of colorful toys that have made him blind as to his own expediency, the car, the refrigerator, radio, television, cinema, and even computers, into their societies; and now they want to build up a society that would comply with those tools…
In one way or another, using these tools requires a certain culture that is called the industrial culture. And regulating one’s life based on the usage of these tools requires certain practical rules of life or industrial ethics that negate the lawful order of religion and religious life…
Man is more dignified to belong to tools and equipment. Man’s growth towards exaltation, which is headed towards God, will in its final stages lead to the cutting off of his be- longing t tools and equipment. We do not suggest throwing away technological tools. We only have to protect ourselves against being intimidated and haunted by the technology. It is only under this circumstance that one can use official sciences and technological products at the service of his sacred religious ends.

language, Cinema&T.V, and Leisure Times

People’s cultural identity cannot be reviewed separately from their religion because it is not possible to imagine a society without religion. A people’s choice of a religion does not depend on the religion of their ancestors. They must first an understanding of the world around them and then choose the right way. And religion has just one meaning: a way of life.
In this civilization, the people have found a way of life for themselves other than the way of religions. They get the practical rules of their life not from a religion or a specific school of thought, but from modern science. This means that at our times science has replaced the religious law. But, how can rules that are apt to be cancelled in one way or another can open the true way of life to man?
posthumously by publishers. His books have been published in a large circulation for fifteen successive years without the slightest change of content. Among his works are: A New Day to Come, Victory of Blood, Magic Mirror (3 vols.), Development and the Foundation of Western Civilization, and Resurrection of the Soul. The main axis of Avini’s writings revolves around the re- lation between tradition and modernity. In his glamorous works Avini offers a critique of the foundations of western thought based on Islamic thought.
Feeble-minded attacks on the work under criticism in order to win an argument – have no room in Avini’s critique. Rather by citing firsthand sources on the foundations of western civilization, he expounds the dominant thought system, and then with a master’s dominance over all positive and negative aspects of an issue embarks on his criticism. His access to firsthand sources also brings double pleasure to the readers by enabling them to see both sides at once.
Avini pinpoints wrongs, either large or small, with the present world without pan- dering to prejudice or dogma, and yet as a follower of Islamic principles of thought who is not captivated by modernist thought or the Capitalist system, he dares take a new view of the world. His writings, benefited from Islamic thought, help the reader started by arduous modern life to seek refuge in the haven of religion and hence step into a transcendent path for the betterment of their lives and afterlives.
Avini’s writings and critiques are credible, for unlike some theoreticians that view problems while keeping their safe distance and leading a different life than they advo- cate, he only wrote about what he believed in and mentally subsisted on.