On Thursday, December 5th, 2024 (concurrent with the anniversary of the martyrdom of Hadzrat Fatemeh al-Zahra, peace be upon her), a ceremony celebrating a decade of activity of the Baha’i Studies Quarterly Journal was held at the Ansar Islamic Center, attended by writers and intellectuals.
In this event, Hojjat al-Islam Hassan Taromi, Scientific Deputy of the Encyclopaedia of the World of Islam, stated, “In her famous sermon, Lady Fatemeh (peace be upon her) entrusted us all with the heavy responsibility of guarding the faith, and today, responding to doubts and scientifically defending the religion against sects and claimants of new religions is necessary. The esteemed Baha’i Shenasy Quarterly was created with this motivation and has, over the past decade, fulfilled its responsibility well against the propaganda and skepticism of the Baha’i organization.”
Then, Dr. Majid Tafreshi, a historian, document, and cultural affairs researcher residing in England, presented an overview of the activities of the Baha’i organization. He said:
“The Ordinary Baha’is should be distinguished from the leaders of this organization. This organization tries to use possible restrictions on its members as a tool of victimization to claim legitimacy for Baha’ism, whereas victimization is not a proof of legitimacy. In many anti-Iran activities and sanctions, traces of this organization can be seen, which is an interesting topic for researchers to work on, showing evidence and documents on the relationship between this organization and Iran over the past two centuries. Although the articles and scientific style of Baha’i Shenasy may have some shortcomings, it has played a very good role in enlightening public opinion and intellectuals and has achieved successes in this field.”
At the end of the session, Dr. Hadian and Dr. Habibi, members of the editorial board of the quarterly journal, provided a report on the production process of 31 issues of the journal, the number of articles (more than 280 articles and 26 interviews with critics of this faith inside and outside the country), and the analysis of news related to this organization.
They introduced ways to access the quarterly journal in print and online (through websites such as Taaghche, Fidibo, NoorMags, and the journal’s own website, bahaimag.com) and invited researchers and writers to collaborate with this scientific movement. It should be noted that the abstracts of the articles are published in English and Arabic at the end of each issue.
Alongside this event, an exhibition of published books by the institute and printed issues of the quarterly journal was also held.
