Visiting Head of Dar-al Kotob al-Islamiyah Publications in the meeting of “Oral History of Book”

We never printed or offset any book out of the rest

Maryam Rajabi
Translated by M. B. Khoshnevisan

2017-6-19

The 7^th meeting out of the 2^nd round of the meetings “Oral History of Book” was held on 6^th of June 2017 attended by Nasrollah Haddadi, the presenter and expert of the show, and Morteza Akhundi, the Head of Dar-al Kotob al-Islamiyah Publications.

In the beginning of the meeting, Morteza Akhundi introduced himself, “I am the son of Sheikh Mohammad Akhundi and was born in Tehran on 3^rd of January 1943. I have five brothers and one sister all of whom were born in Tehran.”

About the relation of his forefather with Ayatollah Abdolkarim Ha’eri Yazdi, he said, “My forefather was from the city of Yazd. Thus, they were considered citizens with the late Ha’eri Yazdi. The late Ha’eri had a trip to Mashhad before the establishment of Qom Seminary and resided in the house of my forefather. Our forefathers were both clergies and businessmen, earning their living through business. At the time when the late Ha’eri came to the house of my forefather, my father was going to elementary school; earlier, he had learnt the Holy Quran in Maktab (old schools in Iran). State schools were shaping under Ahmad Shah. The late Ha’eri opened the book my uncle who went to Maktab at that time and he was so accurate that understood the whole story by reading a word from the book.”

The first book sold

In continuation, the Head of Dar-al Kotob al-Islamiyah Publications said, “At that time, the schools were in fact a run-up for infiltration of western culture against the Islamic one; thus, my forefather transferred my fathered from a state school to an Islamic one in the city of Mashhad. My father studied preliminary lessons in Mashhad and left for the holy city of Najaf to continue his education around 1932. My father was born in 1910 and when he decided to go to Najaf was 18 or 19 years old. He stayed in Najaf until 1938 and then came back to Iran and became a clergy. At that time, Reza Shah was against the clergies. He had gotten the authorization of Ijtihad (independent reasoning based on the Qur'an and Sunnah) from Sheikh Abolhassan Esfahani in Najaf, but it had not been confirmed by the Owqaf (endowments) Office. But since he was very smart, as soon as the police officers stopped him, he said firmly that he had the authorization. Therefore, he came to Tehran with the special clothes of a clergy without being suspected by the police. Concurrently, the Shah was going to bring Fawzia (an Egyptian princess) from Egypt to Iran. The Shah brought her overland from Egypt to Iraq and then to Iran. For reaching her to Tehran, ceremonies had been arranged. The cities of Kermanshah, Hamedan, Qazvin and other cities had been decorated and they were dancing off and the whole ceremony was held exactly in the first decade of the mourning month of Muharram which was somehow a kind of opposition to mourning and rowzeh khani (narrating the tragedies of Karbala).

My father narrated that he was going to the house of one of his friends in Qazvin exactly at that time exactly at that time. And since he was a clergy, the police officers stopped and asked him where he was going. He answered to my friend’s house. They did not accept and said you were telling a lie and you wanted to go to rowzeh (gathering for the recital of the tragedies of Karbala). Eventually, with much attempt, he went to a house inside which had a way to another house and in this way, he had reached to the main house and could launch a small gathering of rowzeh.

Some of the Ulema who feared that the state agents would come and seize their books had hidden them in the closet of their houses, but finally the termites had eaten them.

About the relation of his father with the late Sheikh Abbas Qomi, he said, “Sheikh Abbas Qomi was living in Mashhad and my father was also in the city at that time. At that time, the elders went for recreation on Fridays. Shiekh Abbas Qomi who had always a Boqcheh (bundle) under his arm, opened it as soon as he arrived, and started writing. He did not waste even a second of his life. When Sheikh Abbas Qomi was in Najaf, my father was also there for education. Around the year 1937, Shiekh Abbas was preparing to print the book “Safinat al- Bihar”, and since he did not have enough money, he owed to calligrapher, bookseller and so on. He asked my father to contact with Mashhad and to borrow some money for him so that after selling the books, he gave it back. My father provided the money and borrowed him and through this, he himself started selling the book “Safinat al-Bihar” and after that, he returned to Iran and married.”

Establishment of Islamic schools

Akhundi continued by saying, “In addition to the issue of book, my father paid much attention to the issue of culture. One night, (Sheikh) Abbas Ali Eslami invited my father to go to his house. When he entered, he noticed that small children had been sitting around the room of his house, and he was teaching the Holy Qur’an to them. After seeing this scene, he started crying, because it was many years that no class for teaching the Qur’an had been held in this country. It was here that Sheikh Abbas Ali Eslami decided to set up several elementary schools, because the people took part in clerical schools no longer and they wanted to have education degrees in order to be able to be employed in state organizations. At that time when the dictatorship had been lessened to some extent, the thought of establishing schools was very good. After the events of Shahrivar 1320 (August 25, 1941 to September 17, 1941), around 1942, he started setting up schools and my father worked as his assistant. Some 160 to 170 Islamic schools had been established until 1961. The entire record of my father was cultural whether in the field of education or book and publication. Moreover, he was the head of the Board of Directors of the charitable Valiy-e Asr Hospital until the last years of his life.”

The monies not accepted by Sheikh Abbas Qomi  

Regarding the adding of some items to the book “Mafatih al-Jinan” by Sheikh Abbas Qomi, he said, “There are two issues about Hadith Kassa supplication. The first issue is the happening of the Kassa event in which there is no doubt. And the second one is the text which is read as a supplication. Sheikh Abbas Qomi had said that nothing should be added to the book. Even in the part “Adding subjects to Ziarat Vareth”, he was strongly opposed to the supplication books collected from this side and that side. He even rejected what was added to Ziarat Vareth. He mentioned few supplications from Sahifeh Sajjadieh so that the people refer to Sahifeh and read the considered supplication. It seems that he had predicted that Mafatih al-Jinan would become a world book, and because of this he had considered all aspects. The late Haj Mohammad Ali Elmi had printed the Mafatih and asked my father when he came back to Najaf to get a written paper from Sheikh Abbas Qomi to allow him only to publish the book. He sent some 1000 tomans to him, but when my father brought up the issue with Sheikh Abbas Qomi, in response, he said that I have not written this book for the sake of money and everyone who likes can publish this book. He was living in extreme poverty and when he was in Mashhad, he bought bread in late night, because bread was cheaper at that time, and could buy more bread for his family. However, he did not accept such monies. He never got any money as the right of compilation.”

In continuation, the Head of Dar-al Kotob al-Islamiyah Publications said, “My late father came back to Tehran and launched bookselling. He first started his work in our house located in Qariboon Alley. He sometimes used the shop of his friend who was a businessman until Soltani Bazar were built and bought a shop in it. He went to the shop in 1949 and used the house as a warehouse. He bought another shop in 1960.”

The schools I studied

About his time of education, Akhundi said, “The principals had BA degrees at that time and in fact were employees and had the authorization for administering the schools. I studied in Mortezavi High School until the fourth grade of high school. But the school’s principal dissolved there and built another school with the same authorization and name, bringing it out of the supervision of Association of Islamic Teachings. After this event, I did not go to school for three or four months. I stayed in my father’s shop until the Kamal School in Narmak neighborhood was set up by the late Sahabi and engineer Bazargan. I enrolled in that school.  Although there was a much distance between our house and the school, before leaving the house for the school in the mornings, I went to Seyed Kazem Mousavi who was the Deputy Minister of Education under martyr Rajaee and learnt the lesson of Jame’ol Moqadamat. I reached to the school on time. I studied in mathematics and ranked first in the fifth grade of high school. At that time, the people who had religious background sent their children to Islamic schools. There was no strictness in terms of tuition in such schools. Those who had no religious background sent their children to state schools. Kamal School was a newly-found school. The people from all across the country had sent their children to this school, and because of this, there were divergent people in the school in terms of religion. Engineer Bazargan rarely came to the school but the late Sahabi had full command over the school and event taught religious lessons such as the exegete of the Holy Qur’an. However, in the sixth grade of high school, I changed my school and went to Jafari School due to proximity of the way, religious issues and foresight. Since I was a top student, no tuition was received from me. We had no electricity until the third grade of high school. We had a kerosene lamp which was used for warming the house, cooking and a lighting source. This lifestyle taught contentment to us contemned whether or not. When I got my diploma from Ja’fari Shool and enrolled for Technical College, my father expressed dissatisfaction to exam for continuing my education. He was worried about me and this worry was right, because many students were deviated in the next rounds. My brothers are among great professors but it seemed that I broke the line. I consider this as God’s benignity and am pleased that I respected my father’s order. Finally, I got my diploma in 1960 and started my work in the shop of my father. I had not gone to military service and this was one of my problems. After receiving my diploma, I enrolled to take part in English classes. I took part in the classes but after a while, the institute asked me proof of military service or exempt from military service, and since I had not gone to the military service, I was forced to leave my English class. I continued to spend the days with such a problem and escaping from the police. In 1970, an order was issued according to which the absence of those who had not gone to the military service would be pardoned; they come and enroll and use Exemption Bail. I could get Exemption Bail because my father was 61 and had a problem in his pelvis in a way that if he was operated he might have been deteriorated. I knew my own duty to support my father. He was very ambitious and on the other hand a high trust, so bough a land in the town of Varamin to launch a carton making factory. He took large loans from the banks and finally was engaged in economic problems. On the other hand, the book economy was a weak one and my father was caught in debt.”

How Dar-al Kotob al-Islamiyah established relations with elders

About cooperation with the late Ali Akbar Qaffari, he said, “In addition to the printing of Bihar al-Anwar (a comprehensive collection of traditions or ahadith compiled by the Shi'a scholar Allama Majlisi) in the publications, we also published other great books such as al-Qadir by Allamah Amini and al-Mizan Arabi by Allamah Tabatabaee. When the book al-Mizan finished in Iran, Beirut started its typesetting. We worked with people such as Ali Akbar Qaffari, and Mohammad Baqer Behboudi for printing our books.

We had a tight relation with the late Qaffari in a way that he was regarded as my father’s disciple. The late Qaffari was a carpenter and worked in the workshop of his father. He always came to my father’s shop and bough the book he liked, because he also studied the clerical lesson and on the other hand loved books a lot. My father intended to have a trip to Iraq, thus asked him to manage the shop for one month. He loved this job so much that when my father came back from the trip, continued his job in the shop in a way that he did anything in our shop in 1957. This was while he did the job of correction in the house at nights. He was a conversable person, and skillful in his job. He was my father’s employee but for correction received a separate amount; even my father had mentioned in his will to pay him 1000 tomans for correction of Kafi’s rowzeh.”

About why all of his relatives were living in Iraq, the Head of Dar-al Kotob al-Islamiyah Publications said, “When my forefather was in Mashahd, he was very active in the event of Goharshad Mosque in 1935. After that, when the issues of Kashf-e Hijab or unveiling happened, my forefather gathered all of his relatives which were as many as a bus and left for Iraq. The interesting pint is that although at that time, everyone for travelling had to stop in every city and got permission from the police station, my forefather moved toward Iraq without any permission and reached all of his relatives to Iran with safety. When Sheikh Abbas Qomi heard the story, he was surprised a lot and considered this as God’s benevolence.”

He added, “We had many books in our publications, but they did not solve our economic problem. For instance I remember that the first edition of the book Almizan was published in 2000 volumes and after ten years we still had its first edition. Book really demands love and faith. We published the books of elders such as Allamah Amini’s al-Qadir, Allamah Jafari’s Relation between Human and World, Motahari’s Method of Realism and so on.

Since we did not have enough cash, our work of printing was interrupted automatically like when we wanted to republish a book. But in general, God always helped us and when we signed contracts with elders such as Allamah Tabatabaee and Allamah Amini, published the books on time. Regarding Bihar al-Anwar, we decided to publish one volume every month and presold them. The price of the book was ten tomans for each volume in 1955 and was sold at the same price in 1971. The publication of the rest of the book was left to Ketabchi Family and there was a kind of cooperation and consultation among us and no competition. Most of our customers were in Qom and Mashhad. We went to Qom once in a week in order to both talk to the late Rabbani Shirazi about the correction of the books and to collect money. Our house was in Pamenar in 1957. I along with my father stood in the cold weather of winter in Moozeh Three-Way (in Qom) waiting for a bus to bring us to Shoosh Square in Tehran for 100 rials for each person. Then we stood for one to one and a half hour in that cold weather till the Isfahan bus came and took several people out of it and we got in and gave 25 rials for each one to reach us to Nasser Khosrow Street where its distance with our house was near and we could go home on foot without taking any taxi. The work would be carried out with minimum cost and maximum difficulty.

The last volume of al-Mizan was completed in 1971and then Beirut copied from it. Allamah Tabatabaee could not do anything. Beirut usually published the books the printing of which had been completed in Egypt and Iran! In fact we paid the right of compilation and published with much difficulty, but other places published them very easily. The translation of al-Mizan started in Qom. The first volume was translated by Mr. Makarem Shirazi, one or two volumes by Ayatollah Mesbah and the rest of the volumes by Mr. Hamedani. Before being arrested in the events of 1964, the late (martyr) Saffar Harandi came regularly to our shop, took the translation of al-Mizan Exegete and taught in his classes.

In the past, books were printed in folio format and were very heavy and no work was carried out on the books. Working on books was started in Dar-al Kotob al-Islamiyah Publications. The late Behboudi and the late Rabbani Shirazi (who was arrested after the political events in 1964) corrected the footnotes of bihar al-Anwar. The late Rabbani was imprisoned in Qezel Qal’eh Prison. Abbas Yusefi typeset the book and presented columnar samples. I took the columnar sample along with the books needed to the prison and gave him. I took new samples one week later and got the previous corrected ones and he did the footnotes.

The first time I saw the late Mohammad Baqer Behboudi, was in Mashhad in 1956. I was 15. He had a bookseller and I visited him in the same bookseller. He was not a cleric but fluent in Arabic scientifically and higher than a cleric. I remember that he had a complete ideological discussion in our first visit. Then, he came to Tehran and started correcting the books before my father.

About the books written by Ayatollah Makarem Shirazi, Morteza Akhundi said, “The first work we started with him was the book “Filsoof Namaha” or pseudo-philosophers. I think it had already been published once. He usually delivered speeches in Bani Fatemeh Hossainieh in 1973. He had seen our good behavior in paying the people’s rights and on the other hand, I took part in his meetings in order to use his speeches. He called me after the meeting ended and said they were working on an exegesis and that they were going to sign a contract with us. The contract for the first volume of Tafsir-e Nemooneh or Nemooneh Exegesis was signed at the same time. The printing was started in 1973. The writings were in the script of Ayatollah Makarem, and for working on this exegesis, a group like Hojjat al-Eslam Qara’ati and other friends had been set up. They stayed fixed almost to the end. The exegesis was completed from 1973 to 1986. When the revolution happened, most of the authors were involved in executive works and almost the only one who stayed fixed to the end was Ayatollah Makarem Shirzai. Although he was offered good positions, he prioritized research and scientific works and even had a high speed in advancing his work, in a way that some ten volumes of the Nemooneh Exegesis had been published y until 1981, and the other 17 volumes were also published with high speed form 1981 to 1986.

A misgiving was spread that the book “Pseudo-Philosophers” had won monarchial award and the reason was that the book in rejecting communist thinking was right for the people and although Allamah Tabatabaee’s Method of Realism had the same content, was not good for them since it had a higher level. This happened exactly after the 1953 coup when they decided to clash with the communists and took a stance against the communists. Naturally it was known as the best book and it was the same absolutely, but it had not been written with the same goal.

In addition to Nemooneh Exegesis, we published other exegeses like Moqtanem al-Dorar, Kholasat al-Bayan by the late Seyed Hashem Mirdamadi only four volumes of which were published, Tafsir-e Jameh or Jameh Exegesis published by others, and Ravan-eJavid. But apart from Tafsir-e al-Mizan, we did not publish an exegesis as large as Tafsir-e Nemooneh. The book “Qamoos-e Qur’an” by Ali Akbar Qarshi was another good work published by us. His first volume was printed by himself and then he sent it to us and we liked and printed it.”

Underselling was a routine thing

He added, “The pricing of our books had no special criterion. We usually undersold the books, because most or our customers were either clerics or students who were among low-income strata. We brought some of the books which had no prices and had been stayed in the warehouse for years like Sharh-e Shavahed and Majma’ul Bayan by Seyed Kazem Mousavi which had consisted of four pamphlets and cost 200 rials for each volume, turned them into one volume and sold it for 1000 rials after these long years.”

Soltan al-Va’ezin for the book “The Nights of Peshawar” insisted on selling it to the people with cheaper price. We accepted and printed it cheaply and sold it for 150 rials. The book was one of our bestselling books. We had also the book “Mahdi Mow’ood” or the promised Mahdi with more pages but we also sold at the same price of 150 rials. Some thought that we were funded from other places and for this reason, we sold the books like “The Nights of Peshawar” at a cheaper price. I am of the opinion that an institute will advance that is not dependent on any place and does its work with love and faith. We never printed Mafatih al-Jinan at the time of the life of my father, because he believed that the work published by others should not be published by us. If a work is carried out for the sake of God is clear, and since my father always had a reason in his work, we never printed or offset any book out of the rest; we did not even republish in order to print it better although the Mafatih had many customers and our books remained in the bookshelves for years to be sold.”

About Printing of Sahifeh Sajjadieh, Usool al- Kaffi and footnotes of Bihar al-Anwar

About the printing of the holy Qur’an and Sahifeh Sajjadieh (a book of supplications attributed to Imam Sajjad, the great-grandson of the Prophet of Islam), this veteran publisher said, “The first holy Qur’an that we printed had the translation of Elahi Qomshe’ei and was handwritten by Mr. Mirkhani. After the passing away of my father, we printed other books of (the holy Qur’an) form other scripts such as Heidari, Osman Taha and others.

Shaifeh Sajjadieh has remained a neglected book. My father started printing the book in 1941 when he was in Najaf. The late Ahmad Zanjani Masoumi had handwritten it with one-sixteenth words. Seyed Mohammad Meshkat wrote a scientific introduction over it. Then it was given to Ayatollah Mar’ashi Najafi to write another introduction in completing the introduction of the late Meshkat which was also in fact a scientific look at the Sahifeh. The two introductions in fact introduce the Sahifeh Sajjadieh completely. Ayatollah Khaz’ali who memorized the holy Qur’an, Nahj al-Balaqah and Sahifeh Sajjadieh, for memorizing the Sahifeh sent a person to our shop, asking for the version of 1941. He said that this was the most correct version of the Sahifeh and that he wanted to memorize it.

In the trips he had to Mecca and Iraq, my father usually gave this book as a gift and in exchange for the gift, asked that person to read a supplication of the book. When that person read that supplication, he or she was saddened that had received such a gift from a Shia person. He had also a trip to Saudi Arabia’s Najran where its people have Esmaeeli denomination and it was almost impossible to have the Sahifeh. Nevertheless, each of them has a Sahifeh in their pockets.” 

He continued by saying, “My father said when we for the first time printed the book Usool al-kafi (a major Shia book in hadith) with typesetting and footnotes and took it to Henry Corbin, by seeing this book, he started dancing out of happiness!

Morteza Akhundi added, “When I went to Mashhad for the first time, my father went to a telephone exchange. He had been told that (Grand) Ayatollah Boroujerdi wanted to talk about Bihar al-Anwar. When my father came back to Tehran some 15 days later, we found out that Ayatollah Boroujerdi was worried about the footnotes of Bihar al-Anwar. It was the time when the Israeli regime had been recently recognized by the United Nations. Ayatollah Boroujerdi agreed on "Jame'at al-Taqrib" He sent a representative to talk to Sheikh Shaltoot. The talk had a global effect in order to be a unity among the Muslims against the Zionists. It was a good investment in those years for showing his thinking and foresight. Ayatollah Boriujerdi liked the seminaries to have unity and could be effective in taqrib or proximity. If the difference happened inside the seminaries, they would be deviated from the issue completely. I was present in the meeting that my father came to Allamah Tabatabaee and explained the story. Allamah who had a great personality, accepted without any anger and deprecation and said he would not write footnotes anymore, because he never wanted to stand against a great source of emulation. A magazine wrote falsely and slandered that Akhundi suffered financial problems and feared that his book was not sold and thus did not print it anymore, while we were aware knowingly that such books were sold more in such events. In fact both the view of Ayatollah Boroujerdi was correct that he did not want any encounter happened, and the view of Allamah Tabatabaee who did not want to stand against Ayatollah Boroujerdi. I responded to the article in the book "Deldadegan-e Towhid" or lovers of monotheism on which I wrote an introduction and then printed it."

About the detention of his father for one of the books, the Head of Dar-al Kotob al-Islamiyah Publications said, "George Jordac wrote the book "Imam Ali, the Voice of Human Justice" which was in one volume at first but later it became comprehensive. The book was in Arabic and some circles connected to (Phalavi) regime were worried that it was a communist book. One day around the year 1956, a few people came to our shop, asking for the book. Since my father did not have the book, he sent someone to Jafar Tabrizi's bookseller to bring some volumes. Finally, it turned out that they were military government officers, and took my father and the late She'rani who had translated the book and was the Head of Jafari Tabrizi Publications. They had given written undertaking not to import and sell the book."

At the end of the meeting, Morteza Akhundi said, "In the ceremony held for the passing away of my father, Ayatollah Reza Ostadi said the only institute which never printed any book with religious problems was the Dar-al Kotob al-Islamiyah Publications."

The first meeting out of the new round of the meetings of “Oral History of Book” was held on 12^th of April 2017 attended by Haj Beitollah Radkhah (Mashma’ Chi), the Head of Tehran-Tabriz Publications, the second meeting on 19^th of April 2017, attended by Jamshid Esmaeeliyan, the head of Parto Publications, the third meeting on 26^th of April 2017 attended by Abolqassem Ashraf-al Ketabi, the head of Ashrafi Publications, the fourth meeting on 17^th of May 2017 attended by Hojjat-al Eslam Biok Chitchian, the head of Mortezavi Publications, and the fifth meeting on 23^rd of May 2017 attended by Seyed Jalal Ketabchi, the head of Islamiyah Publications, and Seyed Fardi Ketabchi and Seyed Mohammad Baqer Ketabchi, the heads of Elmiyah Islamiya Publications. They were held in the Book House Institute.

Also, the first round of the meetings of “Oral History of Book” was held with the attempt of Nasrollah Haddadi in the Book House Institute since 2014 to summer 2015. The result of the meetings has been published in a book entitled “Oral History of Book” in 560 pages by the Book House Institute.