The first Religion Researcher Congress be held in Sheikh Mofid hall, in December in 1998, under the issue of “Religion research, impediments, hardships and necessities “with the help of the country religion researcher secretariat and collaboration of Islamic culture and guidance of Qum, on the occasion of research days at the presence of scholars, the intellectuals and religion science researchers from seminary and university.
First Mohammad Javad Sahebi, the secretory of country religion researcher planning council, along with reporting the progress of beholding congress, said: although the congress secretariat faced a shortage of time, attempted to organize the congress secretariat by beholding scientific, planning, communication, exhibition and advertising committees, and has different meeting with the seminary and university professors. It considered the congress under question issues and presented three main axes: research necessities in religion, religion research impediments and diagnosis which today will be discussed.
Then Mr. Ahmad Masjid-jamei, Islamic culture and guidance minister deputy, explained about Islamic culture and guidance ministry policies in religion research field and said: if at the end of such meetings we lead to research workshops in which people exchange ideas upon theorization, policy making and problem solving, this gathering can consider new conditions to defeat religion rightfulness according to finding problems.
Then Ayat Allah Javadi Amoli started his speech by talking about seminary and religious research and said: “the necessity and mission of research is upon the prophets inherits. The scholar, who does not preserve the past and does not take it as a base, is not the one who inherits the prophets.”
The next round table discussion about diagnosis in religion research field which hold at the presence of seminary and university professors and they represent their ideas and solutions in different issues of religion research.
The first congress round table
Hujjat Al-Islam Sadeqi Rashad, Dr. Mahdi Golshani and Hujjat Al-Islam Shanehchi respectively talked about conceptual and methodic diagnosis, today religious theology status and the role of seminary against it and some recommendation for researchers.
Dr.Mahdi Golshani said about religion status in new world as part of his speech. Religion status in the world intensely changed in comparison to past and the number of magazines and religious books increases day after day. He also quoted some statements from scholars and explained about being aware of current science situation and the faults among Positivists:
Ignoring spread movement of positivists, it covered institutes and magazines and now it is just a little science and religion discussions which come in from abroad and in my opinion here it is the seminary where should shed lights on its position and the science.
Hujjat Al- Islam Shanehchi also summarized religion research blights as follows:
۱) Being self-opinion and evade of group work
۲) Weak informing in scientific activities
۳) Dogmatism in idea, opinion and thought
۴) Doing the parallel works
He said at the end: the main point is that we be upright in work. And if we were autocratic, certainly we will be at a loss in religion research. And all works would be “haba’an manthur”.
Then he considered religion research diagnosis as main discussion and said:
:
Probably the most essential group among religious blights, are those related to research content, method and logic which divided to five classes:
۱٫ Blights referred to method
۲٫ Blights referred to religious researches contents.
۳٫ Blights referred to the researchers and those who work in religion research.
۴٫ Blights referred to research organizations in religion research field
۵٫ Blights referred to religion research receiver.
The second congress round table
Dr. Mohsenian and professor Malekian respectively represented their opinion as improvement and regression indicators, and research necessities in religion area.
Dr. Mohsenian Rad explained about three words in his statements and said: despite the word “propaganda” assumed as propaganda, really it means not this, and said not a suitable Persian equal for it yet. Arianpur took it as equal for “Avaze gari” (singing)
We know that this word has been used in Vatican in 1650 for the first time. And Christian tried to replace this as physical action. But now Christian uses persuasion instead and you see no propaganda book in foreign bookshops. Whatever there are, are persuasion book and Eqna book. Avaze gari (propaganda) is different from Eqna. The most important distinction is that propaganda is unilateral and has no top down exchange or dichotomy, although Eqna (persuasion) is bilateral and receiver should be satisfied. It should make a change in them and they should accept what occurs.
He added: in my opinion the researcher in no propaganda neither persuasion. When we say researcher, we should bind to research definition. One of the definition components is research process. Whatever is a process, its elements have reciprocal act which has no start or end point. In fact regularity is of research features. Discovering the truth or increasing awareness is of little towards much, but for others not for researcher.
I think Eqna (persuasion) is under consideration in these definitions, if it is to discover the truth. And the last related sentence which I think important is, I feel nowadays researchers around the world have a spanner box which every spanner is for a screw. This spanner box in Islamic sciences and the humanities spread and expanded so much that we can’t say which one is the best.
Unfortunately we do not accept some as positivists and some as understandable. Today it generally accepted that all these are the spanners of one box and each is suitable for special screw. Therefore in religion field we should complete proficiency over spanner box.
Third congress round table
It beheld at the presence of Hujjat Al-Islam Mahdi Mehrizi and Qazizadeh and Dr. Zekavati under the issue of religion research problems, impediments and necessities.
Hujjat Al-Islam Mehrizi divided the research impediments and problems in to two external and internal categories and explained the former as:
Having no resources for research, having no access to new resources in required fields, no scientific traveling for the most researchers
And research internal problems in religion field summarized by him as:
Attempting not to research in seminary, having no position for research in seminary, dominated impediments and problems in some areas and research society believes.
Then about the difference of propaganda and research, Dr. Zekavti said: “propaganda means introduce and it’s different from research. In research assumed that researcher tends to start from a point and does not know where he goes to, but propagandist knows where he wants to bring the hearer. Also propagandistic tone is different from research tone and research should be a base to new propagandist.
At the end of the speech, he enumerated “mind habits and modernization and misoneism” as of research blights examples, and said: Engabifen talked about mind idols. We have mind habits and they are research blights, because they are blights both for researcher and his receiver.
At the end of congress, Hujjat Al-Islam Qazizadeh talked about the problem faces researcher training and said:
The grounds for training researchers are very limited. And the most problems are doing for a living.
Orations in this congress published in a book titled “religion research (1) , impediments, hardships and necessities”
