Draft:Abdolhamid Ziaei

Abdolhamid Ziaei (born in 1976 in Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari province) is a poet, literary critic, a researcher of Western philosophy and Eastern mysticism, and has a doctorate degree in comparative mysticism studies.

Biography

He studied judicial law and Persian literature respectively at Allameh Tabatabai University and Tehran University. He holds a Ph.D. in comparative mysticism. In addition to studying philosophy and mysticism, he has done much research and written critical-analytical articles on philosophy and mysticism and also has written poetries.

He had been a director of Iran Culture House in New Delhi for three years, during those years he held Persian language courses for international students and corrected and published Persian manuscripts (including correcting the manuscripts of the Ramayana poem). He was an editor-in-chief of the specialized periodical of Indian and Iranian studies (in both English and Persian languages).

Personal concerns have led Ziaei to study and research Eastern mysticism and religions, to fulfill this desire he has studied comparative mysticism studies. Over the years, teaching, doing research, and writing books about comparative mysticism, literature, and philosophy helped Ziaei to spread and expand his peaceful and progressive thoughts.

"Buddhism and Sufism: Examining the Similarities and Relation between Buddhism and Iranian Sufism" (2015), "Distortions of Ashura from a Sociology Perspective" (2008), "In the Absence of Reason" (2011) are among his noticeable works and his latest research-analytic work, "Mysticism and Modernity" (2019), is one of his most outstanding works.

"Distortions of Ashura from a Sociology Perspective" was published by Hezareh Qoqnos Publishing, in which he adopted a critical perspective to rethink historical Shiite sources about the events and culture of Ashura. In this book, Ziaei has shed light on hidden, unreal, and superstitious aspects of Ashura culture with a careful look and based on authentic documents. That is why his book has been widely welcomed by the public.

The book "In the Absence of Reason; Critical Analysis of Irrationality in Mystical Literature" is Ziaei’s second long research on Iranian-Islamic mysticism. In this book, he has discussed one of the most important topics of mystical literature and the social history of Iran. He believes that mystics such as Maulavi, Sanai, Attar, Ghazali, etc. by rejecting and ignoring reasoning and philosophical reason and instead praising and promoting intuitive reason made philosophical thought and analytical thinking fainted.  This book has been republished several times.

Ziaei’s most recent work, "Mysticism and Modernity", deals with another constant challenge of mysticism in contemporary period. This book includes the topics of ten lecture sessions held by Dr. Abdulhamid Ziaei at the Faculty of Social Sciences of Tehran University in 2016. This book deals with the relationship between mysticism and modern human life. He has tried to explain issues such as the conflict between classical mysticism and the modern world, knowledge of mystical schools, comparative study of mystical anthropology and modern anthropology, politics and politics in mysticism, new mysticisms and so on. Abdolhamid Ziaei’s works are not limited to the field of criticism and research. In fact, his first book was a collection of poems that was published in the late eighties. Abdolhamid Ziaei, with a poetic flair since his youth, published his first book of poetry in 2008 with the title "The Reincarnation of Words" and also “Crying in the Dark", "The Book of forgetfulness", "The Self" and "The Book of Doubt", are among his other poetic books. He uses a simple, concrete, modern language in his poems along with philosophy which is a prominent feature of his works.

He has been a TV presenter on radio and television for some years. He has presented numerous articles and seminars in national and international publications and conferences. Also, teaching and holding workshops at Isfahan University, Tehran University, and various national and international institutions are among other activities of Ziaei. In recent years, Dr. Ziaei has been teaching in the field of teaching and understanding Eastern and Western mysticism, philosophy, commentary on Mathnavi of Rumi, commentary on Shams's articles, and commentary on Hafez's poetry and thought.