The Collection of Works of Dr. Riaz Ghadimi

Introduction

This site honors the memory Dr. Riaz Ghadimi, an outstanding educator and scholar who for more than thirty years of tireless and systematic efforts contributed to the advancement of Baha’i communities in Iran and across the world. He educated and trained the Baha’is, particularly the youth, through a systematic study of a curriculum composed of Baha’i Writings, other religious texts, lectures and Persian literature.

For the first time, this site offers access to some of his published books, essays and compilations. It is also a portal to ‘Riaz-ul-Lughat’ an Arabic-Persian dictionary enriched by references to over 100 other sources and dictionaries in Persian, Arabic and English.

The site is prepared by a group of Dr. Ghadimi students. All materials on this site, including, but not limited to, text, photographs, images, illustrations, maps, video clips (‘content’) is protected by national and international copyrights and other intellectual property rights.

Biography

Dr. Riaz Ghadimi was born on December 7, 1927 in Ashgabat (also spelled ʻIshqábád, Ashkhabad), formerly Russia, to a Baha’i family. His paternal grandfather was Mulla Ali Bajestani, who upon accepting the message of The Bab and Baha’u’llah, like many of the other believers, became subjected to persecution and torture. These persecutions by the religious fanatics led Mulla Ali to forsake his homeland. Mulla Ali first travelled to Ashgabat and eventually settled in Samarkand. Mulla Ali’s son, Mirza Koochak-Khan, father of Dr. Riaz Ghadimi, settled in Ashgabat. Later, following the verdict of the communist regime the Baha’is of Ashgabat were arrested and exiled and the family had to return to Iran, to the city of Mashhad in the Province of Khorasan.

Riaz Ghadimi completed his elementary and secondary school in Mashhad and Tehran. After his success in the entrance exams for medical school, he joined the Iranian military and continued his service till retirement with the rank of general.

While serving in the armed forces and practicing medicine, he also served the Baha’i community in high-ranking administrative capacities and community development. Among his outstanding services is the design, conception and offering of a formal program of study and training for delivering public talks. This three-year program of study ran continuously for a few decades and helped many participants to increase their knowledge in the Faith and train them for service to the community. The formal curriculum of this program was further developed into a number of published books and a comprehensive Arabic-Persian dictionary comprised of 10 volumes and over twelve thousand pages.

His love of Persian culture and literature, command of the masterpieces of Persian prose and poetry, enabled his creative nature to compose poetry as well.

Dr. Ghadimi passed away on June 12, 2006 in Canada. Since his life was cut short and he did not have the chance to fully complete this colossal task, the remainder of his work, comprised of three volumes, were completed by two of his colleagues, Ehsanullah Hemmat and Dr. Behnam Rahbin.

Message of the Universal House of Justice to the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of Canada - 15 June 2006

“We grieve at the passing of dearly loved servant of Bahá’u’llah, Riaz Ghadimi. His long years of tireless devotion to the Cause, distinguished by his membership on the National Spiritual Assembly of Iran, are remembered with appreciation and admiration. Particularly noteworthy were his outstanding contribution as an author and his dedication to the training of believers in the fundamental verities of the Faith that inspired to action hundreds of pioneers and promoters of the Cause of God. We extend our loving sympathy to the members of his family and his friends, and assure them of our fervent supplication at the Sacred Threshold for the progress of his illumined soul throughout the divine worlds. “