Scholarship or Book-Mongering?!

In a note published late last year on Sedanet titled “Was There a Plagiarist Who Would Catch a Cunning One?” — the full text of which was also published on this site some time ago under the title “If You Recite the Quran in This Manner...” — Dr. Amirhossein Khodaparast, citing instances from certain works of Hojjat al-Islam Abdolhossein Khosropanah, claimed that he had committed copying from his own works and those of others, or, in other words, self-plagiarism and academic theft. This claim sparked controversies, and in particular, some readers questioned the meaning and significance of self-plagiarism (or, in their words, academic theft from oneself). Fortunately, in the footnotes to the full text of his article, Mr. Khodaparast has clearly explained the reprehensibility of self-plagiarism. This phenomenon, in one sense, reflects the more common and familiar phenomenon of “book-mongering,” and he has also used this more familiar term in several places in his article. In this article, we too will use this more familiar term and, in some instances, the term “self-plagiarism.”

The motivation for writing this article arose in the present writer when I consulted the sources mentioned in Dr. Khodaparast’s article, and considering that he had specified he had only examined works related to the philosophy of religion and modern theology, I guessed that a similar occurrence might have taken place in other works as well. This guess, unfortunately, proved correct, and based on what will follow — and interested and fair-minded readers can also test its accuracy for themselves — it becomes clear that a significant portion of Hojjat al-Islam Khosropanah’s works is nothing but book-mongering.

A Few Preliminary Points

Before mentioning the instances of book-mongering, it is necessary to pay attention to a few points:

1- In his article, Dr. Khodaparast stated that he had observed self-plagiarisms in the works concerning the philosophy of religion and modern theology. However, in reality, probably due to not having access to some of the books or a lack of sufficient precision, he did not detect a portion of the self-plagiarisms even within this same domain. What he mentioned pertains to the copied material in Mr. Khosropanah’s books Modern Theology, Human Expectations of Religion, the first volume of New Theological Issues and the Philosophy of Religion, Moderate Expectations from Religion, and Modern Islamic Theology. But Mr. Khosropanah also has other works in the philosophy of religion and modern theology. For instance, the book New Theological Issues and the Philosophy of Religion is a 3-volume work, yet Mr. Khodaparast only paid attention to the self-plagiarisms in the first volume. Therefore, his article is incomplete from this perspective.

2- Since mentioning the self-plagiarisms cited in Dr. Khodaparast’s article would cause repetition, we will dispense with all of them in this article. Thus, the reader of this article will only arrive at a more precise and complete picture when they combine the book-mongerings mentioned in this article with the book-mongerings stated in Mr. Khodaparast’s article, and in this way, grasp the actual extent of book-mongering in Mr. Khosropanah’s works.

3- Many writings have been published under the name of Mr. Abdolhossein Khosropanah, and examining all of them requires more time and patience. Therefore, even what is presented in this article is not complete, and others may, through more careful examination, discover further self-plagiarisms and book-mongerings. Moreover, a similar investigation could also be conducted regarding Mr. Khosropanah’s articles in journals and books.

4- To avoid making the article lengthy, two measures have been taken: 1. Quoting the self-plagiarisms has been refrained from, and the reader can personally refer to the cited books and pages to verify the accuracy of the claims. 2. Copyings that were less than three pages have been deliberately ignored. This does not mean that these self-plagiarisms are few or insignificant; quite the contrary, the amount of such self-plagiarisms in Mr. Khosropanah’s works is large, and if they were removed from the main text, their total volume would become properly apparent. But even if these instances were few, a writer bound by the ethical standards of scholarly writing must also refrain from such misconduct. However, since mentioning self-plagiarisms of less than three pages makes the article long and tedious, they have been omitted.

5- Mr. Khosropanah's self-plagiarisms are, in many instances, verbatim transcriptions. That is, pages from one book are copied word-for-word into the pages of another book, without any citation. However, in a significant number of cases, the author has made small, clumsy changes to his own writing, presumably so the reader does not notice the copying. These changes are similar to those the author made to Dr. Akbari's phrases in the book Immortality, which were pointed out in Mr. Khodaparast's article. For example, in one place Mr. Khosropanah has said,

- New Theology (pp. 365-385) New Theological Issues and the Philosophy of Religion (Vol. 3; 265-309)

- New Theology (pp. 385-468) New Theological Issues and the Philosophy of Religion (Vol. 3; pp. 311-370)

- Ontology of Knowledge (pp. 195-206) The Sadraean Epistemological System (pp. 99-111)

- Ontology of Knowledge (pp. 280-344) The Sadraean Epistemological System (pp. 131-183)

- Ontology of Knowledge (pp. 348-352) The Sadraean Epistemological System (pp. 183-187)

- Ontology of Knowledge (pp. 53-55 and pp. 69-82) The Sadraean Epistemological System 43-54 (with some passages omitted). Interestingly, at the end of the book Ontology of Knowledge, Mr. Khosropanah says he intends to write a book titled The Sadraean Epistemological System as the second part of Ontology of Knowledge. Nevertheless, about 70 pages of The Sadraean Epistemological System appear verbatim in that very Ontology of Knowledge!

- The Sadraean Epistemological System (pp. 235-239) Philosophy of Cognition (pp. 250-252)

- Philosophy of Cognition (pp. 433-473) The Sadraean Epistemological System (pp. 343-361; albeit with numerous paragraphs omitted)

- The Sadraean Epistemological System (pp. 370-383) Philosophy of Cognition (pp. 585-594)

- Philosophy of Cognition (pp. 412-415) Epistemic Realism (pp. 191-194)

As Mr. Khodaparast has stated in his article, Mr. Khosropanah's book Moderate Expectations from Religion is the same as chapters seven, nine, ten, eleven, and twelve of New Islamic Theology. But he apparently did not realize that Mr. Khosropanah's book Religious Studies is also, in fact, the same as discourses seven, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, and twenty-four of New Islamic Theology, with the difference that in the twenty-fourth discourse of New Islamic Theology, the word

1- As Mr. Khodaparast has also noted, why does Mr. Khosropanah copy his works instead of engaging with new discussions or deepening previous ones?

2- Is scholarship and the result of research and inquiry something like a reusable tablecloth or napkin that can be spread out several times (sometimes up to four times) in this book and that book?

3- Are the research grants, royalties, promotions, and advancements that Mr. Khosropanah has received for his books, and through which (most regrettably) he has also attained the rank of full professor, ethical and legitimate in his view?

4- Is wasting readers' money and time by copying material and selling it back to them not a violation of the rights of others (haqq al-nas)?

5- If Mr. Khosropanah's seminary students and university students were to alter the phrasing of a single class research paper in his style for several seemingly related courses and submit it as an assignment, how would he judge that assignment? If the faculty members of the Institute for Wisdom and Philosophy, which he claims to have brought order and discipline to and for this reason has become the target of attacks by counter-revolutionary and anti-regime individuals, were to write and submit their research proposals in his manner and style, would he accept the result of their work and take pride in it?

And a Final Word

It is well known that Wittgenstein wrote no more than two books throughout his entire life: the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus and a dictionary for children's use. Apart from these two, everything we have from Wittgenstein today is the result of his students' editing of his lectures and writings. Why? Probably, for Wittgenstein and others like him, it was no task to produce, like Mr. Khosropanah, over 51 books, 26 pamphlets, 177 articles, dozens of lectures and interviews, and about 20 software applications, while also guiding, advising, and adjudicating hundreds of theses and holding several dozen jobs and positions. To grasp the matter more precisely, note that Mr. Khosropanah is 51 years old and has over 51 books. That is, even if he had written one book a year since birth (some in multiple volumes), the number of books would still exceed his lifespan to date; let alone the number of articles, scholarly lectures, pamphlets, etc. Yet if we were to place this academic record before Wittgenstein or any other thinker of note, he would likely become suspicious upon seeing these statistics and say that there seems to be a problem here. In this article, only one aspect of the problem has been mentioned: copying and book-mongering. In recent months, several critics have, with utmost brevity, pointed to another aspect of the problem: weak and low-value content. It is said that recently, one of the prominent religious scholars and thinkers in Qom, in a meeting with Mr. Khosropanah, advised him to try to write less and read more until he can produce a worthy and competent work. There is no doubt that the writer of these lines will also be counted by Mr. Khosropanah and his colleagues among the counter-revolutionary critics and the opposition. Nevertheless, it is hoped that he will at least reflect more seriously and deeply on the words of that religious scholar and thinker and their implications, even though, in the instances referred to in this article, he has essentially written nothing; he has engaged in book-mongering.

Wassalam

* Bibliographic details of the works by Abdolhossein Khosropanah mentioned in this article:

Khosropanah, Abdolhossein (1381 [2002]), The Realm of Religion, Qom: Center for Cultural Studies and Research.

Khosropanah, Abdolhossein (1384 [2005]), Pathology of Religious Society, Qom: Maaref Publishing.

Khosropanah, Abdolhossein, Hassan Panahi Azad (1385 [2006]), Ontology of Knowledge, Tehran: Amirkabir.

Khosropanah, Abdolhossein (1386 [2007]), Human Expectations of Religion, Tehran: Research Institute for Islamic Culture and Thought.

Khosropanah, Abdolhossein (1388 [2009]), Pathology of Contemporary Religious Studies, Tehran: Research Institute for Islamic Culture and Thought.

Khosropanah, Abdolhossein (1388 [2009]), Civil Society and Religious Governance, Qom: Vosough.

Khosropanah, Abdolhossein (2009), Fiqh on the Touchstone of the Age: A Critique of Dr. Soroush's Article