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Abdu'l-Missagh Ghadirian

From Bahaipedia
Abdul-Missagh Ghadirian
ABMAmericas
1984 - 1995
CounsellorAmericas
1995 - 2005
 Works •  Media

Dr. Abdu'l-Missagh Ghadirian is a Bahá’í who served as a Counselor for the Americas from 1995-2005. He is a psychiatrist who worked at the Royal Victoria Hospital in Montreal and is a Professor at McGill University where he is now a Professor Emeritus.[1][2]

Biography[edit]

Dr. Abdu'l-Missagh Ghadirian is an author, researcher and emeritus professor at McGill University, Faculty of Medicine in Montreal as well as a Distinguished Life Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association. He has spoken in numerous public, professional and university venues around the world and received several awards for his scientific and humanitarian contributions and services.[3]

His extensive research includes about 180 articles [4] published mostly in scientific journals and in other professional media in the field of social science and psychiatry. He is the author of fourteen books, including “In Search of Nirvana”, “Ageing: Challenges and Opportunities”, “Environment and Psychopathology” and “Alcohol and Drug Abuse: a Psychosocial and Spiritual Approach to Prevention”.

More recently he has published the books “Creative Dimensions of Suffering” (USA, 2009), “Materialism – Moral and Social Consequences” (2010 & Second edition 2017 ), for which he received Distinguished Scholarship Award from the Association for Baha’i Studies in 2011,“Steadfastness in the Covenant”, George Ronald Publisher, Oxford UK (2014), Alzheimer’s Disease: An Eclipse before Sunset (2nd edition) 2016, USA and Doukhobors and the Baha’i Faith (2nd edition) 2022. Some of his works have been translated and published in French, English, Spanish, Italian, Russian, Portuguese, Persian and Chinese.

Since 2002 he has been teaching a course on Spirituality and Ethics in Medicine which he initiated and established at McGill University’s Faculty of Medicine as part of its programme for undergraduate students. His academic research in recent years has focused on topics including resilience and creativity in the midst of adversity and the interrelationship of science and spirituality.

As a Baha’i he has been writing on the application of Baha’i principles to current societal problems and persecution of the Baha’is of Iran. He was consultant to the Baha’i International Community, a non-governmental organization (NGO) at the United Nations on the prevention of alcoholism and drug dependencies (1977-2000).

He taught in the distance education programme of the Baha’i Institute for Higher Education (BIHE-Iran) as one of its professors from around the world from 2006-2012.

For nearly 30 years he served the Institution of Learned of the Faith in different capacities including ten years as a member of the Continental Board of Counsellors for the Americas (1995-2005). He also served as a member of the Board of Trustees of Huququ’llah in Canada for 12 years (2005-2017). [5]

Ghadirian was born into a Bahá’í family, a third generation Bahá’í on his mother's side. [6] During elementary school in Iran he experienced prejudice as a Bahá’í although it was not very severe,[7] however many members of his family were persecuted following the 1979 Revolution.[8]

He grew up in the north of Iran [9] completing his high school in Tehran and then a medical degree from the University of Tabriz in 1962. After graduation he did a 15-month residency training in medicine at Shiraz University, Faculty of Medicine, at the Nemazee Hospital in Shiraz. In December 1963 he left Iran for the United States to do residency training. From 1964 to 1967 he studied psychiatry at Ohio State University in Columbus and completed a Master's degree in science at the same university. As of 1967 he moved to Montreal, Canada, where he undertook advanced residency training in psychiatry at McGill University for two years. From 1969 to 1976 he taught at Laval, Queen's and Ottawa Universities and engaged in clinical research and practice. [10]

Since the 1970s, he has dedicated his energy to prevention of substance abuse and addiction, among other fields of psychiatry. His observations as director of adolescent psychiatry at the Kingston Psychiatric Hospital of Queen’s University in 1972-1973 and later at the McGill University Health Centre prompted him to concentrate on substance abuse preventive education. He has spoken widely on this subject in North, Central and South America as well as in China and other countries. He has published articles and books on it as well. [11]

He returned to Montreal in 1977 as a member of the Department of Psychiatry at McGill University where he taught, practiced and did research as a professor. [12] He served as the Director of the Mood (Affective) Disorders Clinic of the Royal Victoria Hospital from 1977-2001. In 1989 he established one of the first, if not the first, Seasonal Affective Disorders Clinic (SAD) in Montreal and in the province of Quebec. [13] It became a centre for diagnosis, treatment and research in this field. [14] As a former Director of Medical Education of the Montreal WHO Collaborating Centre for Research and Training in Mental Health and also Director of Medical Education of the Douglas Hospital (1981-86) he chaired the scientific organizing committee of the first WHO course on Psychiatric Hospital Organization and Management held in Montreal, May 16 – June 3, 1983 (at Douglas Hospital). [15]

In 2001 he retired from clinical practice, but continued to teach and conduct research as a professor in the medical education department of the McGill Faculty of Medicine, [16] where he created a course on Spirituality and Ethics in Medicine for medical students.[17] He was appointed as Professor Emeritus in the Faculty of Medicine in 2009. [18]

He is married to Marilyn (Kauffmann) Ghadirian. They have two sons, Sina and Nayyer Ghadirian and three grandchildren, Audrey, Navin and Sascha Ghadirian.

Throughout his life, he has been involved in Baha'i activities. The following are a few highlights from his service:

As a youth he was very active in the Baha'i community. During his medical studies in Tabriz and Shiraz he served as a member of the Baha'i Youth Committee of those cities and represented Baha'i youth of those regions for several years at the National Baha'i Youth Convention of Iran held in Tehran.[19]

In the United States he served on the Spiritual Assembly of Columbus, Ohio and was actively involved in teaching. In Canada, first as an Assistant, then Auxiliary Board member, for protection, and finally as Counsellor, he served the Institution of the Learned for a total of 29 years.[20] He was appointed as a member of the Board of Trustees of Huququ'llah for Canada from 2005-2017.[21]

During his service as a member of the Institution of the Learned he focused a great deal on the Covenant and protection aspects of the Faith and travelled to several countries to assist the friends and the institutions to develop their capacity in this area. These included Mexico, 2001, and Trinidad, Cuba, and Guatemala in 2003. Regarding the trip to Guatemala, the International Teaching Centre wrote, in a letter dated March 24, 2003, "This meeting marks an important milestone in raising the consciousness of the participants about the vital topic of protection of the Faith and will have a significant application in the future as the Faith continues to rise in prestige."[22]

In 1998 he was invited by the National Spiritual Assembly of Bolivia to visit that country where, among other services, he spoke on substance abuse prevention. This is a social issue on which he has done significant research and has written several articles and books. From 1977 to 1998 he was a consultant on this subject to the Baha'i International Community and, in that capacity, represented the BIC at several national and international conferences.[23]

In the spring of 1989 upon the encouragement of the Counsellors, he undertook a travel teaching trip to 7 countries in Central and South America and spoke on a global perspective of how to prevent the problem of substance abuse through education. He was invited to make public presentations and give talks at universities, professional gathering and Baha'i events organized by the National Spiritual Assemblies of the Baha'is of Belize, Costa Rica, Venezuela, Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana, Suriname and French Guiana. These meetings provided opportunities to share perspectives on the Baha'i teachings.[24] In Trinidad and Tobago he met with the country's President, Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Archbishop of Port of Spain, the Ministry of Health's chief medical officer, and was interviewed by newspapers and radio.[25] In Guyana he met with the Prime Minister, the Minister for Health and his chief medical officer, and in Suriname, with the Minister for Health.[26]

He travelled to Russia several times, especially after the country opened up to the West, and met Baha'is in Moscow and St-Petersburg (then Leningrad). He also travelled in Turkmenistan (Ashkhabad) as well as Byelorussia, Khabarovsk, Siberia (Yakutsk, a new community which was experiencing a rising number of Baha'i youth), Latvia (Riga) and Lithuania. Most of these trips, which took place between 1991 and 1994, combined attendance at scientific conferences and meetings to share Baha'i perspectives.[27] In 1991 he was selected as Senior Scholar by the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada for the award of Canada-USSR Academic Exchange Program. [28]

Previous to his trips to the former Soviet Union countries, in October 1982, he conducted a teaching trip to British Columbia, Canada, to teach the Faith to Doukhobors, a Christian group originating from Russia, visiting Castlegar, Krestova and Kootenay Boundary.[29] In 1985, at the 10th Annual Convention of the Association for Bahá'í Studies in Vancouver he conducted a workshop on "Doukhobors and the Baha'i Faith." [30] During the same same trip he also attended a Bahá'í Convention on health and healing at the University of British Columbia where he chaired a session.[31]

As China opened up, he made several trips to that country, the first of which was in 1994 and then from 2002 to 2009. He visited several cities from the south to the north of China, conducting professional seminars and giving conferences at universities and medical centres. Often, he was able to visit Baha'i pioneers in different cities.[32] He received an award of Excellence in the area of Social Responsibility and Service in the field of substance abuse prevention at a conference in Xian, China in 2008. [33]

During his two terms as a Continental Counsellor for the Americas he represented the Institution of the Learned at National Conventions of several countries including Guyana (2003), Greenland (2004) and Guadeloupe (2005). [34] He also attended the National Convention of the Baha'is of Bermuda on the 25th anniversary of the establishment of that country's National Spiritual Assembly (2005). [35]

During that same period, on behalf of the Continental Board of Counsellors for the Americas he participated in the Centenary Congress of the Faith in France, held in Paris in 1998, where he spoke on the urgent need for French-speaking pioneers for Guadeloupe and Martinique. [36]

In 2000 he travelled to Australia and New Zealand as a guest speaker at their Association for Baha'is Studies meeting. [37]

In 2009 he was a guest of the National Spiritual Assembly of the Baha'is of India who arranged for him to give talks at two universities, to speak on the radio and to meet with physicians at the visitors' centre of the Baha'i Temple.[38]

Two years later, in 2011, in Qatar, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia he spoke at universities and hospital centres on coping with stress as well as on spirituality and medicine. [39]

He was received by the West African National Spiritual Assemblies of Mali and Ghana in 2012 where he addressed universities, public meetings and firesides on various topics from family life to the Covenant, as well as on materialism and prevention of substance abuse.

From 1976 to 2006 he initiated two important Baha'i community projects for Canada:

1) Annual deepening and celebration meetings on the Day of the Covenant (sometimes lasting one day) each November. This initiative, which began in Quebec, was, with the approval of the National Spiritual Assembly of Canada, extended to other regions of the country after 1995.[40]

2) Spirit of Badasht Conferences. In response to a 1997 letter from the Universal House of Justice addressed to Persian Baha'is around the world, he initiated these conferences across Canada, with the approval and support of the National Spiritual Assembly and Regional Baha'i Councils, to encourage Persian believers to arise and serve by actively travel teaching and pioneering. Such service was dedicated to the Baha'is in the Cradle of the Faith who have for many decades been subjected to deprivation and suffering. Hundreds of travel teachers and pioneers arose to serve locally, nationally or internationally. This initiative was extended to the United States as well.[41]

He also vigorously encouraged and supported a native believer project, the Harper Mountain gathering near Kamloops, B.C. which became an annual event, held on the Labor Day weekend, during his time as a Counsellor.[42]

Publications[edit]

Books[edit]

  • 1980 - Proceedings of the McGill Symposium: Therapeutic Effects of Lithium in Affective Disorders
  • 1983 - WHO Course on Psychiatric Hospital Organization and Management
  • 1985 - In Search of Nirvana
  • 1991 - Ageing: Challenges and Opportunities
  • 1993 - Environment and Psychopathology
  • 1995 - Alcohol and Drug Abuse (Institute for Studies in Persian)
  • 2000 - Substance Abuse: A Baha'i Perspective
  • 2008 - Alcohol and Drug Abuse: A Psychosocial and Spiritual Approach to Prevention
  • 2009 - Creative Dimensions of Suffering
  • 2010 - Psychological and Spiritual Aspects of Suffering (in Persian, Mir'at Publications)
  • 2010 - Materialism: Moral and Spiritual Consequences (Second Edition released in 2017)[43]
  • 2014 - Steadfastness In the Covenant
  • 2016 - Alzheimer's Disease: An Eclipse before Sunset
  • 2022 - Doukhobors and the Baha'i Faith and Tolstoy and His Appreciation of the Baha'i Faith (Second edition)

Articles[edit]

Talks[edit]

References[edit]

Bahai.media has a related page: Categpry:Abdul Missagh Ghadirian
  1. ↑ Baha'i News (1989). National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United States. No 702, Pg(s) 15. View as PDF.
  2. ↑ http://bahaiteachings.org/author/abdul-missagh-ghadirian
  3. ↑ http://www.medicineandspirituality.com/?page_id=376
  4. ↑ https://zinatgroup.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/Zinat-Group-Publishing-Press-Kit.pdf
  5. ↑ http://www.bahaimontreal.org/eng.ca/books/authors-corner?start=5
  6. ↑ Interview on "A Bahá’í Perspective: Radio Show & Podcast", 3 min
  7. ↑ Interview on "A Bahá’í Perspective: Radio Show & Podcast", 3 min 30 sec
  8. ↑ Interview on "A Bahá’í Perspective: Radio Show & Podcast", 4 to 5 min
  9. ↑ Interview on "A Bahá’í Perspective: Radio Show & Podcast", 3 min
  10. ↑ Baha'i Writers and Authors and their Works (in Persian), Enayat Olfat, Publisher, Dallas, TX, 2015, pp. 498-509
  11. ↑ http://www.medicineandspirituality.com/?page_id=156
  12. ↑ http://www.bahaimontreal.org/en-ca/books/authors-corner/242-dr-abdu-l-missagh-ghadirian-author
  13. ↑ http://www.medicineandspirituality.com/?page_id=135
  14. ↑ http://www.medicineandspirituality.com/?page_id=150
  15. ↑ http://www.medicineandspirituality.com/?page_id=90
  16. ↑ Baha'i Writers and Authors and their Works (in Persian), Enayat Olfat, Publisher, Dallas, TX, 2015, pp. 498-509
  17. ↑ http://www.bahaimontreal.org/en-ca/books/authors-corner/242-dr-abdu-l-missagh-ghadirian-author
  18. ↑ http://www.medicineandspirituality.com/?page_id=376
  19. ↑ Baha'i Writers and Authors and their Works (in Persian), Enayat Olfat, Publisher, Dallas, TX, 2015, pp. 498-509
  20. ↑ Baha'i Writers and Authors and their Works (in Persian), Enayat Olfat, Publisher, Dallas, TX, 2015, pp. 498-509
  21. ↑ http://www.bahaimontreal.org/en-ca/books/authors-corner/242-dr-abdu-l-missagh-ghadirian-author
  22. ↑ Baha'i Writers and Authors and their Works (in Persian), Enayat Olfat, Publisher, Dallas, TX, 2015, pp. 498-509
  23. ↑ Baha'i Writers and Authors and their Works (in Persian), Enayat Olfat, Publisher, Dallas, TX, 2015, pp. 498-509
  24. ↑ Baha'i Writers and Authors and their Works (in Persian), Enayat Olfat, Publisher, Dallas, TX, 2015, pp. 498-509
  25. ↑ https://bahai.works/index.php?title=File:Baha%27i_News_699.pdf&page=18
  26. ↑ https://bahai.works/index.php?title=File:Baha%27i_News_702.pdf&page=17
  27. ↑ Baha'i Writers and Authors and their Works (in Persian), Enayat Olfat, Publisher, Dallas, TX, 2015, pp. 498-509
  28. ↑ http://www.medicineandspirituality.com/?page_id=376
  29. ↑ https://bahai.works/index.php?title=File:Bahai_Canada_Vol3_No7.pdf&page=25
  30. ↑ https://bahai.works/index.php?title=File:Baha%27i_News_655.pdf&page=12
  31. ↑ https://bahai.works/index.php?title=File:Baha%27i_News_655.pdf&page=12
  32. ↑ Baha'i Writers and Authors and their Works (in Persian), Enayat Olfat, Publisher, Dallas, TX, 2015, pp. 498-509
  33. ↑ http://www.medicineandspirituality.com/?page_id=376
  34. ↑ Baha'i Writers and Authors and their Works (in Persian), Enayat Olfat, Publisher, Dallas, TX, 2015, pp. 498-509
  35. ↑ https://bahaipedia.org/NSA:Bermuda
  36. ↑ Baha'i Writers and Authors and their Works (in Persian), Enayat Olfat, Publisher, Dallas, TX, 2015, pp. 498-509
  37. ↑ Baha'i Writers and Authors and their Works (in Persian), Enayat Olfat, Publisher, Dallas, TX, 2015, pp. 498-509
  38. ↑ Baha'i Writers and Authors and their Works (in Persian), Enayat Olfat, Publisher, Dallas, TX, 2015, pp. 498-509
  39. ↑ Baha'i Writers and Authors and their Works (in Persian), Enayat Olfat, Publisher, Dallas, TX, 2015, pp. 498-509
  40. ↑ Baha'i Writers and Authors and their Works (in Persian), Enayat Olfat, Publisher, Dallas, TX, 2015, pp. 498-509
  41. ↑ Baha'i Writers and Authors and their Works (in Persian), Enayat Olfat, Publisher, Dallas, TX, 2015, pp. 498-509
  42. ↑ Baha'i Writers and Authors and their Works (in Persian), Enayat Olfat, Publisher, Dallas, TX, 2015, pp. 498-509
  43. ↑ http://bahaiblog.net/site/2018/04/materialism-book-dr-abdul-missagh-ghadirian/
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