Mohsen Banaei
| Mohsen Banaei | |
|---|---|
| Native name | محسن بنائی |
| Born | Mohsen Banaei May 22, 1965 Tehran, Iran |
| Other names | Mazdak Bamdadan (مزدک بامدادان) |
| 💼 Occupation |
|
| Known for | Editor-in-chief of Shahrivar; research on early Islamic history |
| 👶 Children | 2 |
Mohsen Banaei (محسن بنائی; born 22 May 1965), also known by his pen name Mazdak Bamdadan (مزدک بامدادان), is an Iranian-German physician, writer, and intellectual. He is known for his revisionist research on the origins of Islam and is the editor-in-chief of the Persian-language quarterly journal Shahrivar.
Early life and education
Banaei was born on 22 May 1965 in Tehran, Iran, into a religious family. Shortly after his birth, the family relocated to Marand, a city in East Azerbaijan Province in northwestern Iran, where he grew up bilingual in Persian and Azerbaijani. He received his primary and secondary education in Marand and Tehran.[1]
Following the Iranian Revolution, Banaei joined the People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (MEK/MKO). When armed conflict between the MEK and the Islamic Republic intensified in 1981, he went into a semi-clandestine existence. In 1985, he fled to Turkey and from there emigrated to West Germany, where he applied for political asylum.[1]
He studied medicine at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, and simultaneously pursued comparative Iranian linguistics under Professor Josef Elfenbein and Professor Helmut Humbach. He received his doctorate in medicine in 1994, subsequently specialising in surgery, orthopaedics, and trauma surgery.[1][2] He has since worked as a physician in Cologne, Germany, where he lives with his wife and two children. He is fluent in Persian, Azerbaijani, German, English, Turkish, and Arabic.[2]
Career
Writing and intellectual activity
In 2001, having distanced himself from political activism, Banaei created the online persona Mazdak Bamdadan and began publishing articles on religion, Iranian culture and history, national identity, and civil rights. He has published more than 200 articles, collected on the Persian-language website Hamestegan (همستگان).[1] He is regarded as a pioneer of revisionist historical scholarship on early Islam within the Iranian diaspora.
In 2006, he encountered the work of Inarah, a German-based scholarly network engaged in historical-critical research on the origins of Islam, which he has described as having significantly reshaped his understanding of early Islamic history.[1] He contributed the essay "Die dunkle Krypta" (The Dark Crypt) to Inarah's ninth anthology.[2]
In 2018 and 2019, Banaei was invited to deliver lectures at international academic symposia on Islam. Following the publication of his first book, The Dark Crypt of History: How Did Islam Emerge? (November 2018), he disclosed his real identity, though he continues to publish under his pen name.[1] Around this period he also delivered public lectures on topics including the Lion and Sun emblem, the Iranian national anthem Ey Iran, the Shahnameh, and the history of Iranian writers and physicians.[2]
In 2020, Banaei received the "Nowruz Award for Expert of Cultural Heritage of the Year" from World Cultural Heritage Voices.[2]
Shahrivar journal
Banaei serves as editor-in-chief (سردبیر) of Shahrivar (شهریور), a Persian-language political and theoretical quarterly journal of the Iranian diaspora published from Brussels, Belgium. He assumed the editorship during the journal's second period, beginning in 2023, following the relaunching of the journal in the wake of the Woman, Life, Freedom uprising.
Political activity
Banaei is a member of the 7 Aban Front (جبهه هفت آبان), an Iranian opposition political organisation founded in Brussels in 2022.
References
External links
- Mohsen Banaei biography – World Cultural Heritage Voices
- Mohsen Banaei biography – ExMuslimz.org
- Mazdak Bamdadan – Official YouTube channel
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