Honourable Martyr Sayyid Murtuza Aviny was born in the year 1947 in the city of Ray. He completed his initial and middle school in the city of Zanjan, Kerman and Tehran and later as a student of architecture entered the school of fine arts in Tehran university. Since childhood, he was fond of arts, wrote poetry, stories and articles and did painting. He completed his college in the same field of arts that was compatible with his nature. He had done some studies about the literature before the revolution. But after the Islamic Revolution’s triumph and the foundation of Construction Jihad commanded by late Imam Khomeini, in 1979, he abandoned architecture and started working in the mentioned organization, he began with the task of film making which was the demand and necessity after the Revolution. While doing so, he left for villages, so that he could solve the villager’s problems. Having witnessed the cruelties and injustice of the previous regime left behind for these groups of people, he aimed at making films for the Construction Jihad.
Since the beginning of his struggle in film making in the year 1358 , he travelled to villages for the sake of Allah s.w.t , when the Construction Jihad started working, their only intention was to cover each and every event related to the Islamic Revolution .For example , when the event of flood of Khuzestan took place, their group went to the province and prepared a detailed report. This report was some of the initial works of Construction Jihad team. Later on a Documentary was made namely, “Khuzistan Flood”.
The event of “ Ghayle Khosrow Naser Qashqai”, was next , it was about the uproar caused by Khosrow Qashqai , to cover this event his team had to leave for Firozabad , Abadeh and other provinces. When Firozabad was blocked, with great difficulty they passed through siege lines and reached over there. In fact, the first war that they had in any province was here, the war with the Khans . This event was then made into a T.V series called “Khan Gazideh – Ha”.
The Construction Jihad group was the first group that immediately after the start of the Iran- Iraq war went to the war front. Two members of this group got captured in Qasr Shirin on the same day itself, but the third member managed to escape from the noose of the blockage, while arrow had stricken his shoulder. The group organized once again and entered the city of Khurram to prepare a documentary on the days when this city was blocked. When they reached the city , it had yet to become “Khuninshahr” which the Iranians had named it , meaning the “City of Blood”, due to the brutal and violent attacks by Saddam Husain’s forces .However this happened soon enough , Khurram city was completely devastated by Iraqi soldiers, such that the city practically became a ghost town, the Construction Jihad team on their return to Tehran ,worked day and night to debut their first documentary about Khurram city through television , which was named “Blood Conquered”.
“Haqeeqat” was the next work of Construction Jihad, it was made into eleven parts, one of its aim was to trace the reasons of the fall of Khurram city. The city of Khurram had fallen under siege, not even a week had gone by , Martyr Aviny with his team went for the search of “Haqeeqat” to Abadan which was very badly under the Iraqi siege. This paved the way for the production for “Haqeeqat”.
The work of the team of Construction Jihad continued on the war front , and with the start of the “ Operation Val Fajr- 8, { operation Val Fajr -8 was an Iranian military operation conducted during the Iran- Iraq war , part of the first battle of AL-FAW, unlike the other operations this operation was planned entirely by professional Army officers.} were attached together and fully integrated. Martyr Aviny joined the Television team of Construction Jihad, as one of the representatives of this organisation. He left us with “ Rivayat Fath” which was a beautiful and everlasting art taken from the Islamic Combatants Bravery, Rivayat Fath {with 70 episodes} was aired regularly on television till the end of war. Regarding the motives behind the making of this series as quoted by the Martyr, “Intrinsic motivation that came in the artists of television unit lead them to the front of the Holy defence war to carry out their administrative duties and obligations . The first Martyr that this unit gave was “ALI TALABI”, who was martyred in the operation of “ Tareeq ul Quds”, and the last one of them was “MAHDI FALAHAT PUR”, who in the same year got martyred in Lebanon. Nothing else can be said, about these brave heart except that they did not get tired , despite of all the sacrifices , and were ready to fight in war again for the sake of Islamic Revolution, The most vivid day in the life of a “man” is the day when he passes it struggling in the way of Allah s.w.t and even if his life is confronted with death he will never show cowardice, and strive towards martyrdom, ready to meet his Lord.”
Martyr Aviny started press activities in late 1984, he worked for the Artistic centre since 1988 till the end of war. Moreover, along with being the head of the Television section, making documentaries related to the war, he was the chief editor of the “SURA MAGAZINE” , “ETESAMI” Magazine of Islamic Association , also published his articles. Ranging from Political issues, Judgement, Beliefs and Worship. He analyzed and criticized a series of his articles about , “Principles of Political authority in Islam” about common ideas and opinions related to Democracy, Voting, Freedom , and Equality . “Equality in relation to political ideology” derived from Revelation and Nahjul Balagha . “Political ideas of Imam Khomeini r.a”. Articles written also explained about the Government of Islam and Wilayate Faqih with relation to the Divine Government of Hazarat Rasool {s.a.w} in Madinah and Khilafat of Amirul Momeneen {a.s}, and connected the Islamic Revolution with the Movements of the Prophets”. It’s place with the wars of Islam, “Uprising of Ashura” ,and it’s different aspects with the war that have specially taken place in the recent centuries. Also, “The Apparent and Hidden blessings of the war ,” the characters of the Warriors and Baseejis were among the topics published in “ETESAMI” .
Research and thinking was also done with related contents of “Beliefs” and “worship”, which resulted in his work “Tears” and “Spring of evolution”.
Collections of the works of Martyr Aviny , with respect to quality and the variety of topics he covered , the sense of depth and originality of thoughts , the eloquence in expressions brings wonders.
“Research in the meaning of salawat” , “Hajj” and the “Allegory of human social behaviour” were some of his remarkable works which got published, “School of research on the development and principles of the west” were written for the magazine “Jihad”. “Paradise on earth” , “Naked ape” , “Lavish civilization” , “ Economic dictatorship” , “System of training and development of goals,” “Progress or Evolution” are some of the examples of the articles that were written in this series. After his martyrdom these papers were published as “Development and Fundamentals of west.’’
His course of writing continued till 1986. During these years , in addition to directing and assembly of series of “Revayate Fateh” it was his writing which later took the form of a book entitled, “Treasures of Heaven”. In the year 1987, [muharram] he started writing a book “Blood Conquest” {narrative of muharram} and wrote nine chapters out of the ten chapters of the book, while he was doing research on the events of Ashura and the martyrdom of Bani Hashim, for the tenth chapter , for some reason it was left unfinished .
In the year 1989, he taught at the University of Arts for one semester, but because the contents intended by him did not coincide with the plans of the university, he discontinued teaching. Collection of issues that were gathered in order to teach, were explained in detail and interpreted in the form of long articles entitled “Reflections on the nature of cinema” which were printed in the chapter of “Farabi’ and later the article entitled “Attraction in Cinema”, “Magic Mirror”, “Picture frame and language of cinema” etc, were published in the monthly magazine “Surah” in March 1989.
His book called “Magic Mirror” was the first volume of the collections of his articles ,which were gathered and published ,{ the articles were on the criticism of cinema}. This book proved that he had something to say in the field of cinema and also his points of view were valuable ones in the related situation. Thus his opponents turned out to be wrong.
The peak years of his journalism activities were from 1989 to 1993 .His work during this period includes a wide variety of topics. Familiarity with cinema, his experience of more than ten years in the field of documentation , directing them and making a series and assembling them became the reason to start writing about cinema, more than anything. But this did not lead to indifference towards other arts. Besides this he wrote articles about , theoretical nature and criticism of Iranian cinema and world cinema, numerous articles about arts and spirituality, new art ranging from novels ,painting, graphics and theatre , traditional and religious arts, art of Revolution etc which were published in the monthly magazine “Surah”. During the same period , Political foundations , Beliefs of Islamic regime and Supreme Leader , Opposition of Cultural Revolution with a single global culture and Cultural invasion of the West, Westernization , Intellectual Modernism and Fanaticism were some of the topics which were researched and published.
Martyr Aviny’s eloquence in expression, originality of thought was inspired by Quran, Nahjul balagha, and words of Infallibles[a.s] . He was immensely inspired by Imam Khomeini’s[r.a] personality , and all this was reflected in his work. Familiarity with the philosophical thoughts of West and ideas , opinion of the Western thinkers were criticized by him in the light of his wisdom . The cultural invasion from the Western world gave him the understanding of Political foundations, history and culture of modern civilization and all this led to his belief in Divine ideology. He considered the Western countries as a historic manifestation of Satan, and believed that the success of Islamic Revolution would bring about the emergence of a perfect human being. He specifically [ about the post renaissance ] believed that man’s ignorance and rebellion had approached its climax , which would pave the ground for repentance. Martyr Aviny called the current age as “The era for repentance of mankind “. The Islamic Revolution led by Imam Khomeini [r.a] resulted mankind to enter a new historical era which would end the intezar(wait) for our Imam e Zamana [a.t.f.s] with his reappearance to establish the rise of a “ Stable and true government ”. [Amen]
In 1992, following the Supreme leader’s decree , “Cultural Institute of Revayate Fath” was established to facilitate the production of a new series of “Revayate Fath” which would start making documentaries and film about the Holy Defence . Martyr Aviny and the crew of Film makers started their journey from provinces of war and in the period of less than a year prepared six programs out of a series of ten parts of “Shehri dar Aasmaan” [ city in the sky ] which was about the siege , fall and recapture of the city of Khurram and the preparations of the rest of the series was to be carried out which would be related to the provinces of Abadan , Susangerd , Huvayzeh and Fakkeh . “ City in the sky ” was broadcasted on television during the last months of Martyr Aviny’s life . During the making of “Revayate Fath” along with the group of cameramen and search parties whose job was to identify the martyr’s bodies [ which were there as a result of eight year long war between Iraq –Iran ] Martyr Aviny on April 9 , 1993 became a martyr due to the mines which existed in the region of Fakkeh . He became a martyr and his endless journey began near the martyrs for whose sorrows he sang lamentations and he was waiting for a day on which he could join them. Martyr Aviny joined the King of Martyrs Imam Hussain a.s and his leader Imam Khomeini r.a . On 11th April , of the same year his honourable body was escorted by the Supreme leader and a group of artists. He was laid to rest in the Behest e Zahara cemetery.