Statements in Meeting with Officials of the System and Ambassadors of Islamic Countries on the Anniversary of the Prophet's Mission

In the Name of God, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful

And may God's blessings be upon Muhammad and his pure family.

I extend my congratulations on this great, historic, and unparalleled Eid to all of you esteemed attendees and dear guests, to the entire nation of Iran, to all Muslims worldwide, and also to all those whose hearts beat for justice, humanity, and freedom. The mission is an Eid for everyone, not just for Muslims. The celebration of the mission and the commemoration of the day of the mission is primarily to revisit the essence of the mission and to learn from it; that is the goal. We are always in need of the lessons of the mission; the mission was not just a historical event for a specific period of time; it is for all eras of history.

What I want to briefly select and present from this vast collection of lessons from the mission today is that the mission came to confront 'ignorance.' In Islamic literature, ignorance refers to the period before the dawn of the Prophet's mission. It should not be assumed that this ignorance was specific to the Arabian Peninsula and the Arabs of Mecca and Hejaz and other places; no, that ignorance was widespread; Iran of that day was also immersed in ignorance, the Roman Empire of that day was also immersed in ignorance; Islam and the Prophet's mission emerged to confront all this ignorance. Ignorance does not only mean the absence of knowledge; in Islamic expressions and literature, ignorance has a much broader meaning; part of ignorance is the lack of knowledge, but ignorance in its broad sense means the dominance and rule of human lust and anger over the living environment; this becomes ignorance. Ignorance means human societies being shaped under the influence of the lustful and angry tendencies of mainly their rulers in such a way that virtues are lost and vices prevail; this becomes ignorance.

There was a vast arena of misguidance in the lives of ignorant people: on one hand, the unbridled indulgence in carnal desires, sexual desires, and the like - now look at the environment of the Arabian Peninsula; other environments were the same; they were unrestrainedly immersed in desires, and anyone who could, indulged in lust - and on the other hand, these same people who followed their lusts, in the position of cruelty, destruction, and bloodshed, went to the utmost imaginable limits, meaning they killed their own children; 'Those who killed their children have indeed lost' - those who killed their children - 'out of foolishness without knowledge'; this is out of foolishness; this foolishness is the same ignorance. Cruelty reaches the point where not only the child of others, the innocent women and children of others, but even their own child is not spared! This becomes ignorance. On one side lust, on the other side anger; then the living environment becomes captive to these two unbridled, unrestrained feelings. Islam came to change this situation. Of course, the same was true in the courts of Sassanid Iran, in the courts of the Roman Empire, and in other places where there were oppressive and tyrannical empires and courts. Islam stood up against all these ugly realities; 'a warner to the worlds'; it addressed the entire world with its warning; this is the message of Islam.

Ignorance exists in the world today as well; we must open our eyes and recognize ignorance; today the same meaning exists; unrestrained, unaccountable, illogical indulgence in desires. Today, the logic of indulgence in the Western world is 'inclination'; we ask why do you promote homosexuality? They say, well, this is a human inclination; this is their logic! Those who do not stop or pause in the field of indulgence and disregard for any red line regarding sexual desires and various human desires, when it comes to cruelty, the same situation is observed here: they kill people, they kill the innocent, they suppress nations without any crime; this is the ignorance that exists today; modern ignorance. The difference between this ignorance and the ignorance of the early days - the first ignorance as the Quran describes it - is that today ignorance is armed and equipped with the weapon of knowledge, with the weapon of science; meaning that knowledge, which should be the means of human salvation, has become a tool for human misery, for the misfortune of human societies. Those who today impose their will on the world do so by relying on the products of their knowledge; the weapon they have is made and produced by knowledge, the information tools they have, the security tools they have, the massive propaganda tools they have, these are products of knowledge; all of them are in the service of the same lust and anger. This is the state of the world today. The Islamic community is faced with such a reality, and the Islamic world must feel and understand this.

Today, ignorance has been reproduced; with very high power, with a danger hundreds or even thousands of times greater than the ignorance of the early days and the early period of Islam. Of course, Islam too, thanks be to God, is equipped today. The great Islamic force, using various tools, is widespread in the world today. And the hope for success, the hope for overcoming the tricks of the enemies is not a small hope; it is a high hope; what is needed in the first place is 'insight' and in the second place 'determination and effort'; this is what we Muslim nations need.

Well, today the Islamic world is truly and justly in trouble. Look at the situation of the Islamic countries in our region, from Pakistan and Afghanistan to Syria and Lebanon and Palestine, and from Yemen to Libya; these Islamic countries in the West Asia region and North Africa are facing many troubles today: they have the trouble of insecurity, the trouble of fratricide, the trouble of the dominance of godless groups, and behind all these are the imperialist plans of the great powers, at the head of which is America, who enter the fields under the pretext of preserving their interests and do whatever they want - the same lust and anger - meaning they kill innocent people, support wicked groups.

Their propaganda is also truly extensive, and they cover all these in various guises. This well-known British politician of the previous generation, Churchill - with whom we Iranians are very familiar - has a saying that contains a strange irony; he says that 'truth' is so precious that one must certainly wrap it in a cover of lies and preserve it! See, this is logic! Lies, false advertising, words that are the exact opposite of the truth; this is what one observes in Western policies.

Today, the Americans claim they want to fight terrorism, while they themselves have created the most dangerous terrorist groups. Who created ISIS? They themselves admit that they played the main role in creating ISIS. Who unleashed other small and large groups - like ISIS - on Iraq and Syria and other places? Where do these bullets and these tools and these dollars that go into the pockets of these criminal and murderous people come from? Where do these funds come from? Who are those who, following American policies, support the dangerous terrorist groups in the region? Is there any doubt that the hand of global arrogance has had the greatest role in creating terrorism, promoting terrorists, and supporting them in our region? In all the points of this region that one looks at, one observes the malicious fingerprints of the enemies in producing the incident of terrorism. Who supports the fake Zionist state that has put Palestine under such pressure in Gaza and the West Bank? Who supports them? Who paves the way for them? Who stands behind them? It is the Western powers, at the head of which is America; then in their slogans, they claim that we are against terrorism, we are against ISIS; and they lie, they speak against reality. This is ignorance; this is the same ignorance that exists in the world today.

We must be awake. Dear brothers, dear nation of Iran, great Islamic community, rulers of countries! Know that we can stand against this ignorance. Today, the malicious policies of global arrogance in our region are creating proxy wars; for their own interests, they provoke the countries of the region or groups within countries to fall upon each other and pursue their own interests; they fill the pockets of arms manufacturing companies, repair the economic policies of their nearly bankrupt economy; this is their goal; we must be awake.

They talk about the Persian Gulf region. The security of the Persian Gulf region is a common interest of the countries around the Persian Gulf; we countries around the Persian Gulf have a common interest, we are neighbors, the security here is to the benefit of all of us; if the Persian Gulf is secure, all of us benefit from this security, and if it is insecure, it is insecure for everyone; an insecure Persian Gulf will be insecure for everyone; [but] those who should maintain this security are those to whom the Persian Gulf belongs, it belongs to them, it is their home; what business does America have to come here and express opinions about the issues of the Persian Gulf, to form alliances. They are not after security, they are after their own interests, and [if] they deem it necessary to make a point insecure, they do so and support the insecure.

Well, Yemen became insecure, Yemen became a field of slaughter for children and women, is this not insecurity? Who is supporting this insecurity? America. Unfortunately, the agents are countries named as Muslim, countries of the region, but they have been deceived; their supporter is, their designer is; those who promote terrorism are them.

Then they say Iran supports terrorism. We fought against terrorism, we slapped terrorism. Terrorism raised its head inside our country with the money of our enemies and with the plan of America, [but] the nation of Iran struck the terrorist with a fist inside the country, and it will be the same after this.

We, inside our country, in Iraq, in Syria, in Lebanon, cooperated with those who fought against terrorism, we helped them, we will continue to do so; we are against terrorism. The most dangerous and malicious terrorists in this region are the Zionists; we are facing and confronting the Zionists. They say to us Iran supports terrorism! You support terrorism; America is the supporter of the Zionist terrorist state; America created ISIS; America supported ISIS; you supported the terrorists who kill people in Syria, burn living people, break the chest of the dead, pull out his heart and bite it; you supported them, you encouraged them; your drones in Pakistan and Afghanistan destroyed people's homes, turned people's wedding ceremonies into mourning - which also happened in Iraq - these are the things you are doing; terrorism is yours; you are the terrorists. They say Iran supports terrorism; [the act of] terrorism is your work; we are against terrorism and we will fight against any terrorist. We will support any oppressed person; today the people of Yemen are oppressed. There is no greater oppression than killing Muslims in the sacred month - the month of Rajab is a sacred month - even the polytheists of Mecca would stop fighting when the month of Rajab came.

Today, worse and uglier than Mecca of that day, there are those who in the month of Rajab - the sacred month - put Yemeni families into mourning; in one day and night, they attack a point a hundred times, two hundred times with airplanes, with false pretexts, with wrong reasoning, with false claims; this nation is an oppressed nation; the people of Yemen are an oppressed nation, the people of Bahrain are an oppressed nation, the people of Palestine are chronically oppressed and for many years this nation has been under pressure. We will support the oppressed as much as we can and as much as our capabilities and capacity allow us; Islam has told us that 'Be an enemy to the oppressor and a helper to the oppressed' - this is the advice of the Commander of the Faithful - we do not say 'Support your brother whether he is an oppressor or oppressed' - this is a slogan of ignorance; they used to say if your brother is an oppressor or oppressed, you must defend and support him - the Quran does not say this; Islamic knowledge forbids this. No; whoever the oppressor is, he must be confronted and his oppression must be stopped; whoever the oppressed is, he must be supported.

Countries in the region should be careful; the policy of the enemies of this region and the enemies of this Islamic community is to scare these countries from each other, to create an imaginary enemy and keep the main enemy, which is global arrogance, the aggressive and oppressive companies and their affiliates, the Zionists, on the sidelines. They create an imaginary enemy; Iran against Arabs, one ethnicity against another ethnicity, Shia against Sunni; these are the policies of the enemies; this must be confronted. Confronting such policies is confronting ignorance. Today's modern ignorance is a harsh, ruthless, heartless ignorance equipped with all kinds of tools; it must be confronted wisely, and the nation of Iran has done this confrontation and will continue to do so.

Fortunately, the nations of the region have awakened; yes, Islamic awakening was temporarily suppressed but awakening cannot be suppressed; insight cannot be suppressed. The nation of Iran is awake, many of the nations in the region are aware and awake, and the Islamic community, thanks be to God, is in a state of awakening; of course, the enemies gain control - 'falsehood has a round' - falsehood gives a round. The duty we have today in regard to the commemoration of the Prophet's mission is these; we must pay attention not to forget the mission of the Islamic community and not to overlook the power of the Islamic community. Fortunately, the power of the Islamic community is very great; the clear evidence is that for many years they have been trying with all their might to suppress the power of awakening and resistance in the region and have not been able to; they have been fighting with the Islamic Republic, which was the axis of this awakening, for 35 years; thanks be to God, they have been defeated and they will be defeated after this as well.

O Lord! Bestow Your blessings and mercy upon all the martyrs of this path and upon all the Mojahedin of this path. O Lord! Our great Imam who taught us these lessons and opened this path before us, unite him with his saints. And unite our dear martyrs with the Prophet.

Peace be upon you and God's mercy and blessings.