Speech in Meeting with Professors, Officials, Scholars, and Students of Baqer al-Ulum Cultural Foundation

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

I am very pleased to meet with you esteemed gentlemen, and I am delighted that, thanks be to God, one of the long-standing aspirations of those concerned about the seminary and the intellectual future of the Islamic world has been realized in the form of your institution. We thank God that, thanks be to God, He has chosen great men and distinguished, insightful, and devoted personalities to establish such an organization and foundation. We pray to the Almighty for the success of these dear and noble individuals and hope that, God willing, this series of works and this blessed movement will continue.

You gentlemen know that today, the need for Islamic knowledge in the world is vastly different and has deep and strange gaps compared to the past. In the past, communications were not as extensive. The invasion of incorrect and deviant thoughts was not as prevalent. Its impact on people's thoughts was not as significant. The demand and readiness for correct, religious, and Islamic thought were not as widespread. The possibility of spreading monotheistic thought was not as available; but today, the situation is different.

Today, within our country and our borders, a great nation lives for whom Islam is no longer an extra, ceremonial matter outside the structure and norms of life; rather, Islam is everything in life and the foundation of the social system. Today, monotheism in the public and social life of our nation and country is the rule of life. The basis of governance, administration of the country, management of affairs, and the comprehensive life of the people is monotheism and Islamic knowledge. People are eager to learn about religion and its truths.

Today, the possibility of propagating religion exists; but in the past, this possibility did not exist. In the past, if a cleric was very clever and ready to work, he could occupy a mosque, a school, and a corner of life and set up a tent of Islamic thoughts and his own elevation there. In the main environments of life, work environments, administrations, and the administration of the country, and in the legislative environment, there was no place for religion. Even when you went as a religious preacher, you did your work, and the social system did its work. Suppose you went to a factory to teach religion, you said your words, and the labor laws did their work, and often their work prevailed over yours.

Today, it is different. Today, there is the possibility of work, teaching, judgment, and the governance of Islamic laws. Within the country, our youth, university students, and experts are eager and want to know and become informed about Islamic knowledge and understand it. They want to grasp the intellectual and ideological foundation of what the social system has assumed and created today and become aware of the numerous rulings, laws, and regulations that the system expects to be dictated by religion.

Globally, whether directly from the occurrence of a religious and Islamic revolution and the establishment of a political and social system based on religion—which itself was a great event that drew the world's attention to religion and a re-examination of religious issues (Islamic and non-Islamic)—or what later indirectly resulted from our revolution, it was the same. That is, the breaking of the foundations of organized materialistic thought; that thought which had turned materialism and atheism into a school of thought and social order and had given it a steel-like appearance and presented it to the whole world with full mouth and great claims, claiming that such thought governs people's lives!

This thought and school had stood against every spiritual phenomenon—whether thought, action, or morality—for decades. Perhaps some of you dear brothers had encountered those who presented parts of their thought dogmatically and decisively, saying this is it and nothing else. From their perspective, everything was doomed to perish. This thought suddenly melted like a building of ice and, like the structure that 'Mansur Abbasi' made from salt stones, appeared as salt stones, and when water was poured on it, it melted and disappeared; 'like salt in water' it collapsed.

After the subsiding of that noisy storm, spirituality reveals itself. It became clear that in these dust clouds, even the growth of spirituality and Islam and religious thoughts—especially Islamic—had not stopped. They wanted to uproot spirituality so that not even a trace of it remained; but it became clear that it had been growing all along; however, the storms, dust clouds, and clamor did not allow the reality to become clear. Now that the insane clamor has subsided and calmed, the truths reveal themselves.

If we look at the subject from a third perspective, again Islamic thought has a special place in the world. In the world, there have been political conflicts, and now the world's bloc division and power distribution have changed, and its real form has not yet emerged, and the real depiction of power conflict in the world is not yet clear and will gradually become clear, and it may take several years to finally determine where and how the poles of power in the world are. In any form, there is no doubt that the Islamic system and government and the thought that supports and underpins this government have a place and a responsible role in the world and have a task to perform. Of course, there are other viewpoints that cannot be discussed in detail now, and we do not want to spend time on them.

My question is, in response to all these needs and inquiries inside and outside, and according to the new ideological and political conditions of the world, what does the Islamic Republic, as the base of Islam and the point that claims Islam has been realized here, have prepared to offer, and what food has it prepared for all these open mouths? What do we have? What do we want to offer? Of course, we have many things to offer. If we spread the raw materials we have—like the element extracted from the mine of gold, that is, these Quranic verses and hadiths—around the world, it is itself a great thing. Therefore, we are not lacking.

But the point is that if asked, with this vast Islamic source and this thousand-year-old tried and truly astonishing research method—sometimes the research of these jurists, in terms of subtlety, precision, and depth, is truly astonishing—and especially the complex jurisprudence that exists in Shiism (the jurisprudence of our Sunni brothers does not have the complexity and technicality compared to the jurisprudence among Shiite scholars. This is much more technical, complex, and deep. Of course, our jurists have done a great job in this regard, which, in any case, all belongs to Islam), what is the answer to each and every issue of life? You and all of us will be left without an answer. That is, today we do not have a ready answer commensurate with the need and inquiry that exists. Often, we have vast and rich mines of precious materials at our disposal; but we do not have the currency that can be handed out and spent in the market.

Who wants to do these tasks? This is not my word; it is a word that has been discussed in the seminary for years. The fact that someone like Mr. Mesbah (may God prolong his life and bless his existence) thinks about this and comes to create your work process is due to this decades-old question in the seminary.

The issue is whether the current and existing process of the seminaries is sufficient to answer these needs? The answer is no, it is not sufficient. We must use the strong frameworks and robust structure of the seminary and the abundant intellectual and spiritual resources in these centers to create means to provide answers to these numerous inquiries and to build individuals who can gush forth like springs of knowledge and rulings and fill needs and gaps.

Your institution is an example and instance of the work that must be done. That is, certainly, the 'Baqer al-Ulum (peace be upon him)' institution, which is named after this pure nobleman, and also the 'Institute in the Path of Truth,' as far as I have known and recognized, are among the very blessed, useful, fortunate, and imitable centers worthy of appreciation. We pray that such institutions increase. We pray that, God willing, the general planning of the Qom seminary and other seminaries will be such that it can respond to numerous needs and evolve according to time and need and become what can alleviate the concerns of those who are worried about the future of the world to a large extent.

We pray that God, God willing, grants you success to continue this path and preserves the noble presence of Mr. Mesbah and other responsible brothers and those involved in this institution, and the professors, servants, students, and scholars engaged there, and includes them in His blessings. God willing, may you be included in the prayers of the Imam of the Age (may our souls be sacrificed for him, may God hasten his reappearance, and may God's blessings be upon him).

Peace be upon you and God's mercy and blessings