Statements in Meeting with Members of Jihadi Groups

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

First of all, I am very happy to meet you dear ones, the youth, and I listened carefully to your statements and truly benefited from many of the things you said; I mean I really made use of them. Thanks be to God, we have efficient, thoughtful, and well-planned jihadi forces in our midst.

What I want to convey consists of two or three points; of course, I have noted some matters [but] I see that you are mostly aware of them, and there is no need for me to repeat them now. I will remind you of two or three points:

One is that the field of jihad is a very vast one; that is to say, you can advance ten times more than what you have achieved so far; jihad is like that. Jihad means a movement that springs from belief, heartfelt conviction, and faith, and the utilization of capabilities; if that faith exists, if that heartfelt conviction exists, then this work has no ultimate limit; because human capabilities truly have no limits; they are boundless. Your heart, your soul, your mind, your brain have extraordinary capabilities; that is to say, [like] the works you have done.

The fact that you have progressed from simple tasks twenty years ago to such large-scale planning now, continue this way; keep moving forward and let us witness a great generation of the Islamic Revolution in our country that reaches a level of understanding of management issues, service delivery, and the establishment of justice and standing for equity — which are necessary in Islam and the Islamic community requires standing for equity — that ordinary human minds have not reached and should take it as a model. This is one [point], which in summary is progress in the direction of jihadi thought and jihadi work and jihadi thinking.

Secondly, see, the work will take on a public and popular shape when your thought, your orientation becomes a public discourse. [You] are part of this twelve thousand [groups] that they say, (1) you are ten percent of the youth of the country, or perhaps fifteen percent of the youth of the country; why should the other ninety percent or eighty-five percent be deprived of this blessed jihadi movement, from this work? Try to promote it, and this promotion will be easier if it becomes a discourse. We have had this in various issues in our past, and I have examples in my mind and do not want to [mention them]. You can increase your numbers by promoting this discourse; just as you increase your quality, you can also increase your quantity, one of the means of which is what I told them: (2) [that is] proper advertising, artistic advertising.

Sometimes I see that good advertising and works have been done; now, for example, consider this Qaleh Ganj (3) that one of the friends mentioned and I am aware of it; well, [about] Qaleh Ganj, it has been said repeatedly, but people do not know that a work has been done in a corner of the country, in a deprived area by a group of determined individuals that has almost eradicated deprivation from a part of the region; this is important; people do not know this; if this becomes known, you will see how much hope it creates among the youth. Now, in continuation of the topic of increasing the quantity of those engaged in jihadi thought and jihadists, I would like to say that you must promote this thought, this work, this movement in family environments, in university environments, in schools, in workplaces so that, God willing, they will follow it; this is another point.

An important point that I see is the issue of stability and avoiding slip-ups; I ask you to pay attention to this importance. You are working with a group of youth; youth are exposed to two harms: one is the harm of instability on the path, that change in thought; the other is the harm of becoming afflicted by human trials; in summary and briefly, this is it. Be careful that your youth remain safe from these harms; stability is necessary on the straight path; they must have stability.

Now, apart from the ideological and intellectual work and such things that are certainly necessary in their own place, part of it relates to practical work; that is to say, worship, attention, praying on time, certainly reading the Quran every day, engaging in recommended acts as much as possible. Suppose in a region a group of youth are working, they must certainly pray in the mosque and pray on time and pray well and with attention. Observing sincerity; they should strive to do the work for God, which is a difficult task at our ages; if we have not had a history of it, if we have not done it, if we have not thought about it since our youth, and now we want to sincerely enter the field, it is very difficult. At your ages, it is much easier; in youth, sincerity is easy. You can truly purify your intention for God; when you purify your intention, divine mercy and divine guidance will rain down upon you from all sides; Hudan lil-Muttaqin; (4) the Quran places its guidance for the pious. Truly, if these observances are made, divine guidance and divine intellectual assistance will also increase. God willing, may you be successful.

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

(1) Referring to the remarks of Mr. Mehdi Zahraei (from the jihadi groups) regarding the change in the number of jihadi groups from forty groups in 1999 to twelve thousand groups in 2019.

(2) The response of the esteemed leader to the report of Mr. Azim Ebrahimpour (from the jihadi groups) regarding job creation and deprivation alleviation in 2898 villages over a period of two and a half years by the jihadi forces: the activities you mention that have been carried out in 2800 villages and the like must somehow reach the people; that is to say, a rational, artistic, and correct media effort must be made. In these areas, I think very little work is done; that is to say, now think, for example, you say there are thousands of deprived villages - which there are and we know - but how many thousands of villages has a group of youth managed to reach this point without using government budget, without imposing on anyone, so that now either entrepreneurship can happen or similar works and they can be taken out of deprivation; this is very important; why do people not know this? The type of news presentation and information dissemination is very important; [that is] how you will disseminate information; that is to say, truly a group should be assigned for this to see how information can be disseminated.

(3) A city in Kerman province.

(4) Surah Al-Baqarah, part of verse 2; "... is a guidance for the pious."