Selected Statements in Meeting with Professors and Elites of Sharif University of Technology

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

Like a window that opens to a delightful garden, your presence here has not only brought joy to our hearts but has also given us fresh air and rekindled the hopes that, with God's grace, have never been extinguished or weakened in this humble heart. We thank God for the existence of you good young people, dear youth, the virtuous children of this country, and God willing, the powerful men and women of the future of this country.

... This gratitude I mentioned is not just for me; you must also express your gratitude. The Almighty God has given you thought, the power to think, talent, and has placed the seed of excellence within you, which has blossomed and flourished under certain conditions. Thank God for this great blessing He has given you - talent, intellectual capacity - and express your gratitude....

... What I emphasize is the issue of scientific endeavor. Scientific endeavor should not cease in universities. You are, thank God, elites and have received medals, and these medals... are a sign, a symbol; the spiritual value of this medal is far greater than its material value; its spiritual value shows that you possess an inner capacity and talent, that you have a noble identity; these medals represent such a thing; therefore, because of their symbolic nature, in addition to their material value, they also have spiritual value; thus, I gladly and proudly accept your gifts, but then I return them to you; I want you to keep these symbols in your homes, in your workplaces - when you have a workplace - and preserve them. In any case, this is an issue that you should take seriously regarding science.

Another important issue... is that what will bring this country to order, and indeed this order will overflow into the region and the Islamic world and possibly to the entire world, is religious and revolutionary commitment; if this religious and revolutionary commitment does not exist, scientific progress alone will not make a country, a nation, or a human community happy. If someone had said this, for example, seventy or eighty years ago, many would not have believed it; because at that time, the cracks and fissures that had emerged in the body and structure of Western civilization and Western countries did not exist. Today, these cracks, these deficiencies, these foundational weaknesses in Western civilization - in the lives of youth, in family life, in being drawn towards various moral and practical deviations - have become clear and evident. What I am saying is not a hostile claim from me towards the leaders of Western civilization - although I am indeed their adversary; I am their enemy, but this statement does not stem from that - but rather from their own words. Today, the state of violence, the state of moral corruption, the disintegration of families, and the plight of children and the future generation in America - I am speaking of America; in other places, the ratios differ - has reached a point where thinkers and concerned individuals in America have emerged who insist on reversing the state of films, advertisements, cinema, and Hollywood from the behavior it has exhibited over the past hundred years or seventy or eighty years towards more ethical and gentler aspects; this is in their articles; this is information I have - I am informed - meaning it has worried them. Consider that just recently - I read a few days ago - for example, suppose that a hundred people in America are killed by each other without crime, without reason - not by the police, as the issue of police crimes in America is a separate topic; no, individuals kill each other; suppose within a week, a hundred or several hundred people; the exact statistics were there, but I do not remember now - well, this is a significant problem for a country. The prevalence of weapons and murder has created problems for a country like America, and everyone acknowledges this, and everyone is afraid of it and upset about it, but no one dares to take the obvious remedy for it; what is the remedy? The remedy is that weapons should be made illegal. The leaders of America do not dare to do this; that is, the arms manufacturing companies are so powerful that senators and representatives in the U.S. Congress do not dare to approve such a thing, and the President of the United States does not dare to state this as a slogan and stand by it. See, this is corruption; this is the dominance of a greedy, power-hungry mafia group, such that a massive political and military power like America does not dare to undertake an action that is clearly good - that is, to stop the sale of weapons - this is corruption. These issues stem from the lack of that spiritual ideal that leads Western societies to this point. Now, the depression of youth, suicides, filicide, various moral and sexual crimes, and so on are each a separate topic and require discussion. If we want the country, the nation, and humanity to reach happiness, the way is to place religious ideals and divine ideals above all other ideals; this must affect our economy, our scientific work, the administration of our country, the selection of national managers, and our own intellectual movement.

Well, fortunately today, a large group of the youth of the country - the Basij, the student Basij, those who are moving in the country under the banner of Islamic thought and revolutionary thought, and their numbers are very large - are pursuing this thought; keep this thought alive. Know that various events can lead a person to undergo changes in thought; sometimes deviations and angles start very subtly, but when they continue, this distance from the straight and main line increases continuously. Be mindful of this. Those who have been able to accomplish great works in this country, one of which is the issue of the revolution, and one is the issue of the Sacred Defense, and so on - I recommend that you young people read the memories of the Sacred Defense; these are very valuable; I, who am in the place of your grandfather and have also been in the war and seen it, when I read them, they are new to me, they are important to me, they are novel and impactful - these successes we achieved during the eight-year defense, or in the revolution itself, or in the severe confrontations and conflicts we have faced over these nearly forty years with the revolution, stem from steadfastness and stability. Those who are one day this way, one day that way, who waver, as Amir al-Mu'minin has said, "Indeed, you are like a camel whose load is loosely tied on its back; as it walks, this load falls from one side or the other; naturally, it cannot walk straight; one must be wary of this, one must avoid this. In prayer, we read: I ask You for steadfastness in Your religion; steadfastness and perseverance in faith and in the path of the revolution is a very important matter, and this must be taken into consideration. Therefore, studying, revolutionary commitment, and constant presence in all arenas that are impactful for the future of the country.

They referred to the student movement, the student uprising; this student movement can be interpreted in two ways: one way is that a person speaks against all ideals and shouts and clenches their fist; the other is that they move in service of the ideals: a youthful and jihadist movement. In science, one must act jihadistically; in the pursuit of knowledge, one must act jihadistically; in political activism, one must act jihadistically. Jihad does not only mean drawing a sword and striking left and right; jihad means not becoming weary, choosing a path with correct thought and logic, finding faith in that path, and pursuing it with all its difficulties and obstacles. This is the meaning of acting jihadistically. We hope, God willing, that God grants you success....

1. Nahj al-Balagha, Sermon 162 2. Al-Kafi, Vol. 2, p. 586