The following is the full text of a speech delivered on March 8, 2004 by Ayatollah Khamenei, the Leader of the Islamic Revolution, in a meeting with participants of Hekmat-e Motahhar Conference.
In the Name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful
Honorable religious scholars and seminary teachers, welcome. This meeting is a very good meeting. I will make a few comments and then I will listen to the statements of the gentlemen who want to speak.
Commemorating Shahid Motahhari (may God bestow paradise on him) is undoubtedly one of the virtues of the IRIB. We are indebted to him and by commemorating him, we can express our gratitude to him, which is an obligation for all of us. Our society and Muslim intellectuals should build on his ideas and innovations in order to introduce other intellectual innovations. We need to have similar personalities for the 1380s and 1390s. This is because new intellectual needs emerge every day.
I believe there has been no comprehensive research in the area of Shahid Motahhari's intellectual work and the role he played in his era. Of course, people have worked on his books and the work that has been done in this regard is good. However, we should know what Shahid Motahhari did in the intellectual atmosphere of the country during the 1340s and 1350s. With his intellectual strength, he entered those Islamic arenas which nobody had entered previously. He engaged in a deep, comprehensive and endless scholarly fight against the ideas which had become or were in the process of becoming common in the country at that time. These imported ideas were based on translations of western and eastern works. He engaged in a kind of intelligent jihad both against Marxists and against western thinkers and liberalists. He played a very important role. Playing such a role requires courage and self-confidence, intellectual strength and ijtihad in different areas as well as strong faith. That great man had all of these characteristics. He was knowledgeable and pious. He was certain about his faith and he also had self-confidence. These characteristics are necessary.
In the history of our country, there are ideas that were imported from other countries, ideas that do not enjoy this depth and scope or the same capacity for playing a significant role. Our history is full of such unhealthy schools of thought that have been mixed with our intellectual thought, whether in our fiqh or in our philosophy and kalaam. However, with the spread of the tools for communication, our intellectual atmosphere was constantly injected with new ideas, which are by their very nature attractive. This made it necessary to confront these ideas in an appropriate and scholarly way.
At that time, we were present in the arena and we used to witness these things. Some of the challenges which were posed at that time were baseless. These challenges were rooted in prejudice and ideological bias. They used to reject a particular idea without reading about it and without even understanding it. They used to highlight one aspect of a very complex idea and they would fight, confront and challenge it. This was a sign of bias, stagnation and non-scholarly attitudes. A number of people were attracted towards these orientations under the influence of new and imported ideas. These people tried to make Islam, Islamic ideas and religion compatible with such orientations. They used to say in an arrogant way that it was they who made Islam popular and acceptable and who made youth develop a tendency towards religion. And they sometimes go beyond these things. They did this in order to avoid being accused of reactionary attitudes and other such things. We witnessed this in some cases. Besides, they used to connect prophethood, faith in afterlife, issues related to imamate and fiqhi, social and political discussions in Islam with false and atheistic schools of thought, which had no resemblance whatsoever to Islam and religion. Nevertheless, they used to say in an arrogant way that it was they who made Islam popular, attractive and enjoyable for people. This was another deviation. Both of these orientations were deviant.
With his power of ijtihad and with his scholarly capabilities, Shahid Motahhari stood firm in the middle of the arena and confronted these ideas. He presented Islamic thought in a clear and pure form. Many things were said and done to undermine him, but he continued his work. As far as the intellectual movement in our country is concerned, the role he played was extremely important. His ideas formed the intellectual foundation in our society. I firmly believe and I have said on several occasions that the intellectual movement that was started by our Revolution and the Islamic Republic depends on the ideas of Shahid Motahhari for the most part. That is to say, his ideas provided the Islamic foundation that supported our Islamic thought and led to the establishment of the Islamic Republic. For this reason, even at that time, the ideas of Shahid Motahhari provided a safe and secure base for the youth who were after Islamic thought while being heavily bombarded by imported ideas of Marxists and westoxicated elements, both in academic and non-academic environments and in Islamic seminaries.
Shahid Motahhari provided a safe haven for such youth so that they could protect themselves in the shade of his deep and firm school of thought, preserve their religious faith and put forth new ideas. Of course, it might appear that the scope of Shahid Motahhari's work was very limited. The meetings that Mr. Larijani referred to might appear to be equally limited in scope. They were held in different corners of different schools. The biggest meetings were attended by a few hundred people, but there is no doubt that even he himself could not have predicted the great impact of those small meetings. This shows the position that Shahid Motahhari enjoyed. It is necessary to have an appropriate understanding of his position and to promote this understanding. It would be very good if we kept this point in mind in the case of Muslim intellectuals and our religious scholars and Islamic jurisprudents. For example, it would be very good if we understood the role that Mulla Sadra played and if we understood his personality as the core of his scholarly identity. Of course, artistic means and methods have their own place in this regard.
In my opinion, we have not yet acquired the necessary skill and expertise in the area of utilizing artistic techniques to further our goals. When our outstanding scholarly personalities appear in TV programs, they fail to build the same image that they create in the minds of those who know them on a personal level. More often than not, the image that is created in the minds of viewers is different. It is necessary to be more careful in the area of artistic work. Therefore, the role of Shahid Motahhari must be highlighted. He was a hero in an arena that nobody had stepped into before him.
The second point that we need to think about is the need to continue this intellectual movement. After all, we cannot afford to limit ourselves to Shahid Motahhari and his works. It is a fact that after the passage of twenty-five years since his martyrdom, Shahid Motahhari's books are still among the best-selling, most interesting and most popular books for young generations who are after Islamic thought. Even today, there are no parallels for his books. Despite the fact that good efforts have been made in this area, there is no doubt that in terms of importance, significance, attractiveness and solid rational basis, Shahid Motahhari's works are still at the highest level. However, it is necessary to continue countering the ideas that are imported. It is necessary to critique them in a scholarly and appropriate way. It is necessary to differentiate between false and correct ideas. It is necessary to clarify and elaborate Islamic thought. This is among the important responsibilities that we need to carry out. As I said before, we need people like Shahid Motahhari in the coming decades. After the Islamic Revolution and the establishment of the Islamic Republic, Islamic thought was faced with serious challenges and there is no doubt that new challenges will be constantly created in the future as well. The enemies will not give up and they will continue creating challenges for Islamic thought. We need to prepare ourselves in this area and we are capable of doing so.
The rich and inexhaustible assets that we have inherited from Islamic culture will provide us with many resources in this confrontation, on condition that we make use of them. We have massive cultural and intellectual resources at our disposal, only if we manage to make use of them. Today we fortunately have young luminaries in the country. I have met some of them in person. In terms of knowledge, open-mindedness and thinking, there are young luminaries, religious scholars, righteous individuals and competent people in Qom Islamic Seminary and in Tehran. It is necessary for them to step in or increase their presence in such arenas. Today we have many more needs than in the era of Shahid Motahhari, namely the 1340s and 1350s. You need to hold events to commemorate Shahid Motahhari in a way that people are encouraged to step into these arenas and prepare themselves to counter the new wave of negative propaganda on all fronts - that is to say, in the area of philosophy, in the area of kalaam and in the area of different issues in the country that are related to Islamic subjects.
I hope Allah the Exalted makes all of us successful so that we can express our gratitude for that honorable martyr. In a meeting with his esteemed family, whom I met on the occasion of his martyrdom anniversary, I said that it is necessary to make his books obligatory for seminarians. One of the things that I consider to be absolutely necessary for religious intellectuals and those who want to promote Islamic thought among the people - namely, promoters of Islam, those who speak to the people from minbars, religious speakers - is to read the books written by Shahid Motahhari. Find a way to promote his books. Try to include them among textbooks in schools and universities. Fortunately, his books are easy to read and understand. That is to say, his writing is enjoyable and accessible. His writings are far better than his speeches. Shahid Motahhari used to say that he did not at all enjoy listening to his own speeches but that he enjoyed reading what he had written. I would agree: his speeches were not as interesting as his writings. His writings are truly enjoyable and eloquent. For this reason, it is necessary to promote his writings as much as possible. Religious scholars and luminaries as well as young people - particularly our young seminarians - should read Shahid Motahhari's books at least once so that they can build on his knowledge and stand on his shoulders in order to conquer more peaks and plant the flag of Islamic thought on those peaks.
I wish success for all of you. I am very happy to have met you gentlemen and I am ready to listen to your statements.