In the Name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful
I welcome all the dear guests and all the brothers and sisters who have come from Islamic countries to Iran.
Please consider Iran as your own home and consider Iranians as your brothers. In my opinion, this high-level summit is a great opportunity for the Islamic Ummah and we should make full use of this opportunity. The first result which is quickly obtained from these meetings is that we gain greater familiarity with each other. We should consider it very important. It has been a long time - it has been decades - that the enemies of the Islamic Ummah have used our negligence to push us apart by different means. They have made us harbor suspicions against one another and they have made us break off relations with one another. We are brothers whose relationship with one another is like total strangers while foreigners are abusing this situation in the Islamic Ummah. We should change this situation and these meetings are steps towards achieving this goal.
The Islamic Ummah is a large and major network. It has certain goals and ideals. These goals and ideals are not limited to certain countries inside the Islamic Ummah. They are common to the whole Islamic world. In order to achieve these ideals, we should come together. Islamic governments should help Islamic nations come together. When Islamic nations come together, they will share their experiences and they will get to know one another. This will produce very positive and impressive results.
We are confronted with many problems which global powers have created, not only for a certain Islamic nation, but also for the whole Islamic Ummah. One example is the Islamic judiciary system and the Islamic legal system. Islam has an advanced judiciary system and the Islamic legal system is one of the most up-to-date systems in the world. Everybody can see this. We should consider the different rules and laws that Islamic scholars have, over many years, formulated regarding the legal issues and the judicial reforms of Islam and we should observe the Muslims' progress in procedural law in different Islamic countries. When we observe these carefully, we will come to the conclusion that it is a valuable network. If we had managed to focus on this network over many years in the past, we would have been able to update it every day based on the natural progression of things. But this did not happen in the Islamic world. Not only did colonial powers maintain domination over the Islamic Ummah in economic and political issues, but they also established domination over the Islamic Ummah and Islamic countries in cultural and legal issues. The judiciary system in Islamic countries changed, without any plausible reasons, into a western system. These are the concerns and the problems of the Islamic world.
Today the Islamic world needs self-confidence and trust in God Almighty. We should restore our self-confidence. Sometimes one can see that a faqih issues certain fatwas without self-confidence or a judge does not have self-confidence when judging and he retreats in the face of the cultural attacks of the enemies of Islam. Today the Islamic world needs self-confidence in political and economic arenas. It also needs self-confidence in the area of improving the judiciary and legal system.
We sometimes notice that a faqih does not try to change or improve an Islamic rule and he sometimes disregards the rule because westerners do not like the rule. This is very bad. We have our own criteria which are relying on the Holy Quran and the Sunnah. These are the criteria which are useful today in the twenty first century - for guiding man carefully. We are not behind other countries in different issues. If we carefully follow the Islamic rules, we will see that we can meet the needs of the modern man better than westerners do. You can see the consequences of western culture's domination as there is no justice and security in the world and there is no spirit of brotherhood between people. There is a deep hostility, strong hypocrisy and long-standing tension in the world. Moreover, global powers have established complete domination over the whole world. These are the consequences of the domination of western culture over the world.
You can also see the way western countries, which claim to be liberal, treat Muslim minorities. Compare this with the way Islam treated minorities who lived in Islamic countries in different periods of time. Muslims showed exemplary behavior towards non-Muslim minorities during the Rashidun conquests. Wherever Muslims went after they conquered different places, they had a friendly manner towards non-Muslims. Some Jews inhabited regions under the control of the Eastern Roman Empire, where a group of Muslim countries are located today. It has been mentioned in different history books that when Muslims conquered Jewish regions, these Jews said, "We swear on the Torah that your justice is more desirable to us than what happened to us before." They praised the Muslims' administration of justice. At the present time, you can also see such behavior in Islamic countries. In our country, Jews, Christians and Zoroastrians live freely, they have representatives in the Majlis and they can hold their own religious ceremonies. This freedom exists in other Islamic countries too because this is the nature of Islam. Compare the behavior of Islam towards minorities with the behavior of the so called civilized countries of the world, who claim to support human rights, towards the minorities and especially towards the Muslim minorities.
Today the world is thirsty for justice, security and equality. Islam can provide these for people. Western culture and western civilization proved that they cannot administer justice for humanity. Look at the current conditions in the world and the conditions of the Palestinians. The Zionist officials explicitly announce that if the Palestinians and the Zionists live together in occupied Palestine, the same situation as in [apartheid] South Africa will be created. This means that they believe in apartheid and racial discrimination. The world is listening to these comments. The whole world which is subjected to the rule of western culture is listening to these comments, but it does not carry out its duty.
This is the warning sign which indicates we Muslims should build up our confidence and trust in God. It also indicates that if we move according to our own beliefs and if we have unity, Allah the Exalted will help us gain victory. We should trust divine promises, not doubt them. Has God not helped us when we have fulfilled our duties? Our failures and problems were for the reason that we did not fulfill our duties to God. Whenever we have carried out our duty, Allah the Exalted has helped us. This is the divine promise. "Allah has promised to those among you who believe and do good works that He will surely make them Successors in the earth, as He made Successors from among those who were before them." [The Holy Quran, 24:55] There are many other verses in the Holy Quran which refer to the same thing.
With regards to the judiciary and legal system, we should seriously consider using Quranic teachings and divine guidance. Such meetings can help us in this regard. Fortunately, Islamic countries have a broad background in this regard. We also have a considerable experience. We have also gained valuable experience in this regard over these three decades since the Islamic Revolution started. We should draw on the experience of our brothers from Islamic countries and vice versa. There should be a sharing of experience between Islamic countries and us. We should help one another rebuild the solid foundation of the Islamic judiciary system in every sense of the word.
Yesterday I listened to the suggestions made by the guests and the hosts of this summit. We support the idea of creating the union that you talked about. We also support the efforts to act on these suggestions. We should all help and cooperate so that the Islamic countries can, by Allah's favor, make progress in this regard. Of course, some people are opposed to the fact that we hold many meetings and the fact that we are friendly towards one another. We should know that these opponents will not sit by idly. We should demonstrate our determination to move things along by Allah's favor and with the spirit of brotherhood. We should ask Allah the Exalted to help us and we should be hopeful that he will help us by his favor.
I hope that you enjoy your trip and I hope that you will have gained lovely memories of Iran when you leave.
Greetings be upon you and Allah's mercy and blessings