You know that huge amounts of money were spent in the world of Islam. In recent years, the arrogant powers have made certain moves to bribe outstanding personalities of the world of Islam. They easily bribed the outstanding personalities who were eminent from a political or scholarly perspective but whose spiritual value was very low. They sold their pens and tongues. They even sold their minds and their entire being. This process started a long time ago - that is to say, from the early contemporary era, from the time Western intellectualism emerged in our country. I once said that intellectualism in our country was born with birth defects. From that day, they went after outstanding personalities and bribed them. Those outstanding personalities were wretched, weak and enslaved and so they agreed to sell themselves for money. Around forty years ago, the late Ale Ahmad wrote: "If you are going to sell, it is better to sell your hands, but never sell your pen." Ale Ahmad wrote this in one of his books in the 1340s. One may sell one's hands and body, but never one's pen - namely, one's mind and soul. But they sold their pen and there were people who paid them. They bribed outstanding personalities. For this reason, not only did outstanding personalities fail to support popular movements in many places, but they also stood in the way of such movements. What was their pretext for standing up against Islamic movements? They said that such movements were outdated and narrow-minded, that they were games started by clerics.
