Supreme Leader’s Speech at “Strategic Thoughts” Forum

Supreme Leader’s Speech at “Strategic Thoughts” Forum
17/05/2011

The following is the full text of the speech delivered on May 17, 2011 by Ayatollah Khamenei the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution to participants of the 2nd Forum on Strategic Thoughts, which was focused on the issue of justice.

In the Name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful

I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to the honorable audience, the dear brothers and sisters and the people in charge of this valuable meeting. I would like to thank Dr. Vaezzadeh in particular who managed this meeting very well. Thank you for creating an opportunity for discussing these issues. By Allah's favor, such meetings will continue in the future as well. I am thankful to Allah the Exalted who provided the opportunity for you dear audience and those in charge to arrange this meeting. If it had not been for God's favor and if it had not been for the peace of mind that our intellectuals and scholars enjoy, it would have been impossible for the Islamic Republic to get this opportunity. This is an important opportunity which Allah the Exalted has bestowed on us.

This meeting is a start, and we hope it will continue in an appropriate way and achieve auspicious results. I feel there are vast capacities in the country in terms of manpower in order to pursue the important issue of justice and help it achieve the desired results.

I believe even the experts who are not present in this meeting should get involved with the issue of justice. Undoubtedly there are experts who either have conducted research or are prepared to conduct research in this area. I believe they should get involved with the issue of justice.

The issue of justice should turn into a discourse among our elites and prominent figures. We should pursue this issue and not abandon it. This is because many areas are involved, and there are urgent needs. Some of these needs were expressed by the dear friends who spoke in this meeting. The points that you mentioned will produce valuable results for the current generations as well as future generations. Later on we may use the help of other experts from different parts of the world of Islam. Maybe there are certain experts in other countries who can help us achieve good results regarding the issue of justice.

I was happy to find out that our friends are interested in other issues as well. I believe the debates which Dr. Vaezzadeh had incorporated into this meeting were among the most interesting parts. These debates proved that the audience was paying attention to the points that were raised. Such debates can lead to mutual contribution. All of you have your own opinions regarding justice. You have all reflected on this issue, and you will reflect on it more in the future. But when people come together and exchange their ideas in such a meeting, their thoughts gain further depth and breadth, and these thoughts ultimately help us achieve the kind of results that I will speak about later on.

I will not discuss matters of content in this meeting. Such matters were discussed by you, and by Allah's favor, the discussion will continue in the center that Mr. Vaezzadeh spoke about. That discussion and the ultimate results related to matters of content will be the outcome of the thoughts and ideas of our scholars and scientists. Therefore, I will not discuss such matters. I would only like to discuss a few points.

One point is that justice has been a constant concern for humanity throughout history. As a consequence of the need for justice which has been prevalent throughout history, intellectuals, philosophers and wise people have entered this arena with justice being their main concern. Therefore, since the oldest eras in history of man up until today, justice and social justice have been the subject of discussions and theories, but religions have played an exceptional role in this regard. That is to say, what has been said and done about justice within the framework of religion throughout history is exceptional. We cannot see the same level of effort and determination on the part of intellectuals.

First of all, according to the Holy Quran, religions have strived towards justice as their main goal. "We certainly sent Our messengers with clear proofs and revealed with them the Scripture and the Balance, so that mankind may observe right measure." [The Holy Quran, 57: 25] Definitely this ayah means that establishing justice was the purpose of sending prophets, the Book and clear proofs. "Clear proofs" are the irrefutable and indubitable signs presented by divine prophets. "The Scripture" is what religions say about religious teachings, religious obligations and ethics. "The Balance" is the standards and the criteria for evaluation. Of course there is no doubt that establishing justice and everything that is related to the material, individual and social life of man were a preface to the main goal of creation. "I have not created the jinn and the men except that they should serve Me." [The Holy Quran, 51: 56] That is to say, worship was the purpose of creation. Basically, God created man so that man could worship Him. Worshipping God is the highest virtue. However, in order to reach that goal, prophets were sent down for mankind. One of the goals has been stressed in this ayah. Of course there are other ayahs in the Holy Quran which stressed other goals of sending down prophets, but all these goals are consistent with one another. Therefore, justice is the goal. Justice is the goal of creating systems, the goal of civilizations and the goal of man's life in society. This does not exist in any school of thought that has been introduced by human beings. This is particular to religions.

Another characteristic of religions is that divine prophets have supported the oppressed throughout history. That is to say, prophets fought for justice. Notice that it has been emphasized in the Holy Quran that prophets were faced with taghuts, powerful individuals and wealthy people, all of whom are among oppressors. Wealthy people were opposed to divine prophets. "And We never sent a warner to a town but the wealthy ones in it said: We are surely disbelievers in what you are sent with." [The Holy Quran, 34: 34] There was no prophet who did not have to fight wealthy people. The same is true about those who hold power in their hands. Taghut is a general word that encompasses all these meanings. Therefore, in the confrontation between the oppressed and their oppressors, divine prophets always supported the oppressed. That is to say, divine prophets used to enter the arena in order to fight for justice, and this is a characteristic which is particular to religions. Intellectuals speak about justice, but most of the time they only speak about justice and do not take any action for justice. We noticed this fact during the time of revolutionary activities and during the Sacred Defense Era, and we have seen such things since then. This was not the case with divine prophets. They used to enter the arena and make themselves the target of attacks. Even when wealthy people used to tell them to distance themselves from the oppressed, divine prophets used to react. For example, "And I do not say to you that I have the treasures of Allah and I do not know the unseen, nor do I say that I am an angel, nor do I say about those whom your eyes hold in mean estimation (that) Allah will never grant them (any) good - Allah knows best what is in their souls - for then most surely I should be of the unjust." [The Holy Quran, 11: 31] This holy ayah is about Prophet Noah's response to his opponents. Therefore, those were deprived of justice were the first to join divine prophets.

The third point is that all religions agree that this great historical movement will result in justice. That is to say, all religions say that there will be a time when justice will be established, and that time will come only when religion has been completely established in the world. "God will fill the earth with equity and justice, just as it was filled with oppression." All divine prophets have mentioned and stressed this goal. They all said that they were moving towards this goal. Therefore, all prophets used to emphasize justice as far as the starting point, the path and the goal are concerned. This is an exceptional characteristic.

The next point is that in our Islamic Revolution - which was a religious movement - justice has naturally enjoyed a prominent position. This prominent position can be seen in our popular slogans, in the Constitution, in the statements of our magnanimous Imam (r.a.) and in our political discourse on different occasions that have been introduced by the Islamic Republic. For example, during the Sacred Defense Era, when they used to pressure us and shout peace slogans in order to force the Islamic Republic out of the arena, the Islamic Republic introduced the slogan of "fair peace". After all, peace is not an absolute value. It is a relative value. Peace is good in certain cases. But in certain other cases, war is good and peace is bad.

But the same is not true of justice. Justice is an absolute value. That is to say, there is no situation in which justice can be bad. Justice has been the top concern of the Islamic Republic since the beginning of the Revolution. Great things have been done regarding administration of justice. However, the situation is not satisfactory yet. Some of the friends who spoke in this meeting presented good reports and statistics about what has been done in this regard. Maybe I have more information about the measures that have been taken regarding administration of justice. I know that a wide range of measures have been taken since the beginning of the Revolution. However, the situation is not at all satisfactory yet. What we need and what we are after is maximum justice, not just an acceptable level of justice. No, we are after maximum justice. We want to eliminate injustice from our society. There is a long way to go before we reach this goal. Therefore, it is necessary to make efforts in this direction.

I would like to add that today's discussion on justice - the subject of this meeting and the introduction of the issue of justice - is a follow-up to the essential concern of the Islamic Republic. This does not mean that we failed to understand justice over the years or that the Islamic Republic has made no attempt to present a definition of justice. No, everybody knows that there have always been a concise and general definition and certain standards, and as I said, many things have already been done. But one of the reasons why we are discussing this issue is that we want the discourse of justice to remain alive. The issue of justice must remain a central issue among our elites, our government officials and our people, especially among our young generations. This is one of the goals of this meeting and this discussion of the issue of justice.

Another reason is that if we want to bridge the gap between the present situation and our goal of maximum justice, we have to utilize new and effective methods and strategies. We have to be familiar with the practical methods of administering justice. That is to say, we should know that the time of trial and error is gone. During the past 30 years, we engaged in trial and error in many cases. Different methods and approaches were adopted both during the first decade of the Revolution with the prevalent attitude of the time which was discussed by some of the friends today, and later on during the second decade of the Revolution. It is no longer advisable to continue acting like this. We need to spend time and identify the established and effective methods, methods that are founded on firm definitions. We need to base our activities on such methods and move forward.

The third reason is that today our country is on the path to quantum leaps in terms of progress. This is a fact. Fortunately our country's movement towards progress - progress in the general sense of the word - is a fast movement. Our current situation is not comparable to 20 years ago. Today our movement towards progress is an accelerating movement. When there are such quantum leaps, we need to make big decisions. It is necessary to make big decisions. If the element of justice is ignored when adopting such big decisions, then the negative effect of the consequences will be immeasurable. Therefore, today it is particularly important to pay special attention to the issue of justice. In particular, it is very important to specify the relationship between progress and justice.

Some the friends who spoke in this meeting said that certain measures have been adopted to establish a center for pursuing the issues related to the paradigm of progress. By Allah's favor, this center will start its work in a determined way, and hopefully the issue of justice will be pursued by the same center.

The next point is that what we want to achieve on an intellectual level is to develop a purely Islamic theory regarding justice. Of course we need to refer to our Islamic sources with a modern and innovative perspective and extract that theory from Islamic sources using the necessary scientific and technical frameworks which were discussed by some of the friends today. We have tried and true methods for inference, methods which are well-thought-out. We should use these methods.

Therefore, on a theoretical level, we should extract a pure Islamic theory from our Islamic sources and texts. I would like to emphasize that we do not want to develop a theory by assembling ideas from different intellectuals and philosophers who have discussed this issue. That is to say, it is necessary to seriously avoid producing a hybrid theory in this regard. We have made this mistake in many cases, and we unconsciously fell into the pitfall of amalgamation. It will be difficult to get out of such a trap. We must carefully study our Islamic sources. We have many such sources, some of which were mentioned by the friends who spoke in this meeting. Many things have been discussed in the Holy Quran, in hadith, in Nahjul Balaghah and in written works on fiqh, logic and philosophy. We can make use of all these sources in order to extract a pure Islamic theory.

Of course in this case and in all other cases, familiarity with the ideas of other people can help us acquire a better understanding of Islamic texts. This is true of everything else as well, including discussions on law and Islamic jurisprudence. When we get familiar with the view of an outsider and keep our mind open as a result, we can make better use of our Islamic sources. However, we must be after a pure Islamic theory and try to avoid amalgamation. Of course it is obvious that the reason we say the Islamic theory should be pure is that the issue of justice is based on essential ontological and epistemological foundations. And if we refer to western theories - which form a major portion of theories in this regard - we have in fact relied on philosophical principles that we cannot accept, and these philosophical principles are ontological in nature.

A complementary point is that the Islamic view of justice is essentially different from western views of justice. As our friends mentioned, justice results from the truth from an Islamic perspective. Fortunately good points were raised in this meeting, points which make it unnecessary for me to elaborate further and go into details. Moreover, justice is a must in Islam. That is to say, from an Islamic point of view, administration of justice is a divine obligation. This is while western schools of thought have a different view in this regard. Justice is discussed in different ways in western schools of thought, depending on the form of these schools of thought. For example, in socialism justice is discussed in a particular way, and in liberalism it is discussed in a different way. The view of justice is not based on essential values like religion in any of these schools of thought.

Another point is that we need differences of opinion and exchange of ideas in the arena of thought and theory-building. That is to say, developing a pure Islamic theory is based on a set of relatively long-term and far-reaching requirements. The most important requirement is to have intellectuals discuss their differences of opinion, and this is a necessity. This is scientific dynamism. It is wrong to think that we have certain prejudgments and that we want to confirm what we already have in mind. No, we want to discover the right option through exchange of opinion. Therefore, exchange of opinion is necessary, and this process is on-going. That is to say, after we agree on a set of ideas for a particular period, we should know that there is a possibility that new opinions will be expressed and new points will be raised, and there is nothing wrong with this. However, it is necessary to reach a firm conclusion on the basis of which long-term plans can be made for the country. Therefore, exchange of opinion is a necessity, but in the end managing the country requires that we reach a firm and logical conclusion regarding social justice so that we can decide on long-term plans on the basis of that conclusion. Of course after we reach such a conclusion, there will be a new round of studies - namely, applied studies - in order to find better methods. Today I noticed that certain parts of the discussion were related to applied areas. Such discussions are very good indeed, and they enjoy a broad scope. After we agree on a firm theory regarding justice, we will need to start applied studies in order to find methods of implementing that theory in society, and this will result in many other studies. Then we will be able to make use of what other people have experienced.

One of the gentlemen said that the methods will definitely be influenced by the goals. I agree with him. There is no doubt in this regard, but this does not mean that we should not at all use the methods and experiences of other people. No, there is no doubt that we can make use of the methods and experiences of other people. The area of applied studies is where we should make use of what other people have experienced. Imagine that a nation has experimented with something in the area of banking or any other economic area, in social issues or in judiciary matters for some time, and the effects have become clear. Well, we can make use of this experience. Nothing is wrong with this. Therefore, it is necessary to make use of the experiences of other people.

Another point is that as far as theory is concerned, one of the most important things is to recognize research on justice as a well-defined academic field in our universities and Islamic seminaries. This has already happened in our Islamic seminaries, but not in our universities. That is to say, in our Islamic seminaries there is nothing wrong with discussing the issue of justice using the methods of Islamic jurisprudence. It is necessary to clarify the principle of fairness that some of the gentlemen spoke about. This principle is not clear. The reason is that in different areas of Islamic jurisprudence references are made to this principle, but the validity of this principle cannot be inferred, and this principle is repeatedly cited in other areas as well. What is wrong with including the issue of justice in lessons on Islamic jurisprudence in our Islamic seminaries? Fortunately prominent scholars from our Islamic seminaries are present in this meeting. Of course this is different from the issue that one of the gentlemen raised about justice, citing the late Sheikh. That is a different issue. What is wrong with arranging serious fiqhi discussions on social justice?

An interdisciplinary field should be established in our universities so that students can work on it and independent investments can be made. I believe this is a necessity on a theoretical level. It will both promote theory-building and will help train a competent workforce in this area.

Another important thing that should be done is to create standards and specify the criteria for justice. I believe one of the important things for theory-building is to find the criteria for justice. Today the standards that have been introduced by the west are acceptable only in certain conditions. Some of them do not at all qualify as standards for us. Some other western standards are flawed. Still others may be standards for us in certain circumstances. We must spend time and independently identify the standards of justice and administration of justice in society. This is one of the important things that should be done. Of course there are many things that should be done on a practical level. One of these things is to consider justice as an essential standard in passing legislation. I am particularly addressing this issue to the honorable members of the Majlis and the Guardian Council. They should pay special attention to the issue of justice when passing legislation and afterwards.

Finally, I would like to mention two other points. These two points are not related to the subject of today's discussion, but it is not bad to draw attention to them. One point is that having faith in creation and resurrection plays an essential role as far as the issue of justice is concerned. We must not ignore this point. We cannot expect to establish justice in society in the real sense of the word but at the same time fail to have faith in creation and resurrection. In the absence of faith in creation and resurrection, justice would be nothing more than an imposed obligation. This is why some of the well-designed western plans regarding justice prove to be absolutely impractical. The reason is that these plans do not have ideological support. Western comments about justice are beautiful - at least they appear to be beautiful, though they may lack a firm logical basis - but in practice the beauty of their comments are not at all reflected in western societies. You do not see these comments being practiced. There is absolute injustice in western societies. The reason is that their comments lack the support of faith in creation and resurrection. It is very important to have faith in resurrection and in the fact that our actions will appear in front of us in material form in the hereafter. This faith provides people with energy. If people were aware of the consequences of oppressive behavior and even oppressive thought in the hereafter, then they would naturally get closer to justice.

Believing that acting like a wolf in this world equals being resurrected as a wolf in the hereafter would significantly affect one's behavior. Therefore, we should not ignore this point in studies on justice.

The second and the last point that I would like to discuss is the kind of justice that is related to oneself and has nothing to do with social justice. Oppressing oneself is a theme that has been repeated in many ayahs in the Holy Quran. Justice is the opposite of oppression. In Dua Kumeyl, we say, "I oppressed my own soul." In Munajat Sha'baniyya, we say, "With the freedom I gave myself, I have oppressed my own soul, so if You do not forgive me, I am doomed." Committing sins, falling into the pitfalls, pursuing one's human passions and drifting away from remembrance of God and humility before Him are instances of oppression against oneself. This is an important area as well. Regarding the issue of justice - justice in the case of social relationships, justice in establishing social systems - we cannot afford to ignore justice as far as our own souls are concerned. We must avoid oppressing ourselves as well. We must act according to justice when it comes to ourselves as well. Justice is the opposite of "I have oppressed my own soul". We must avoid oppression and engage in justice. If Allah the Exalted helps us avoid this kind of injustice, I am highly optimistic that He will help us administer justice in society as well.

Greeting be upon you and Allah's mercy and blessings

http://english.khamenei.ir//index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1469