Supreme Leader’s Speech to University Professors

Supreme Leader’s Speech to University Professors
25/08/2011

The following is the full text of the speech delivered on August 25, 2011 by Ayatollah Khamenei the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution in a meeting with a group of university professors in Tehran.

In the Name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful

I am very thankful to Allah the Exalted who gave us the opportunity to arrange this meeting and be in the company of you dear brothers and sisters. I am very thankful to God for the substantial and highly beneficial comments which I heard from the honorable people who spoke in this meeting. All of these things are divine blessings and everybody - especially myself - should thank Allah the Exalted for each of these blessings. We should realize that we are being showered by divine blessings. Every good word that comes to your mind and is expressed by you is a manifestation of divine blessings being showered on us. I am thankful to God for all these things. These days, whenever I consider the conditions of our country and our society, I constantly thank God for these great blessings

Today is the 23rd of Ramadan and last night was the night of worship and dhikr. So our hearts must be full of the light of Laylat al-Qadr. We should ask Allah the Exalted to make this Ramadan auspicious for us, for our nation and for all other Muslim nations, especially the regional nations that have risen up against their governments.

The ladies and gentlemen who spoke in this meeting had been given very little time indeed. I would like to say a few things about their statements. The five-minute time limit which our friends had been told to observe was too short: understandably the friends who spoke did not observe this limit for which they were repeatedly warned by the esteemed host. The ladies and gentlemen had a lot of things to say. This is not an exaggeration and I am not standing on any ceremony: I really wish there was enough time and energy to listen to each of you for at least half an hour because very good comments were made in this meeting. The points raised by the friends were well-thought-out points. There were novel points among them which were interesting to me. Such things make me very happy. Interesting suggestions were made about industry, science, university, architecture, civil engineering, art and humanities. These suggestions were exactly what I was hoping to hear from our prominent scientific and academic figures. And now this wish has been fulfilled.

The point which I clearly observed in this year's meeting is that the comments made by the friends were inclined towards presenting pure thought rather than suggestions for practical and executive work. Of course practical suggestions are also good and necessary, but pure thought is the backbone of all scientific movements. As was rightly pointed out by some of the friends, we need thought and philosophy so that we can push science and technology forward, run the country and resolve different issues in society. Thought comes before knowledge and I observed this tendency in today's meeting. Fortunately some of the comments made by the friends have already been considered in our intellectual and decision-making centers and certain things have already been done, the results of which will gradually become visible. There was a day when the idea of production of knowledge and starting scientific movements used to be proposed in society without getting much attention, but today the idea is the dominant discourse in our society. By Allah's favor, the ideas that are put forward here and there or the ideas that do not receive much attention will one day turn into the dominant discourse in our society.

One of the friends pointed out that there is a need for an organization that considers the future of the country from a broad perspective. Well, "Strategic Thoughts Forums" would fill this gap. By Allah's favor, great things will be done on the basis of these forums with the cooperation of all our intellectuals.

I have other things to say about the comments made by the friends, but because there is not enough time, I will not discuss them. However, I advise both my office and the esteemed government officials who are present in this meeting to collect these suggestions. One of the blessings of this meeting is the suggestions that are made by the friends. One of the needs of our society is that a group of intellectuals should come together and discuss their intellectual products and experiences, some of which will be deep and profound. These thoughts will gradually move from the individual realm and to the communal realm and they will gradually turn into the dominant discourse in society. These suggestions should be collected. They are good and interesting suggestions. Some of these suggestions are already practical and they can be operationalized. And some others will help us make progress. Now I will make a few brief points.

Scientific advances in the country are one of the main pillars of the resistance of the Iranian nation. In many cases our scientific advances have led to practical and executive advances. The resistance of the Iranian nation is a glorious event in the world. We are too involved in the event to see the glory. Those who look at us from outside feel the greatness of this resistance more than we do.

Notice that today the countries that are top in terms of economy, science and military and security power have formed a big camp against the Iranian nation. Is this not the case? The enemies are doing whatever they can. They pose security threats. They pose social threats. They pose political threats. They assassinate our scientists. They impose sanctions on us. They exert a lot of political pressure on us. They constantly threaten us with military attacks. They try their best to instigate fitnas and riots in the country. But the Iranian nation and the Islamic Republic are standing firm against all these things with all their power. They want to force us to say "yes", but the Iranian nation and the Islamic Republic have refused to do so. That "yes" means bowing to the global hegemony - the order of domination. But the Iranian nation and the Islamic Republic refuse to do so. We stand up and say "no" to the order of domination, but this "no" is not a "no" to science. It is not a "no" to civilization. It is not a "no" to progress. It is not a "no" to the collective experiences of humanity. It is a "no" to domination and greed. It is a "no" to the efforts to enslave and subdue nations of the world. We said "no" and we stuck to it. "Those who say: Our Lord is Allah, then resist on the right path, the angels descend upon them, saying fear not, nor be grieved." [The Holy Quran, 41: 30] The Iranian nation put up a very impressive resistance.

One important pillar of this resistance is knowledge. It is knowledge that has given us self-confidence. If we were dependent on foreign companies to extract and refine oil for us, if we were dependent on foreign companies to build pipelines for our natural gas, if we were dependent on European experts to run our health system, if we were dependent on foreigners to provide us with food, if we were dependent on the Israelis to manage our agriculture and industry, if we were dependent on France, Germany and others to run our nuclear industry, we would not have this self-confidence today. We would not have the power to put up such a resistance. This dignity and this honor would not exist. If we had to beg eastern and western industrialists and scientists to build a dam, a power plant, a highway, a tunnel and a wheat silo for us, our nation would not have this sense of dignity and our government officials would not have the necessary honor to stand up against global arrogance. There would neither be such self-confidence nor such determination and willpower. Who built roads for us? Who built tunnels for us? Who built power plants, dams, bridges and highways for us? Who developed stem cells and nuclear energy for us? It was our universities that helped our nation to preserve its dignity and honor. It was our universities that helped us stand up against our greedy enemies. And for this reason our government officials are indebted to our universities.

My purpose is not to praise university among academia. I want to draw a conclusion. Our enemy is not and will not be unaware of this center of power. All of us should know this. Anything that brings about dignity for our nation and encourages it to resist will undoubtedly be targeted by the enemy. Religious faith, revolutionary sentiments, sense of independence, and anything that is related to these things - including our universities - will be targeted by the enemy. What is it that they want to do in our universities? Basically the enemy will design two plans for our universities. One plan is to purge our universities of knowledge and the other plan is to purge our universities of religion. They will try to eliminate knowledge and faith from our universities. How would they purge our universities of knowledge? One of the small steps that they can they take in this direction is to assassinate our scientists. The latest example in this regard is the two or three honorable nuclear scientists that were taken away from us over the past year. Their plan is far more complex than that. These assassinations are one of their simplest techniques. A more complex technique is to keep our universities, professors and students busy with unscholarly matters, trying to prevent us from achieving scientific blossoming, which is our wish.

As the friends said, the rate of our scientific progress is very good. I have received statistics which show this is the case and I feel proud. However, we started late. A certain country may be making progress at a slower rate, but it started making progress far earlier than we did. We need to compensate for this delay. We need to run in this arena. We need to make progress by leaps and bounds. This is one issue and I will add a few points in this regard.

Purging universities of religion is another issue. If our universities are purely scholarly and devoid of religion and ethics, the same thing that happened to western scholarly communities will happen to us and to our country and future. Western societies are scholarly, but they are not happy. They lack moral security. They lack psychological security. They lack close-knit families. They lack morality. They lack spirituality. These are the main shortcomings of human life. This is not happiness. This is not what we want. We want happiness and genuine spiritual security, which is not possible in the absence of knowledge. Achieving this goal is not possible in the absence of religion either, even if we have knowledge. We need religion as well. Our society should be religious and our universities should be at the peak. Our universities should be pious, but "piety" should not be misinterpreted. Piety means deep religious knowledge. Piety means having deep faith in religion and religious teachings, which will naturally lead to action. This is what we should be after. This is the responsibility that everybody has to fulfill, especially our honorable professors. Sometimes one single word that you say in your class is more effective than one or two hours of lecturing by a cleric like me and it does not matter what you teach. A professor can play a significant role in shaping the mind and behavior of young people. Think about this. This is a very important point.

Of course we need to have a discussion about humanities. One of the friends who spoke in this meeting made a suggestion in this regard, which happens to be what I had in mind. He suggested that I arrange a special meeting with professors of humanities to exclusively discuss the issue of humanities. I will make sure this meeting is arranged. Last year I raised an important point in this regard, which requires reflection and clarification. Judging by the feedback I have received, I think it is necessary to discuss and clarify the issue so that we can reach where we want and avoid misconceptions.

I have written down a list of scientific advances that our country has made. You already know about these advances, which have been repeatedly mentioned in my speeches and in the media. Because one of the ladies mentioned this issue which is very important to me, I will mention one of these advances: the advances that we have made in gynecology. These advances are very important. Today we have made a lot of advances in medicine which are internationally recognized. What is more important is that today our ladies do not have to go to a male doctor for any of their medical problems. This service is available today in all areas for ladies who want women doctors to check them. You dear youth who did not see the conditions before the Revolution may not realize how important this issue is. This issue is important not only for religious people but also for people who are not very religious. I have a few examples in mind, but there is no need to mention them. This service is already available in our country. This is very valuable. We have achieved many such advances in the country.

Therefore, one point is that we should safeguard knowledge as well as religious faith in our universities. Our professors have a role to play in this regard and they can fulfill this role with their words and actions. The enemy wants to lure our youth - especially our young students who are in charge of the future of our thought, knowledge and management - towards lack of faith and ideological laxity. We must not let him do so. Today the enemy has focused his efforts on this goal. Luring our youth - especially our scholarly and intellectual youth - towards lax ideologies, lack of faith and intellectual depravation is one of the things that the enemy is after. A faithful person follows a straight path - he follows his faith. In the absence of faith, people just fool around without any purpose.

Of course I would say that our pious youth have had a brilliant performance in scholarly environments. I have been informed that it was our pious youth who removed the obstacles in the area of defense industries, fertility studies, stem cells, nuclear energy, aerospace technology, supercomputers and different other scientific issues. At least they were at the forefront of our movement and later on others joined them. Therefore, our pious youth and our young religious scientists played a role.

Another point is that our esteemed professors should also be familiar with the realities of our country and the world. This requires effort. This is the case in all scientific areas. A knowledgeable teacher who benefits a large number of people will encounter problems if he fails to keep up with the latest developments of his time. "A person who is up-to-date is not the target of mistakes." A person who is up-to-date - that is to say, a person who is familiar with the latest developments that happen around him and in the world, a person who can identify the underlying currents and their goals, a person who can understand how these currents come to clash with one anther - would not make mistakes. Such a person would not slip and make mistakes in different situations. This knowledge is necessary for everybody. It is necessary for clerics, academia, seminary teachers and university professors. This is an important requirement. When a person can identify different underlying currents, he can infer what will happen and its nature and causes and he will not make a mistake.

Of course the enemy is presenting different analyses. Some time ago I received a report about the number of media outlets that present such analyses. The number was amazingly large. The report did not take account of Internet-based media. The Internet is a world without borders and boundaries. The report was about satellite channels, radio stations and TV channels. The analyses that are presented through these media outlets with the purpose of countering the Islamic Republic and the Iranian nation, are staggering. Those who churn out such analyses in large numbers know that people will not listen to all of them. They just believe they should try as much as they can. They mix truth with falsehood and they present a wrong and flawed analysis. "What is done is that something is taken from here and something from there and the two are mixed." [Nahjul Balaghah, Sermon 50] The Commander of the Faithful (a.s.) says, "If falsehood had been pure and unmixed it would not be hidden from those who are in search of it. And if truth had been pure without admixture of falsehood, those who bear hatred towards it would have been silenced. What is done is that something is taken from here and something from there and the two are mixed." They take part of truth and mix it with falsehood, making something that does not appear to be poisoned and they feed it to unsuspecting people. Such analyses affect the minds of people. Sometimes one can clearly see that the analyses which are presented about certain issues in certain academic environments are rooted in unawareness and that it is in fact nobody's fault. Therefore, university professors should keep up with the latest developments.

It is necessary to hold question and answer sessions and meetings for analysis and critique between government officials and academia. Since many years ago I have always advised our government officials and presidents to go to universities and speak to students. I myself used to do that a lot. Since before the Revolution I have maintained my relationship with students and I have advised others to do the same. Now I would like to tell our current government officials to hold question and answer sessions with our esteemed university professors. These sessions are very valuable. They are very helpful. They can help our government officials and university professors and they can also be beneficial to the scholarly atmosphere of our universities. Government officials should be present in academic communities and they should accept criticisms that are made out of compassion and benevolence. Many of the things which are pointed out in such meetings can provide our government officials with guidance. Regardless of their knowledge and experience, our government officials definitely need to listen to and benefit from the views of experts and prominent figures. One can really make use of these expert views. Our government officials should not refuse to listen to expert views. They should accept expert views and constructive criticisms. Whenever somebody makes a critical comment, we must not immediately label him as an opponent of the Islamic Republic. No, many harsh criticisms are out of compassion. It is necessary to be grateful to those who criticize out of compassion and benevolence. This is the duty of our government officials. On the other hand, our esteemed university professors should know that they should avoid damaging criticisms. There is a line between constructive and destructive criticism. Constructive criticism is different from completing the enemy's puzzle. It is different from undermining public trust in the government or spreading distrust in the general atmosphere of the country. These things should be avoided. Your criticisms should really be out of compassion and benevolence.

The same is true of keeping up with regional and global issues. The events that are happening around us are very important. They are very significant. A great event is about to happen. There are two possibilities. One possibility is stronger than the other. The possibility that is less strong is that organizations affiliated with the arrogant powers will make use of this opportunity and their propaganda machines in order to come to our region and prepare the ground for another 50, 60 years of hegemony over the region. This is a distant possibility, but they have already begun and you can see what they are doing. I believe the most disturbing situation is the situation of Libya. A vacuum has been created in Libya and they are using this vacuum. They have rushed to Libya and they want to get a firm foothold there. Of course this is the less probable scenario. What is more probable is that the willpower and insight of the people of the regional nations will overwhelm the enemies and the people will manage to establish populist governments. In spite of the will of the arrogant powers, the Zionists, America and others, these governments will be populist and Islamic. They may take on different forms, but the spirit of all these governments will be Islamic. This is because the people of these nations are Muslims.

Some time ago certain well-informed individuals informed me that a surprisingly large number of Libyans are memorizers of the Holy Quran. If the statistics were announced, many people might not believe them and I will not announce the statistics because I am not absolutely sure. Well, this is indicative of religious tendencies of the Libyans. If the people of the region were given an opportunity to choose and if they chose with insight, it is obvious what their choice would be. Two, three years ago the Americans announced whatever choice is made in the Middle East and North Africa, it will tend to favor Muslims and the Islamic tendency. They were right. Today if elections were held in any of these countries, the results would be in favor of Islamic tendencies even though appearances might suggest otherwise. Who would have thought such a powerful Islamic movement would be started in Egypt? They used to prevent realities from being reflected. In any case this is a great event that has happened in the region. There are two possibilities. Either the regional movement will move towards establishing a powerful Islamic bloc with bright future prospects - a big Islamic bloc with many prominent figures which is the more probable scenario - or there will be another period of imperial hegemony which will delay the movement of the regional nations for 50, 60, 100 years. It will be a long time before nations awaken and realize that they have been betrayed. In any case this is an important event. We cannot afford to remain indifferent to this event. We cannot afford to hold back our analyses. We cannot afford to fail to understand the event appropriately. Our esteemed university professors should work hard on these areas.

One result of the developments that took place in our region was that western theories were proven wrong. All their theories in the area of economics, politics and political management are proving problematic in this region. After all the things they did in the region and the influence they acquired, their political presence and power are being jeopardized like this. These things show that western theories in the field of politics and economics are flawed, ineffective and useless. They further encourage us to refer to our own sources and extract Islamic theories.

The next issue is that there is a pressing need to give our scientific movement a new spirit. As I said before, our movement is good, but we need to give it a new spirit. An important portion of the capacities of our universities are not engaged in scientific progress. All our academic capacities should be involved in scientific progress. All our universities, professors and students - especially our prominent students some of whom are geniuses - should be involved in scientific progress. This is one point. Another point is what was pointed out by a couple of people in this meetings and what I have repeatedly recommended: useful knowledge, knowledge that is beneficial to the country.

Our scientific system should be an appropriate system and the comprehensive scientific plan is supposed to serve that purpose. The scientific system of the country should be a complete system. It should be clear what we need, what the extent of our need is and how different parts of our scientific system are coordinated. Our progress should not be like a caricature. There should be a coherent plan and there should be smooth and appropriate progress. The culture of innovation should be promoted in our universities. All the capacities that our professors and students enjoy should be brought into the arena of scientific innovation. This should turn into a cultural norm in the country. From the beginning our students should learn with the purpose of producing knowledge. They should not learn with the purpose of imitation and accepting things as absolute truths. And the obstacles should be removed.

Another point which I think is important is engaging our universities in resolving scientific issues of the country. Today honorable professors from different fields of study spoke in this meeting. I heard a novel comment in each field and this is worthy of attention. To what extent can managerial organizations of the country benefit from our universities and the intellectual products of our prominent figures? Official and ceremonial gestures are not enough. There should be genuine interaction. Our scholarly articles should address the needs of the country. A statistic was presented in this meeting about medical studies. In general, ninety percent of the articles that are written in different areas should be about addressing our domestic issues and needs. Ninety percent of the theses and dissertations that are produced in the country should be focused on resolving our national issues.

I proposed the issue of economic jihad and everybody confirmed that this year is really the year for economic jihad. Everybody agreed that there should be economic jihad. Now my question is: how many scientific forums have been arranged in the country regarding economic jihad? How many research papers have been written on economic jihad? How many projects have been carried out in this regard? Economic jihad has certain aspects. Economic jihad is related to law schools as well. It is related to schools of economics, colleges and schools of basic sciences too. If we want to take the dimensions of economic jihad into account, all scientific organizations of the country can engage in economic jihad in a direct or indirect way. Therefore, each organization has an issue to follow up regarding economic jihad, but this has not happened. Our universities should be engaged in the issues of the country. The purpose of acquiring knowledge is to benefit people. Knowledge should benefit people. People should be able to benefit from the blessings of knowledge.

Of course the scientific movement in the country has certain strengths and weaknesses. My office prepared a list in this regard, but there would be no time to discuss it all in this meeting. But there are two things that should not be forgotten. One is the issue of having a complete scientific system. We need to have a complete scientific system and the comprehensive scientific plan has been proposed to serve this purpose. Of course implementing the scientific plan is more important than preparing it. Preparing the plan was an important achievement. Our friends at the High Council of Cultural Revolution made efforts, governmental organizations were cooperative and university professors were particularly helpful over these years. The comprehensive scientific plan was prepared thanks to the efforts and cooperation of these people and organizations. This is very good, but the plan has to be implemented. And the way to implement the plan has been specified in the plan itself. A lot of effort went into preparing the plan and we need several times as much effort to implement it. This is an important and essential thing to do and if we succeed, we will have a complete scientific system in the country. On the basis of this complete system we will decide to promote certain fields and create or discontinue certain other fields.

Another issue is the scientific cycle, from generation of ideas to commercializing them. And this is very important. Of course this is related to the administration and the cooperation between the administration and our universities. One example is the technology parks which the friends spoke about. Scientific ideas form in the minds of scholars, these ideas become science, science becomes technology, technology is used in industries and the final product enters the market. Feedback from the market leads to generation of ideas and this cycle continues. This requires cooperation between the administration and industrial, managerial and academic organizations and it is necessary to do it.

Well, Quds Day is upon us. Quds Day is an international Islamic day in the real sense of the word. It is a day on which the Iranian nation - with the help of other enthusiastic nations, which have fortunately grown in number - can shout a righteous slogan, a slogan that the system of arrogance has been investing money to hide and silence for 60 years. Of course 60 years is the minimum number of years they have been trying to do this, namely since the time the usurping Zionist regime was established. Otherwise, they might have started making preparations more than a hundred years ago. They have been trying to wipe Palestine off the map of the world. Of course they were successful to some extent. The Islamic Revolution kicked them in the mouth. Establishing the Islamic Republic, announcing Quds Day and turning the Zionist embassy in Tehran to Palestine's embassy were cautionary, arresting and attacking moves that managed to stand up against this arrogant plot. Fortunately today this movement is spreading on a daily basis.

Quds Day supports our national security. All our people should know this. Each person who takes to the streets plays a role in safeguarding our national security and the achievements of the Islamic Revolution. Quds Day is a great day. It is an important day. By Allah's favor, this year Quds Day rallies will be more impressive than previous years both in our country and in other Islamic countries.

Dear God, make what we heard, what we did and what we intended serve Your cause and Your path. Dear God, bestow Your blessings on all these people. Dear God, make us steadfast on Your path. Make our actions satisfactory to the Imam of the Age (may our souls be sacrificed for his sake) and to the immaculate souls of our martyrs as well as the holy soul of our magnanimous Imam. Make us benefit from the prayers of the Imam of the Age.

Greetings be upon you and Allah's mercy and blessings

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