Speech [Government in Islam and other religions of monotheism and its difference with non-monotheism schools]

In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful

First I thank you for your coming here- a place troublesome for its narrowness. I wish happiness and prosperity for all from God. The position of Islam differs in all its dimensions with that of other schools. As the history informs us in all the stages of humanity there was no government nor any faith or religion like the government and the faith of Islam. There would not be such a thing in the future too.

Islam is a truth, fills and complies with all the dimensions man has- whether materially or morally. All the dimensions are covered by Islam. Education is the Islam's obsession. If you look at the governments now who are running the world, whether religious or non-religious ones, you will see they are not concerned with the pregnancy of a woman. Likewise, they are not concerned about the infants feeding on mothers' breasts. All the governments in the East or West are the same. Similarly it is not their concern to pay attention to marriage, its time or its quality. The babies in the lap of mothers and the parents' responsibility towards them are also a matter of no concern or interest to these governments. Even the manners of people do not concern any government. The only thing that concerns a government is a thing which is harmful to it. All the mundane governments are concerned with people if they go against them or if they don't concur with them. One should not come out and shout or clamor which disturbs the setup. This is a main concern of the governments. What takes place inside the houses is one of the concerns to the regimes because it could be a plot against them. Other than plot, one can do anything he likes. The mundane, the materialist governments give liberty to the people. But the liberty they give is far different with the liberty that Islam gives to the society. The method of the Islamic government differs with all the governments in its organization and its run. The armed forces of Islamic government are different from the armed forces in other governments. Your marriage is a concern to Islam because Islam wants the fruit of the marriage to be a good man, not a beast. Before marriage, there are laws in Islam as to determine a good befitting pair in harmony to each other. What type of woman should a man choose and what type of man a woman should select- is the concern of Islam. The qualities of a man and the qualities of a woman are described in Islam. Even at the time of marriage, and the relations between husband and wife after marriage, is decided by Islam. The life between husband and wife is a concern to Islam. The time for the privacy of husband and wife is Islam's concern. All these concerns are to secure the highest purpose of mankind. A man should be a perfect human in a correct sense. This is the purpose of other monotheist schools. If man goes out of control, he becomes wilder than a beast and more dangerous and harmful than animals.

You witness all these crimes being committed on man or against human beings by the big powers never occurred throughout the history by a bestial animal. The big powers think they are educated. Their crimes have been against their nations too. A wild animal needs a prey. When the needed prey is available, and catered its hunger, then the wild animal does not go after other animals to hunt them or hurt them or kill them or confine them in reserve to be in it bondage. This is man who does not get satisfied. It is man that his lust and his desires have no end. If a country is given to him, he is after another. If he takes over the second, he wants the third and so forth. There is no limit to the aspirations of man. Whatever he obtains or gains, he goes after the one which is not yet obtained or gained. If man is left at his own, his lust and desires are boundless. His lust for power has no boundaries. You don't think that man will be satisfied and sit idle if he is given one complete galaxy where there is a sun and several planets around it. He will say, let us go to another galaxy and see what is there. Now you see that they are trying to go beyond earth to the planets. If they avail one planet, they will go to the next. Such is a man created. In anger; in lust and desire and in selfishness he is unbounded.

There is nothing that can gratify a man. If he is given a true education, he reaches the extreme satisfaction. And that satisfaction is the end of his desires. The absolute perfection is the end of his lust. If he reached the total perfection, he will be in peace with himself because of the satisfaction he attains.

Hearts are satisfied only when they reach God. Without God, there is no comfort to hearts. Man is not against the self because the self is concentrated on the total perfection. The thing is that perfection is missed. The self of a man is anxious to reach the perfection. To distinguish the total perfection often one is mistaken as it is this or that. One considers the knowledge is the perfection. He pursues knowledge.

One considers power and goes after it. All these endeavors are that the people are after attaining perfection. In other words, all are after God but they don't know.

Islam has come to show the way. It abolishes the perilous twists of the way and clears the way from rocks and obstacles. Islam has not come to conquer the countries. To pursue power is not in the framework of Islam. To keep the nations under its domination or to imperialize the nations or to colonize the countries is not among the objectives of Islam.

Islam has army but not to conquer people or a country. Its purpose of the army is to maintain order among the people for guidance. Army is to gain the hearts. Islam wants to govern hearts. Hearts want to reach perfection, and in this respect they have confused the way. In Qur'an and in prayers we read:" Guide us in the right path". There is a straight path which leads to perfection. Man is confused. The confusion should be repelled. Man, if wants, can pace the straight path. Man has no information. God has the information of this correct straight path; a path that gets man out of confusion and bewilderment and leads to its other end. Its other end is God.

We in our daily prayers; want from God to guide us to a right way, not a sinuous way full of twists and turns. There are those who have gone astray and those upon whom God is angry. So the way is separate. The more they advance, the more they become distant from the destination the army of Islam has for us. The generals of the army in the early stage of Islam were the teachers of moral and character. They used to guide and teach the people while they were fighting. The instruction was that unless the enemy did not start the battle, they had no orders to fight. They stood still. They were not allowed to start the war so as to overrun the enemy to win the battle and gain the spoils. They wanted to win the hearts of the people. Wherever Islam went and chiefs of the Islamic army went, the first thing they did was to build a mosque there. When the Islamic army reached Cairo, they first drew a line on the ground and thereat a mosque was built. So such was the case wherever they set foot.

Prophets have come for this purpose- to guide the people to the way that leads to absolute perfection and to rescue them from wandering vainly. The safety of man is to come out of the nature's darkness to light. But beyond this, there is the curtain of light. In the supplication of Sha`ban we read:" O, God! Bestow upon me the total isolation so as to concentrate towards you. And open the eyes of our hearts by your light so that we can see you and the rays of the light of our eyes can tear the curtains of light." The aim and purpose of Islam is to get us out of the darkness of self-centeredness. Man becomes proud as soon as he avails a thing- a post-repression etc. Islam's purpose is to shatter and crash the pride. As long as man sees himself, he cannot see the way of guidance. So the first thing one should do is to crush the self and the lust that engages him in selfishness.

The purpose of the Islamic army is to hunt the people to win their hearts. Islam does not aim at any materialistic. The battles that took place between Prophets and their antagonists were not for any mundane gains. They wanted to mould stubborn and arrogant men into polite clay. They wanted to conquer the egoism. God ordered Moses and Aaron:" Go and advice Pharaoh. Perhaps he may repent." Pharaohs are in question. Don't think that he was one man and existed at the times of Moses. If man does not get the Islamic education, he is a pharaoh. His inner being is pharaoh unless he is taught in any monotheist school. His inside is Satan and Pharaoh. The aim of Islam is to repel the selfishness which is the main obstacle in reaching the total guidance. It is narrated that once the Prophet saw a group of men tied in chains and being dragged towards him. The Prophet was very much upset by the sight. He told them:" Shall we take them to heaven tied in fetters?" The Prophet was very much uneasy as to why the people are not guided. His agony in this respect was so much that God consoled him:" Perhaps you destroy yourself regretting that they do not believe in Qur'an." «1» So the issue here is belief and faith and not conquering a country or so.

The Islamic Republic of Iran must have the policy of guidance to the people. May God guide these deviated people in our country and all other Muslim countries. Islam wants people to come under its banner. It wants to rescue the people from wandering aimlessly. They themselves are not aware. But their missing thing is the perfection.

Islam wants to guide all the people. Why do they flee from Islam? The gist of Islam is the reformation of the nations. Islam's aim is to goad the deviated people to the straight path. All should be friendly with each other. All should be brothers together. All should love each other. They should be like the dwellers of heaven." As brothers (sitting) over the high couches facing one another." «2» In heaven, there is no malice, no envy. All have a brotherly spirit. They are purged and purified. God forbid, if we happen to be the dwellers of hell, there we will be purified. Hell is the way to heaven. Islam's purpose is to repel and repudiate all this difficulties, and to goad all to equity, brotherhood and happiness. To goad the people in the same way as a shepherd goads his sheep. A shepherd has attachment with his herd of sheep. He wants them to graze in a good pasture green with grass. It is said that most of the Prophets or all of them have been shepherds too. Why these groups keep away from Islam? Let them come and see what Islam has to say. This Islam is so friendly with man that it is with him since his marriage and the birth of his children. Then in the lap of mother accompanies the babe. In every stage of life, this Islam is in association till the last. It wants your guidance. It does not want to dominate you or to be your master. The Prophet, the first man, the founder of Islam, the founder of guidance of the people, sees his conduct as to how it was. Was he ever after power- any time, anywhere? These very fellows were his friends. There was no white and no black. He was sitting with them together. He was so mingled with them. He should sit above and others below and not one by his side; these distinctions and differences were not then. One type of conduct for all; this was the trend. All the deeds, all the faith was to educate man to get the aim that is to reach the level of a human being- the nature of monotheism." The nature of God thereat man is created." «3» This nature is that of seeking God. This is in all men. The pagan is after something though he himself is not aware. He is after complete perfection. Everyone does a thing because he considers it a good thing. Even thieves consider their craft perfection. All are after God. Man by nature is after God. But these sinuous and torturous thoughts or ideas mislead him because he is not on a straight line. So the strayed path makes the nature silent.

O brothers! You have come here; you, the army and navy personnel. Some of you, at least, should pay attention to this fact that today you are the army of the Prophet of Islam. You are the army of the present Imam Mahdi. He the Imam, is attentive to you. The report of your work is presented to him. According to the narrations, when the reports are presented to him, he may not feel uneasy. Our forces should guide the people. This is the difference between the Islamic forces and the tyrant forces. The tyrant forces want to deal with the people cruelly and keep away from them. Be careful that however powerful you become, you cannot exceed the power of Muhammad-Rida. Now he is dead. Death is like a wedding day for him. This is the world. Those who have divine knowledge become happier as they near that world. Try to be the army of Islam. Try to be a force that tolerates the adversaries and guides them. If you hit, let it be a hit of education. One hit of `Ali on the day of Khandaq is better than the worship of men and angels. «4» This is a narration. The hit was one; raising the hand and bringing it down, and killing a man in the battle of Khandaq. From the political aspect, this hit relieved Islam from the mischief of pagans. But its moral is more important. Hand goes up and comes down. But one may think that it was me who did this. It is Satanic to conjecture so. One may consider this a power of God and would not take himself into account. He might consider the hand as well as the sword by the power of God.

We had nothing. A few years ago we were nothing. He made us powerful and gave us everything- power, and such a vast stretched land- the sky, everything. It was God who gave all this to us. We had nothing. We were nothing. Now we are nothing too. We must understand this much that we are nothing. We say so. No. It is not so. Try to find out the origin of the matter. He who did and performed a job is God. He gave victory to a weak nation over such big powers. As long as you stick to God, you need not fear anything. He, who adheres to God, does not fear anything. The last thing is one might be killed. It is martyrdom. Martyrdom is prosperity. It is not to be feared.

Our young people have no fear of martyrdom. But they welcome it. They have developed this power. They shook hands with each other. They saved the country. We want the country to be saved from paganism. We want to protect the monotheism for the country.

All should come together and enter into this school, which is for God and guides you towards God. Don't ramble here and there. There is no place better than Qur'an. There is no school better than Qur'an. This Qur'an guides us to the higher motives. We don't know but inside us we have attention towards Qur'an. You, the army of Iran, you, the security forces of Iran; from whatever class you are; but do know that you and your armed forces today are the armed forces of the 12 th Imam Mahdi. Try to gain his pleasure for your work. You must know this fact that now you are in his employment. As such, you are in his service. We are all so. We should try to gain his satisfaction because it is God's satisfaction. If we avail that we shall be secured from any hurt and harm. We shall have no fear either.

God willing, may He bestow on you all honor, health and power. May God bestow on you victory over Satan inside yourselves and ourselves. May God grant victory over all those who are anti-Islam and anti-guidance.

May God's peace, mercy and blessings be upon you.