Speech [The importance of self-purification and its priority over education]

In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful

I hope that the sisters and the brothers who are studying in and are representing the Shahid Mutahhari School are present to the fact that this school has been named after a martyr who gave invaluable service to Islam and whose writings and words are and should be guidance for all our youth. All of you sisters and brothers who are part of this school should organize your programs in such a way that you succeed in creating many or at least one Mutahhari. Focus your attention on this aim and keep your mind engrossed in the remembrance of God and do your duty purely for the sake of God Almighty. Make sure to engage yourself seriously in learning as long as you are in this school and keep in mind that what is even more important than learning is the attainment of pure values. Remain true to the message of Islam and adorn your Islamic education with lofty Islam ethics. While you are engaged in a serious study of the Islamic laws and the other fields of learning, make sure to purify yourselves according to the teachings of Islam. All centers of learning as well as the religious schools in the Islamic Republic should ensure that students are trained in values and ethics before everything else. All the Islamic scholars and speakers who have strived on the path of God, each according to his own ability, should go to the various centers of learning all over the country and should form faculties in the areas of ethics, self-purification, and Islamic knowledge in order to supplement regular education with Islamic ethics and Islamic self-purification. If there is no Islamic grooming toward self-purification- whether it is in the theological schools or in the regular universities, which are also Islamic and religious centers of learning- attention should be paid such that the teachers who are engaged in serving in these centers and those who go to teach or speak there, should be people who are purely Islamic and who believe in Islamic laws and teachings so that those who are being trained under them receive Islamic training and education. It is important for you to keep in mind that if any" scholar"- no matter who he is- is not equipped with Islamic ethics and self-purification, he is bound to harm the interests of Islam. The harm that our country has faced at the hands of deviated people who were not truly committed to Islamic values has been much more than the harm inflicted upon us by tanks and canons or by Muhammad Rida and his father. Such people harm the spirit and any harm to the spirit is much more damaging than physical harm. If a scholar has not worked on self-purification, even if he is a scholar in Islamic laws or in tawhid, he causes more harm than good to himself and to his country, and to his nation and to Islam. If you want to serve Islam and the Islamic nation, and if you wish to liberate yourselves from enslavement to the superpowers as well as their affiliates, all the universities and the theological schools and their other centers should give utmost priority to programs on self-purification and ethics so that people like Martyr Mutahhari can be successfully handed out by them to society. And if, God forbid, this is neglected, people who are opposite to such great ones will be handed down to society and such people will bring about corruption in society and will put people under the enslavement of others.

The damage that has been inflicted upon our country through the university and the theological schools has not been inflicted through anything else. It is very important for these two to be clean. The university teachers as well as the Islamic scholars should share a mutual understanding and should join hands in order to create an Islamic atmosphere in the universities as well as the seminaries. Teachers who are appointed for university jobs as well as the other centers of learning should be committed people who have neither Eastern nor Western leanings. If we happen to have some teachers who hold either Eastern or Western inclinations, this country, too, will end up leaning either toward the East or toward the West and will get distanced from its basic principle of" neither East nor West". Do not give heed to those who claim that such precautions are not necessary and that it is not really important to take such leanings into consideration. If teachers are left free to train our children and our youth in any way they desire, it is bound to lead to deviation and is also against the sublime teachings of Islam. The stress that Islam lays upon the pure grooming of children and the youth is not given to anything else. As a matter of fact, the very purpose of Islam is the grooming of sublime human beings. The deviated schools of thought rob man of the true human spirit. And they will eventually end up forcing us to take refuge either in the East and communism or in the West and America. All the misery that this country has faced has mainly been owing to its teachers who lacked the necessary commitment. And these teachers had churned out students who ruined our society and forced our country to lean either toward the East or toward the West. What our country most needs is an Islamic commitment and Islamic values. If the universities and the seminaries are protected by Islamic values, then the rest of our nation will not lean toward this and that side and will instead traverse on the Straight Path of humanity, Islam, independence, and freedom.

I pray to God Almighty to grant you success in moving toward the main purpose of life, which is Islam, and toward the most exalted purpose, which is Allah such that you can also guide others to the same path which is the Straight Path of humanity! And may Allah guide all of us on this Straight Path!

May God's peace be upon you.