The situation of Shiites in the world
Dr. Peyman’s interview with shafaqna about The situation of Shiites in the world
The situation of Shiites in the world” in Shafaqna’s interview with Ayat Peyman: Divisiveness and strife have reduced the power of Shiite attraction.
Secretary General of the World Assembly of Shiite Studies, stating that Shiites, unlike other sects and religions, suffer from a lack of support in the world, said: Shiites have serious weakness in the field of science, propaganda and education. In fact, our actions do not meet the wants and needs of the world and the tendencies towards Shiism.
Dr. Ayat Peyman in an interview with Shafaqna reporter about the situation of Shiites in the international arena and attitudes towards Shiites in the world stated: There are two views on the situation of Shiites in Iran and the world; One is an inward look at the Shiite communities and their progress, successes, cultural and geopolitical developments, and scientific, educational, and research development, which is promising and shows the Shiites growing, and this is what is happening inside the Shiite community outside. For example, if we look at the situation in London compared to 40 years ago in European and American countries, we see an incomparable growth; However, Shiite colleges, chairs of Shiite studies have been established, and numerous Shiite grassroots organizations, NGOs, religious non-governmental organizations, religious delegations, etc. have become so numerous that they are not comparable to 40 years ago.
What is the population of Shiites in the world?
“Today, we are witnessing a threefold increase in the Shiite population in the world,” he said.
If we look at the statistics of 40 years ago, the population of Shiites was not mentioned more than 150 million people, while today we have statistics of over 450 million Shiites in the world.
The Secretary General of the World Assembly of Shiites noted: “At the same time, in the statistics provided by the Shiite population, it should be noted that in many countries of the world, Shiites still can not instrumentalize their Shiism in public or in the official census conducted in It takes place in secular or secular and liberal countries, there is no question of religion, and this is why accurate statistics are not provided.
He referred to the second view of Shiites as “looking from the outside” and said: “When we look at the Shiite community from the outside and the Shiites are equated with other religions, unfortunately the historical backwardness that the Shiites due to historical oppression and restrictions.” Especially in the first 7 centuries after the emigration of the Holy Prophet (PBUH) to other religions and sects, it caused the context and context of Shiite growth to be limited. With the coming to power of the Safavid government, restrictions became an opportunity, but now, despite the Islamic Revolution and the improvement of the situation of Shiites, but due to inequality of support and low economic and financial power of Shiites against other religions, the situation of Shiites In the world, we do not see the desirable.
Peyman stated: “Cultures that are hostile to the Shiites are so strong in exploiting financial and human resources that they cannot be compared to the Shiites. In other words, from the perspective of the second view (the outside view), the Shiites are growing.” But its growth rate is not like Wahhabism and Salafism.
Factors slowing the growth of Shiites in the world
He attributed the slow pace of Shiite growth in the world to three factors: The first is the hostility of Western cultures to the Shiite religion; They do not feel threatened by Salafism and Wahhabism, and they know that the cultures of Salafism and Wahhabism do not oppose their atheistic culture, and sometimes they even accompany and promote that culture because they have accepted the obscenity and liberalism of the West and themselves. Therefore, Western culture is not in conflict with Saudi Islam and other governments such as Afghanistan, Jordan and Turkey, because the lifestyle of the rulers in these countries is Western, and only the Shiites do not accept the atheist culture and secularism of the West. All the powers that have based their civilization on liberalism and humanism are hostile to the Shiites, which in turn leads to the restriction and isolation of the Shiites.
The Secretary General of the World Assembly of Shiism, the second factor in the backwardness of Shiism and the lack of favorable growth of Shiism in the world, said that the Shiite support is limited and said: world governments, financially support other religions and sects, they are supported and this causes the backwardness of the Shiites, which is inevitable; Because neither we can give up our ideological and social positions, nor the hostile world of the West will give up its culture of liberalism.
Divisiveness and strife have reduced the power of Shiite gravity
He considered the lack of unity as the third factor in the backwardness of the Shiites compared to other sects and religions and said: the emergence of public differences and intellectual, factional and partisan conflicts are factors that burn opportunities that cause all our efforts to grow. Our school, system and situations should not be spent, but a large part of the Shiite power and strategy should be spent on neutralizing each other, political and taste conflicts.
Peyman stated: Divisiveness and lack of unity and baseless conflicts that constantly exist and occur, affect the whole world and, influenced from within the country, create tendencies and instead of propaganda and rich Shiite culture-building disputes over illusory and baseless issues of factionalism and taste, and this causes the energy and intellectual force to neutralize each other and the resulting pessimism reduces the power of Shiite attraction.
At the same time, he said: “Unfortunately, other religions, more than the Shiites, used and exploited the waves of Islamism created by the Islamic Revolution and the Imam Khomeini movement in the world;” That is, the establishment of the Shiite government in Iran, there is a wave of Islamism in a world that is tired of modern atheism and liberalism and the obscene culture of the West and has turned to God and spirituality, but the Salafis and others rode on this wave more. And took advantage of the reason for the three weaknesses mentioned.
The Secretary General of the World Assembly of Shiism explained: If they converted to Islam
anywhere in the world, they would fall into the trap of Salafism and Wahhabism because of easier access to Sunni sources, mosques and works, because Shiites were not there, they had no money. , There were no books and we did not have Shiite professors in the universities of the world who are accountable and can convince the questioners, so the Shiites did not take advantage of the opportunity of the Islamic Revolution, but other religions took advantage.
He said that the Shiites – Iran and the world – have a weakness of ability, access, capability, efficiency and performance, he said, During Ramadan 97, all the missionaries sent from 12 Iranian propaganda bases were less than 10,000 but the missionaries who were sent to Iran and the world from the Maki Mosque in Zahedan were more than 12,000, and this is a bitter reality.
Peyman added: “Unfortunately, they are united against the Shiites, but the Shiites are not united against the rivals and the Shiite opponents.” I remember the words of Imam Ali (pbuh) who blamed the Muslims of Kufa and Hejaz and said: “You are weak and unstable, but the followers of Mu’awiyah are steadfast in their path” And this is the historical pain of the Shiite.
Serious Shiite weakness in scientific, propaganda and educational fields
“Disagreement and burning of opportunities in the Shiites is one of the reasons why we are lagging behind the global competition, especially in the world scientific and academic forums,” he said. Shiites have serious weaknesses in the field of science, propaganda, and education, and in fact, our actions do not meet the wants and needs of the world and the tendencies to Shiism, and therefore we can not respond in a timely, sufficient and convincing manner to the tendencies. And give them needs, so other religions absorb them.
The Secretary General of the World Shiite Association pointed to the activities of this association in responding to the global needs and tendencies towards the Shiite religion and noted: It is in different universities of the world to take steps to empower them and to become a link between them and to move towards synergy and interaction with each other. Where there is a difference, we try to reduce or eliminate the differences so that the limited resources and capabilities of the Shiites can be combined using technology and communication networks.
He added: “The second step we are taking is to try to increase the knowledge of the active factors in Islamic centers and Shiite mosques.” We try hard to translate Shiite texts. We have a great weakness in translating texts, and one of our historical sorrows is the lack of good, sufficient and sufficient translations of Shiite sources. We have been trying for years and insisting with the directors and trustees of the seminary that the great weakness of the Shiite Islamic centers of the world is the lack of translated sources; Most of the texts are Arabic and Persian, and a small amount of Urdu, so even the translations we offer abroad, reject it because the translation is inappropriate.
Request from scientific research and seminary institutes of Qom
Peyman stated: We ask the scientific and research institutes of Qom and the seminary centers to take steps for translation. We have taken steps in this direction, that is, we have started with texts suitable for children and adolescents, and we have collected more than 8,000 books for children and adolescents in the field of Islamic education from printing houses and examined them in several evaluation groups, among which about They chose 400 titles of books, some of which are 15 to 25 volumes. However, we selected about 500-600 volumes of books in 25 titles and submitted them to the Saba Islamic Center in the United States for translation and publication. In the next section, we wanted to do this for teenagers and young people, but with financial problems and lack of support, this is not happening at the moment. We decided to continue this process until we translate most of the Shiite books and sources for different age groups into at least one language and then into popular languages.
Lack of Shiite schools; Another Shiite problem in the world
He mentioned the lack of Shiite schools in the world as another problem of Shiites in the world and said: “Other religions and sects have active 12-grade schools that teach children in 12 classes instead of primary and secondary schools under the laws of the same countries.” According to the education system, they go up to the diploma and see Islamic, ideological, cultural and traditional teachings and work to prevent cultural and religious divisions. Unfortunately, the Shiites have a great weakness here, which is the case in many parts of the world. We did not establish centers, and we do not have a place where a textbook of religious and Islamic education is written for 12 educational levels with European and American educational standards to allow teaching, and Shiite schools take these books from Sunnis and teach them.
The Secretary General of the World Assembly of Shiites continued: “We are writing a number of books that are being standardized by friends abroad so that we can have at least one course of religious education that can be licensed to teach in Europe and the United States.” Although this is not the case today and should have been done in the first decade of the revolution, the inaction and inaction of the relevant organizations has prevented it from being addressed.
He stated: One of the unresolved cultural problems in the Shiite world is silence and lack of action; Perhaps one of the reasons is that they are not objective and visual, and therefore not everyone has a correct understanding of these problems.
Saying that some may describe the situation of Shiites as good compared to the past and say that we once had 5 mosques in France but today we have 12 Shiite mosques, Peyman said: we should know that there are 2,220 Sunni mosques in France, each of which is architecture And they have a dome, a library and a place for education, but the Shiite mosques are in a rented place and do not have the attraction of a mosque.
Criticism of the construction of magnificent seminaries in Qom
He criticized the construction of luxury seminary schools in Iran and clarified: Now that the Shiites of the world do not have the minimum, it is not time to build these large areas, first make the Shiites of the world have these minimums, then expensive buildings in Build Qom. But unfortunately the ear is not hearing. We see that the official who has to deal with this issue has vowed to build 14 schools called 14 Innocents in Qom, while the Shiites on the other side of the world pray in a warehouse called the Mosque, which humiliates the Shiites and deprives them of the Shiites. .
The Secretary General of the World Assembly of Shiites, in response to the question why you do not use students of different nationalities who come to Qom to learn religious teachings, to translate religious texts into their own language, said: One of the reasons for this This is due to financial and budget constraints, and even the circulation of books in the country has sharply decreased.
“One of the obstacles to progress is that the words ‘copyright is reserved’ are put on the back of the books, or that a government agency that produces software codes them, and that’s it,” he said. It causes the voice of the Shiites not to reach the world.
The voice of ISIS on satellite and the Internet is louder than the voice of the Shiites
Peyman pointed out: The World Assembly of Shiite Studies does not have this view of publishing works and we have books that have not been published yet, but we are ready to provide them for publication to religious institutions and centers and any other center for publication, so this It is not as if we have restricted republishing.
He acknowledged: “Today, while the voice of the Shiites is not yet heard by the people of the world and the world still does not know the Shiites and we must introduce the Shiites, but ISIL and its thoughts, clips and software are well known.
The Secretary General of the World Assembly of Shiite Studies stated: “The reason why ISIL can make friends from all over the world is because, unfortunately, the voice of ISIL on satellite and the Internet is louder than the voice of Shiites, because the volume of ISIL data, texts and translations is more than data and Shiite texts on the Internet. Islamic centers have produced a lot of software, but we are unaware; The encyclopedia and encyclopedia are only Arabic and Persian and are on our shelves and are exchanged between us.
“Last year, 25,000 titles of religious books were published, and two years ago, that number was 27,000, while sometimes 15 million copies are published against us in 14 foreign languages in the world,” he said.
Peyman criticized the publication and distribution of books in Iran and said: the circulation of all Iranian books does not reach 15 million per year, but Sunnis publish books in this way. We have gone to many mosques around the world and we see that the book published in Qom does not reach Shiite mosques, but in Sunni mosques they have ten thousand volumes, and in every Sunni mosque there are important Sunni sources, but Shiite mosques do not have these sources.
Warning against repeating history!
He stressed: “Today, the Shiite voice on the Internet, satellite and virtual networks, among other voices, is vague and inadequate, and those in charge must accept that these activities, although good within the religion, but in competition with other religions, this angle of our backwardness is greater.” And the backwardness of the Shiites in the first 7 centuries is repeated.
The Secretary General of the World Association of Shiites pointed to the situation of Shiites on the Internet and said: “There are currently 1.5 billion active domains in the world, while we have 2,500 active Shiite sites in different languages, most of which are dynamic Persian and other languages.” It is static and not dynamic.
“There are about two billion sites in the world, at least half of which are against us,” he said. On the other hand, the volume of English Wikipedia articles about Islam is two million titles, and we will not be able to upload this number of English articles for another 1000 years.
What did we do?
Regarding the situation of Iran as a country with a Shiite government, Peyman said: “When we evaluate these four decades from within, the good progress and achievements that the Islamic Revolution has brought to the Shiites, in the fields of science, industry and defense.” And we see a lot of security and self-sufficiency, and we have a lot of important rankings and significant growth globally, but in the cultural and religious spheres, our successes are few and far between.
He added: “It is true that seminaries have expanded and many scientific and educational developments have taken place, and the scope of religious research and studies has greatly increased, and dozens of numerous research and educational institutes and centers have been established and annually An average of 30,000 titles of religious books and dissertations and thousands of scientific and research articles are published in the country, but only when we compare them with our own do they seem to be great achievements and we get this pleasant result. But if we compare all these achievements of ours in the extra-religious and global dimensions with the achievements of the Shiite rivals and opponents, then we will notice worrying distances and backwardness.
The Secretary General of the World Assembly of Shiite Studies said: “Without a doubt, the development of Islamic knowledge in more than two thousand academic units and the creation of Al-Mustafa Society, Al-Zahra Society, and the like of Baqir al-Uloom University, Imam Sadegh (AS), Imam Hussein (AS) and more than two hundred research institutes and Independent research institutes and higher, research and specialized educational institutions such as Imam Khomeini Institute and Dar al-Hadith and seminary and university research institutes, Islamic culture and thought, Islamic culture and sciences and Noor computer research center and hundreds of titles of religious and Quranic institutes and various cultural and propaganda institutions. It convinces and satisfies only those who do not have a worldview, and these trustees do not tolerate the expression of weaknesses, shortcomings and inadequacies, and accuse any critic of ignoring the achievements.
The seminaries and the Al-Mustafa did not appear as expected
Peyman reminded: “We did not work in the world as much as ISIS, and I claim that we should consider all the seminaries in the country, or that the same Mustafa community did not act as it should and is expected.”
He stressed that at the level of the institution of authority and seminaries and specialized and scientific and research centers of the seminary should pay more and more realistic attention to the necessities and needs of the time.
The Secretary General of the World Association of Shiites stated: We should see what the Shiites of the world need and what their problems are, not to see what our ideals and tendencies are, because some things are done according to our tendencies and tastes.
Criticism of the elimination of the budget line of cultural and religious institutions in 1997
He pointed out: “Religions and sects and even some sects such as the Aga Khans in all these fields and in the world have snatched the lead from us and are constantly distancing themselves from us, and this bitter fact is being considered by those in charge of religion and culture.” It is not in our country or they have chosen the path of negligence.
Peyman reminded: If there was such an understanding of this fact, in 1997, the Islamic Consultative Assembly would not have removed the budget of the 17th cultural row table to help religious and cultural institutions, that is, only the stable support of religious centers. , Did not pass into silence and inaction and indifference.
He said that although the budget was disproportionate and discriminatory and was not allocated fairly to all and was not monitored, its removal from the budget bill in these three years weakened and stagnated and in some cases closed scientific and cultural activities. He became a Shiite and was an unwanted service to Wahhabism, Salafism, and ISIS, the sects of the world.
The Secretary General of the World Assembly of Shiites continued: “We must recount the weaknesses of attitudes and lack of comprehensiveness and lack of foresight in our policies and programs. With silence and consideration and lack of expression of pain, the situation will worsen.”
90% of students are below the poverty line
At the same time, he said: “It is very good to build a large seminary in Qom, but it is good when we do not have so many poor and destitute students in Qom who are unable to pay for treatment. Does it hurt? Such an area is good when we develop the infrastructure in a balanced way so that the students are in a good living condition and not below the poverty line, while 90% of the students are below the poverty line and their lives are difficult to manage. Of the remaining ten percent, 7 percent are average and 3 percent are prosperous, and unfortunately the wood community throws this percentage at the clergy and seminary.
There is no justification for building a Dar al-Walaya and a Darfiqah for this time
Peyman continued: More than three percent of the Shiite clergy are not prosperous and 90 percent have economic problems. Let’s build a luxurious area when we have solved this poverty of livelihood. In the conditions of the living crisis, these things are not in the interest of the Shiites. There is no justification for building Dar al-Walayah and Dar al-Faqih for this time. These weaken the beliefs and create a conflict between words and deeds or the promotion of Shiite teachings and our actions.
In the end, he emphasized: “We do not do many necessary things such as empowering Shiite centers, schools and mosques, and many unnecessary and non-priority works such as building seminaries and some palaces of administrative and office types with an aristocratic and luxurious form.” And we do so-called luxury with religious titles, and its examples are in front of the eyes of the people in Qom, who remember them with great dissatisfaction.
The Secretary General of the World Assembly of Shiism stated: We can not accept that 37,000 Shiite mosques in the country and the world, that is, more than half of the existing Shiite mosques are now low and dilapidated and without equipment and without the Imam of the congregation, but hundreds of billions of Tomans To spend on luxurious buildings called seminaries or special institutions, this is an unbalanced and carcinogenic growth in the religious body, and if it is not stopped, it will become malignant and dangerous.
He added: “I do not know how their hearts accept that while 90% of the students are on the poverty line and below the poverty line, they should ignore their livelihood pains and thus build and develop buildings and ceremonial and decorative buildings with the names of seminary and university and Hospital and office, but pay under the holy names of Ahl al-Bayt?
Peyman expressed his hope that these words would be considered compassionate and out of compassion so that we would not be questioned. Hide. It must be said to find a solution.
At the same time, he clarified: “Sometimes it is said that there is a benefactor who builds for these buildings and it is not from the Sharia funds or government budgets. These answers are the worst excuse for sin, a world that can attract good benefactors to the building.” It can certainly attract him to livelihood, treatment, housing, employment and marriage of young people and students, and if there is a reason that only the building should be built, why not build the foundations to repair the mosques or build mosques in many places Are we not guiding Iran and the world and providing the Imam for them or building organizational houses and handing them over to homeless youth and students?
The Secretary General of the World Assembly of Shiites emphasized: If we can not do justice in the distribution and spending of Sharia funds and donations and charity of believers, we will not have a verbal influence on governments and the way national funds are spent, and the situation will be the same as today We are witnessing the beginning of a wave of distrust and disbelief of the people, especially the new generations. Today’s generation really does not believe our words and beliefs anymore because it has seen a constant and abundant contradiction between our words and deeds.