RNA – Speaking at the eighth conference of Teachers of the Rational Sciences in Qom, Grand Ayatollah Ja’far Sobhani stated that in 1943, the American embassy in Iran distributed a pamphlet entitled “Secrets of a Thousand Years” throughout Iran.
He said that this pamphlet was an assault on the Iranian clergy and because the clerics of that era did not have the tools to reply to it, the Marxists also secretly launched an attack on the clergy.
Ayatollah Sobhani explained that another book was published called “Guardians of Magic and Charm,” which sought to provoke Iranians by attacking God and divine revelation, was published in 1942. “In this book, the attacks on the clergy took on the strongest possible terms which motivated Allamah Muhammad-Husayn Tabatabai to study philosophy,” he said.
His Eminence said that this anti-clerical campaign continued until Imam Khomeini wrote “The Unveiling of Secrets” in response to “Secrets of a Thousand Years,” which was like a teeth-breaking response to the enemies of the seminaries and the clergy.
In other remarks, the revered source of emulation referred to the Takfiri ideology as one of the theological and philosophical issues of the current era and added that we need to hold conferences to clarify the belligerent face of this movement to the world and we need to realize that the issue of Takfirism is the same as the issue of faith and unbelief which are discussed in previous philosophical and theological debates.
Ayatollah Sobhani explained that in this regard, our scholars must plan to counter this movement which has roots in the period after the Prophet Muhammad’s death and in the Kharijite movement. Their arguments were later revived by ibn Taymiyyah and Muhammad ibn Abdul-Wahhab, which are the basis of the Wahhabi and Takfiri phenomena which threaten the world today.
“To confront these ideologies, which have now been raised by Western scholars, we must write and translate pamphlets and hold various programs because after a period of decline, Wahhabism and Takfirism have now reached their limit,” he said.
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