Iran's Ayatollah Khamenei Wants Western Youth To Study Quran

After all the recent horrors perpetrated in the name of Islam, Iran's head honcho, ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, to reach out to the youth of Europe and North America with an invitation to:  read the Quran, learn about Islam, don't believe what the politicians and media tell you about his religion.

He, of course, is deluded.

Message of ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, Leader of The Islamic Republic of Iran

In the name of God, the Beneficent the Merciful

To the Youth in Europe and North America,

The recent events in France and similar ones in some other Western countries have convinced me to directly talk to you about them. I am addressing you, [the youth], not because I overlook your parents, rather it is because the future of your nations and countries will be in your hands; and also I find that the sense of quest for truth is more vigorous and attentive in your hearts.

I don’t address your politicians and statesmen either in this writing because I believe that they have consciously separated the route of politics from the path of righteousness and truth.

I would like to talk to you about Islam, particularly the image that is presented to you as Islam. Many attempts have been made over the past two decades, almost since the disintegration of the Soviet Union, to place this great religion in the seat of a horrifying enemy. The provocation of a feeling of horror and hatred and its utilization has unfortunately a long record in the political history of the West.

Here, I don’t want to deal with the different phobias with which the Western nations have thus far been indoctrinated. A cursory review of recent critical studies of history would bring home to you the fact that the Western governments’ insincere and hypocritical treatment of other nations and cultures has been censured in new historiographies.

The histories of the United States and Europe are ashamed of slavery, embarrassed by the colonial period and chagrined at the oppression of people of color and non-Christians. Your researchers and historians are deeply ashamed of the bloodsheds wrought in the name of religion between the Catholics and Protestants or in the name of nationality and ethnicity during the First and Second World Wars. This approach is admirable.

By mentioning a fraction of this long list, I don’t want to reproach history; rather I would like you to ask your intellectuals as to why the public conscience in the West awakens and comes to its senses after a delay of several decades or centuries. Why should the revision of collective conscience apply to the distant past and not to the current problems? Why is it that attempts are made to prevent public awareness regarding an important issue such as the treatment of Islamic culture and thought?

You know well that humiliation and spreading hatred and illusionary fear of the “other” have been the common base of all those oppressive profiteers. Now, I would like you to ask yourself why the old policy of spreading “phobia” and hatred has targeted Islam and Muslims with an unprecedented intensity. Why does the power structure in the world want Islamic thought to be marginalized and remain latent? What concepts and values in Islam disturb the programs of the super powers and what interests are safeguarded in the shadow of distorting the image of Islam? Hence, my first request is: Study and research the incentives behind this widespread tarnishing of the image of Islam.


My second request is that in reaction to the flood of prejudgments and disinformation campaigns, try to gain a direct and firsthand knowledge of this religion. The right logic requires that you understand the nature and essence of what they are frightening you about and want you to keep away from.

I don’t insist that you accept my reading or any other reading of Islam. What I want to say is: Don’t allow this dynamic and effective reality in today’s world to be introduced to you through resentments and prejudices. Don’t allow them to hypocritically introduce their own recruited terrorists as representatives of Islam.

Receive knowledge of Islam from its primary and original sources. Gain information about Islam through the Qur’an and the life of its great Prophet. I would like to ask you whether you have directly read the Qur’an of the Muslims. Have you studied the teachings of the Prophet of Islam and his humane, ethical doctrines? Have you ever received the message of Islam from any sources other than the media?

Have you ever asked yourself how and on the basis of which values has Islam established the greatest scientific and intellectual civilization of the world and raised the most distinguished scientists and intellectuals throughout several centuries?

I would like you not to allow the derogatory and offensive image-buildings to create an emotional gulf between you and the reality, taking away the possibility of an impartial judgment from you. Today, the communication media have removed the geographical borders. Hence, don’t allow them to besiege you within fabricated and mental borders.

Although no one can individually fill the created gaps, each one of you can construct a bridge of thought and fairness over the gaps to illuminate yourself and your surrounding environment. While this preplanned challenge between Islam and you, the youth, is undesirable, it can raise new questions in your curious and inquiring minds. Attempts to find answers to these questions will provide you with an appropriate opportunity to discover new truths.

Therefore, don’t miss the opportunity to gain proper, correct and unbiased understanding of Islam so that hopefully, due to your sense of responsibility toward the truth, future generations would write the history of this current interaction between Islam and the West with a clearer conscience and lesser resentment.

Seyyed Ali Khamenei
21st Jan. 2015

Yes, thankfully most of us are ashamed of our past- slavery, colonialism, and oppression of people of color, but he fails to acknowledge that Arab Muslims were slave traders, oppressed people of color, homosexuals, women, non-Muslims and Muslim-minorities, and continue to do so to this day. At least we left that in the past. He also fails to mention that the Ottoman Empire was a form of imperialism, as bad as colonialism, and the quest for a global caliphate by radical Muslims continues that imperialism to this day.

Maybe if Iran made a major effort to clean up its act and evolve, people might take him up on his invitation.

He's even been posting on Twitter about this. In Spanish, to boot.

Iran's Khamenei Issues New Anti-Baha'i Edict

Iran's religious head honcho Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is making things even worse for followers of the banned Bahai faith, if that's at all possible. They're already severely persecuted for their religious beliefs- they are jailed for no reason, and earlier this year were banned from access to higher education.  Now Khameini is telling Iranians to "avoid all dealings" with the Baha'is.  Many fear this will lead to more arrests.

Khamenei was said to have called Baha'i adherents "deviant and misleading."  Ironic, since Sunnis consider Shiites (of which Khamenei is one) to be "deviant."

Sources: Baha'i Rights, Al Arabiya

Iran's President-Elect Rohani's Son Killed Himself Over Dad's Extremism

The eldest son of Iran's so-called "moderate" president-elect Hassan Rohani committed suicide in 1992. The reason?  According to his suicide note: his dad's affiliation with Iran's head honcho, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

"I hate your government, your lies, your corruption, your religion, your double acts and your hypocrisy," wrote the future president's son in his suicide note, published in London by exiled Iranian political commentator Ali Reza Nouri.

"I am ashamed to live in such environment where I'm forced to lie to my friends each day, telling them that my father isn't part of all of this. Telling them my father loves this nation, whereas I believe this to be not true. It makes me sick seeing you, my father, kiss the hand of Khamenei," read the letter published in the London-based al-Sharq al-Awsat

Naturally, the Iranian press denied it had anything to do with politics and blamed it on troubles in love, but we all know which is more likely the truth.

People can and do change, but has Rohani truly changed?  We shall see.

Iranian Ayatollah Lackies Offer To Islamize Egypt

While leftists and Islamists decry U.S. "hegemony", they have been far more guilty of imperialistic and supremacist goals than we have- in the past and to this day. Centuries ago we had the Ottoman Empire. Then we had Soviet imperialism in Eastern Europe. China invaded Tibet. Russians invaded Afghanistan. Now Iran wants to help Egypt Islamize the country. They're already meddling in a bunch of neighbouring lands in the region (including Syria), so with an Islamist-led government, Egypt seems a perfect target.

Apparently, 17 of Iran's Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Hosseini Khamenei's lackies, including his brother-in-law and his international affairs advisor,  have offered to help set Egypt on the road to becoming an Islamic state. According to Afkar News:

.. the signatories of the message addressed to Mursi took this initiative on the occasion of the second anniversary of the Egyptian revolution and owing to their belief that the experience of the Islamic revolution in Iran should be emulated in Egypt to establish a religious state.

“In spite of the economic sanctions and political blockade, Iran is proud to have achieved a great progress thanks to its Islamic law and the wise leadership of Sayyid Ruhollah Mostafavi Musavi Khomeini and Khamenei,” said the message.

This progress, the message added, can be seen in the elimination of poverty in Iran’s countryside and impoverished towns as well as scientific and technological advancement and several educational, industrial, and economic achievements.

The signatories, who called themselves the Muslim Thinkers of Iran, said they are willing to transfer all the expertise and knowledge they have to the Egyptian government and people.

They urged Mursi to form a religious state and not to pay attention to “international goals and pressures” or “trends that call for separating religion from politics, culture, and economy.”

Maybe they eliminated poverty in the rural areas, but half the urban population lives in poverty. They're even writing rap songs about it.

Hypocrite Ayatollah Ali Khamenei Has A Facebook Fan Page

So Iran's head Mullah, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, now has a Facebook fan page with 14,600 fans and counting. And that's just since its creation on December 13. Ironic, considering the Iranian government believes Facebook is a Zionist entity and Khamenei's own people are blocked from accessing it, except for those who have ways of skirting the blocks. Hypocrite. Actually, they might also still believe that Facebook is a  CIA and Mossad front, unless they finally discovered that The Onion's satirical piece that PressTV (the Iranian government's mouthpiece) reported as its own, was bogus.

But Facebook isn't the Ayatollah's first and only foray into the social media world, according to RFE/RL.org old Ali also has a Twitter account, and joined Google+ and Instagram. He also has his own fancy website- with 13 language options including Swahili, no less.

Iranian journalist Hadi Nili says the Islamic establishment uses different means to spread its message and reach out to supporters around the globe.

"For the same reason that Iran launches the English-language PressTV or a Hispanic TV station for Spanish speakers or Arabic channels," Nili says, "it uses Facebook and Twitter, which are cheap and easy to use."

Nili believes Khamenei's page is more likely to attract foreign viewers than Iranian Facebook users, who might not give it such a warm welcome.

But if Khamenei's latest video post is any indication, the bulk are Iranian. At least, as far as I can tell. The shared YouTube video, entitled 'New Middle East, Islamic Middle East' has over 120 FB shares, over 1,000 likes, and over 1,900 comments. It shows Condoleezza Rice in 2006 talking about the New Middle East:

"....whatever we do, we have to be certain that we're pushing forward to the new Middle East, not going back to the old one. What we're seeing here, in a sense is the growing- the birth pangs of a new Middle East."

Then there's the typical anti-Israel rhetoric, through photos and news clips including the following prediction:

The issue of Palestine is an Islamic issue. Based on the Truths that Allah the exalted has ordained, there is no doubt that a new Middle East will be formed.  This new Middle East will be the Islamic Middle East.

This implies, no doubt, a Middle East sans Israel. Something both the Iranian government and the Palestinians have been dreaming of for decades.

There are many secular and freedom loving Iranians with Facebook accounts, and many activists armed with cellphones used Facebook and Twitter during the 2009 protests to upload videos showing the brutality of the crackdown, but posting on Facebook can get you arrested if you get caught.

Those activities are seen as a threat by Iranian officials, who have already targeted a number of activists over their Facebook posts. Blogger Sattar Beheshti, who last month died in custody, was reportedly arrested over his Facebook activism.

Abdolsamad Khoramabadi, an Iranian official with the state-run body in charge of online censorship and computer crimes, said earlier this year that posting materials on Facebook that are considered immoral, contravene sacred Islamic principles, or disrupt security and peace is considered a crime.

Check out the comments, there are some in English.

Unfortunately, it looks like the new Middle East is headed towards becoming an Islamic Middle East, and I fear for Israel.