To the Youth in Europe and North America

In the name of god
Hello my brothers & sisters in all over the world and in the any religious

#Letter4u

This letter is a message from Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, Leader of The Islamic Republic of Iran To the youth in Europe and North America that include noble points about True Islam and what happend in the world

for Awareness about islam in the world and for ALLAh and Prophet Muhammad (pbuh),please share this letter

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passage of letter
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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

Like his predecessor, Ayatollah Khamenei is a brutal dictator who retains power through the violent suppression of his opposition.  We don't need any moral lessons from him.  As the "Supreme Leader" of Iran, he does more to discredit the image of Islam than anything the West could ever do.

Anyone who thinks Khamanei has anything to teach about how to run a society or a government should simply ask themselves: would I rather live in Iran?

" 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."

Because it often takes centuries.
In the UK the last person executed for heresy or blasphemy
was Thomas Aikenhead in 1697. It was then realised this was wrong.
300 years on, some part of the world still have to catch up to this.
The first campaigns against slavery arose in the 1780's essentially in Great Britain, a country that had profited massively from the slave trade. It took a century or more for consciences to wake up.
A century after that and there were still wars concerning its abolition, and slavery has not been eliminated, worldwide, to this day.
(top countries for slavery these days: Mauritania, Haiti, Pakistan and India. Two of those are countries with Islamic majorities.)

Conscience takes time and increasing awareness.

" I would like to ask you whether you have directly read the Qur�an of the Muslims. "
Yes. It formed a good part of my realising I should not be a Muslim, as reading the bible had done for Christianity.

"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 "
At one time indeed, it was most spectacular.
Unfortunately centuries have passed, and time, and science, has moved on. Often leaving those Muslims who wish to move with it in difficulty or danger.
"I want Muslims to question creationism, says [Usama Hasan] thephysicist and imam who has had death threats for supporting evolution"

". While this preplanned challenge between Islam and you..."
Let's see. The challenge appears to be coming from Islam, or at the least some sections of it. While numerous Christians have told me in a variety of tones that my beliefs mean I am heading for punishment in the afterlife, it was only someone most decidedly professing Islam who informed me to my face (not online) that my views merited the death penalty here and now as well.
How an I supposed to regard Islam, given this as personal experience, and discovering that Islam does not offer equality or reciprocity of respect to those of non-Islamic belief?
I am in no rush to attack Islam and see it as an enemy, but I see a shortage of reason to consider Islam my friend.
It assumes it has the one true perspective on things, for a start.
Now there's a one-sided basis for any interaction!

"Attempts to find answers to these questions will provide you with an appropriate opportunity to discover new truths. "
Are you, too, open to the possibility of discovering new truths? Including the possibility that Islam is not what you believe it to be? (Just the possibility, for now...)
If no, there is no real discussion or search for truth going on. Only a dogmatic position that it has been found, and that others should acknowledge it, if they are wise.
That's not a unique doctrine: it's found in any number of religions and faiths, quite diverse in what they hold to be true.

Yes, I have studied, read and thought. That's why I am an atheist.

Oh, and on "The recent events in France "
Not a word of horror or repudiation about the murders?

Chris.

",please share this letter "
Please forward this reply, too.

In the name of Allah. Salam.

I read this letter before here:

http://farsi.khamenei.ir/ndata/news/28731/index.html#en

Thanks for sharing it again. And please ignore the bigot comments of some people here. I am sure the message reached millions of thinking unbiased people.

Here it says it is translated into more than 40 languages:

http://www.abna24.com/english/service/important/archive/2015/01/27/667519/story.html

And read by hundreds of millions. And I am sure they will act by the letter inshaAllah :)

And please keep sharing such things on this website and many others. For such messages should reach the pure unbiased people who are not affected by the propaganda of their imperial-rapist-invasionist governments and media which are totally evil.

Thanks again. May Allah bless you and reward you.


Edited by kodoo - 04 February 2015 at 10:39am