اعلام آمادگی حوزه‌های علمیه ایران برای همکاری با نُجَباء

In a meeting between the secretary-general of al-Nujaba with the head of the Centre for Communication and International Affairs of the Islamic Seminaries, it was discussed:

Announcing the readiness of the Islamic Seminaries of Iran to cooperate with al-Nujaba

During a meeting with Hujjat al-Islam al-Kaabi, the head of the Centre for Communication and International Affairs of the Islamic Seminaries announced the readiness of the Islamic Seminaries of Iran to cooperate with al-Nujaba.

According to the Communication and Media Affairs Centre of al-‎Nujaba in Iran‎, Hawzah News Agency published a report on the meeting and consultation between the secretary-general of the al-Nujaba Islamic Resistance movement and the International Deputy of the Islamic Seminaries of Iran, the full text of which is as follows:

In the meeting with Hujjat al-Islam Akram al-Kaabi, Hujjat al-Islam Seyyed Mofid Hoseyni-Kouhsari appreciated the activities and achievements of the al-Nujaba Islamic Resistance movement and said, “Since al-Nujaba is associated with Wilayat al-Faqih (Guardianship of the Jurisprudent), there are more sensitivities towards it and I think this movement must be privileged in all areas. I am glad to hear that your activities have gone beyond the military and entered the fields of culture, thought and social services.”

I was aware of your media activity but the rest of your report was new to me and of course, it is a source of happiness and joy, and I think that after entering these fields, you must try to be a role model in all fields in Iraq and even in the region because you are also present outside of Iraq and I know that many individuals in Iran and Lebanon appreciate your activities and we, on behalf of the Islamic Seminaries, thank and appreciate these activities. There are points in this regard that I will mention if you allow me.

The first point is this: As the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution [Ayatollah Khamenei] said, the Islamic Revolution and the entire Islamic ummah must have a single goal and everyone must be ready for it, and that goal is nothing. Except for the new building of Islamic civilization, which, naturally, although this goal was far from reach and mind in the past but in recent years, especially after the Islamic Revolution and the victories of the Islamic Resistance, we have come to the conclusion that if we rely on the power and will of Muslim nations, we can make incredible achievements by relying on the power and will of the Muslim people. The Supreme Leader emphasizes that we must raise our activities and efforts to the level of a civilization, and for example, if we work in the field of education, this education must be at the level of a civilization and present it and if we work in the field of propagation, our propagation must be at the level of a civilization, and if we have research, it must be at the level of civilization and civilization-building, as well as in the field of resistance and all the other activities that we have must be in such a way that we have a civilizational view in all of them and of course, we must note that such an activity will not be easy and simple, but rather it has its own complexities that require thought, spirit, planning, vision and manpower.

The second point is this: As you know, the Islamic Republic of Iran has experience in the field of culture and education and of course these experiences may be reconsidered in your use, which I will mention some of these experiences.

We have experience in documentation. There are some upstream and underlying documents in the field of cultural issues in Iran, such as the document of cultural geometry of the country and the document of the progress and development of education and the document of elite affairs and the comprehensive document of the scientific progress of universities, which are numerous documents in Iran. These documents have been prepared by experts in the field and the university and our strategies and principles are included in these documents. Naturally, as each of these documents has been prepared and arranged by experts in the seminaries and the university, our strategies and principles are included and available in these documents.

Use the experiences implemented in Iran

The third point is that some suggestions and experiences are available in Iran and can be used for you, such as the experience of fighting illiteracy and eradicating it in Iran. In addition, we have about thirty such projects with experience to implement them.

and in any case, we believe that cultural work and activity requires a large and upstream document, and we as the Islamic Seminaries are ready to cooperate in these areas and it is good to know that many of these plans and programs have origins in the Islamic Seminaries and their origins go back to the Islamic Seminaries because now there are more than 200 seminary institutions and centres with various activities in the Islamic Seminaries of Qom, for example, some of these institutions are working in the field of cooperation with the Ministry of Education. For example, there are institutions such as the Welfare Organization that are responsible for helping orphans and the disabled, and there are some seminary groups that provide counselling and educational services in this organization, and in general, the Islamic Republic and the Islamic Seminaries can be used as experiences and of course, some of these experiences are unknown outside and even inside Iran and I would like to mention some of the abilities of the Islamic Seminaries in particular.

Education of more than 120,000 students in 500 seminaries

Currently, more than 120,000 seminarians are studying in 500 seminaries and about 80,000 women are studying in more than 500 seminaries for women. In total, we have 200,000 students, men and women, and 30,000 of our students are Sunni men and women who study in 100 special Sunni seminaries. In addition, 20,000 foreign students are studying at al-Mustafa International University, which has more than 40,000 students, including its branches abroad.

The activity of 4,000 students in 19 academic associations of the Islamic Seminarians

From this group, about 4,000 of them have specializations that work in 19 academic association of the Islamic Seminarians, and in each association, about 200 or 300 students are active in academic activities in their specialized fields, as well as another collection in Islamic research and studies and virtual education that have seminary activities and in any case, there are opportunities and capabilities in the seminarians, and we are ready and willing to cooperate by exchanging experiences and serving you, and of course, your activities are diverse, and we think that your abilities can help you to reach high and privileged ranks in Iraq.

Opportunities for cooperation between Iran and Iraq are high

One of the opportunities available in the seminaries are seminarians who are familiar with the Arabic language because in Iran we have students whose mother tongue is Arabic and most of them are in Khuzestan, they have propagation experience outside of Iran and in addition, there is a group of students who have learned Arabic and all these groups have the opportunity to cooperate and we can introduce the teachers and missionaries you need from among these people.

In the case of outside Iran, some collections have partnerships and cooperation with us, and of course, we are more willing to cooperate and partner with you. We also have a plan to collect Arabic sources and sources and categorize them so that we can introduce these sources, which can also be a good opportunity for joint cooperation.

Expressing a desire to hold joint courses ‎

Especially in the case of upstream documents and holding joint courses, if you want to ‎cooperate, we can appoint two representatives from the parties to follow up and ‎coordinate matters and my suggestion is to appoint a joint committee or two ‎representatives to design and implement practical and workable proposals by avoiding ‎imaginary goals and plans.‎

Performing cultural activities alongside military work

At the beginning of the meeting, Hujjat al-Islam Akram al-Kaabi, the secretary-general of Iraq’s al-Nujaba Islamic Resistance movement, spoke and said: “In addition to its military activities, the al-Nujaba movement also paid attention to cultural activities and work. Our cultural activity in the past was secret because our forces were actually involved in military activity.”

After the end of the military operation, some of our brothers took part in the elections and political activities, but al-Nujaba decided to turn to intellectual, cultural, social and service work, so we refused to participate in the elections and yet we supported the political activities of Iraq and some of our movements, especially the Islamic Resistance movements.

The general reaction of the Iraqi people to the activities of the al-Nujaba movement

The cultural activity of al-Nujaba was quickly accepted by Iraqi society because they faced the warriors who serve their society without considering worldly goals and they spread the culture and thought of the Ahl al-Bayt in society and this was one of the benefits of not running in the elections, and in addition, the political forces reached a mentality that did not consider al-Nujaba as their rival. Based on this position and trust among political parties, we were able to act as a mediator and reformer among the parties and to solve some problems. On the other hand, we were able to provide better services to the people by taking advantage of some government facilities.

A look at the cultural activity of al-Nujaba in the cities of Iraq

At first, our activity started gradually and was in the form of a six-month plan, and then, the second six-month plan began, and gradually we established cultural institutions in all provinces and cities, and we also built mosques in some cities. Among the two mosques in Baghdad, the third mosque will be opened soon, and we have built mosques in the cities of Basrah, Mosul and Kirkuk, and we have even operated in Sunni areas, and in these areas, we have good acceptance, and soon our mosques in Nasiriyyah and Samawah will also be inaugurated, and in other governorates, we also have an approach to make mosques our cultural bases and have a significant presence in mosques.

We believe that the cultural and social problems of Iraq are due to the distance of the people from the mosques, and unfortunately, the Iraqi mosques are abandoned, and many of them are mosques related to certain parties that propagandize for certain parties and movements and only the followers of that party and movement come and go to that mosque, we were able to fill our mosques with people so that all people come and go to the mosque and let no one feel that al-Nujaba is a party, government or political movement. We used this position and allowed everyone, even associations composed of men or women and scouts, to be active in mosques because we consider the mosque to belong to the people of the region, even we did not raise the name, emblem and flag of al-Nujaba in the mosque although everyone knew that al-Nujaba operates in a certain mosque, all activities took place in the name of the mosque.

We designed various programs to attract people to the mosques in order to attract the youth and the opposition to the mosques, and we launched various sports, entertainment and cultural programs in the mosques, and we even held remedial lessons for the mosque students.

We tried to make all our religious, sports and cultural programs attractive and in practice, we were able to achieve good results.

One of our activities was the establishment of specialized research centres in Iraq, one of which is the al-Nujaba Special Research Centre, which sets the roadmap for this movement.

Establishment of primary schools, kindergartens and universities in Iraq

Among the other activities we have been involved in is the establishment of primary schools and kindergartens, and in this regard, we established a school and this year we will open a kindergarten and now we currently have a project of establishing a university on the agenda, which will open in Basrah next year. It will be a university with comprehensive fields including pharmacy sciences, medicine, law, management, etc., and we are looking to complete and receive the necessary authorization for this university.

Next year, we will establish a high school in Baghdad, and these activities will be completed day by day, because we started our work gradually and divine grace encompasses us.

In the field of media, all al-Nujaba’s activities took place under the name of the al-Nujaba movement, the Islamic Resistance and as an extension of Wilayat al-Faqih and our activities were not in the name of a specific person or party.

We tried to communicate with all the guilds and associations and to establish mobilization cells in all the governorates and our project in this field is called the project of one million ready forces, the purpose of which is spiritual, moral and cultural building. We do not have difficult conditions for our acceptance and we accept anyone who wishes in al-Nujaba. One who joins al-Nujaba is trained according to a special program and within a few months, the number of troops that joined us increased and we decided to use these forces constructively and with their help, we held demonstrations in support of the Muslims of Yemen and Bahrain.

We also have the Risalat al-Nour Institute in Najaf, which engages in charitable activities but its headquarters are in Najaf and its other office is in Baghdad.