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Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei Correspondent
Recent incidents in France and similar ones in some other Western countries have prompted me to directly talk to youths in Europe and North America.

I am addressing you, 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 quest for truth is more vibrant 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 portray this great religion as a horrifying enemy. The provocation of a feeling of horror and hatred for vested interests 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 brief review of critical studies of history in the recent past would point out 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 notorious for slavery, colonialism and oppression of people of colour and non-Christians. Your researchers and historians are deeply ashamed of the bloodshed 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 even centuries?

Why should the collective conscience be more concerned about the distant past and not the current problems? Why is it that attempts are made to prevent public awareness of the way of Islamic culture and thought is being treated?

You know well that humiliation and spreading hatred and illusionary fear of the “other” have been the common base of all oppressive vested interests. 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 marginalised and remain latent? What concepts and values in Islam disturb the programmes of the superpowers and what interests are being safeguarded by 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 response to the massive array of mis-propagations against Islam, try to gain a direct and first-hand knowledge of this religion. Common sense calls for understanding 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 the 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 and ethical doctrines? Have you ever received the message of Islam from any sources other than the Western mass media?

Have you ever asked yourself how and on the basis of which values had Islam formed the greatest scientific and intellectual civilisation of the world for many centuries and raised the most distinguished scientists and intellectuals?

• Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran.