Our website has conducted an interview with the scholar to know his views on a range of issues regarding the history of the Islamic Revolution.
The internationally-reputed figure has been among foreign guests attending this year’s passing away anniversary of Imam Khomeini in the Iranian capital, Tehran.
The transcription of the interview comes as following:
Question: Could you please give us a short introduction of yourself?
Answer: My name is Hassan Slim I’m a Lebanese living in Germany I have got a PHD on electronic engineering from technical university of Berlin.
Question: So tell me about the reason for traveling to Iran?
Hassan Slim: It’s my first time travelling to Iran to know the culture better. In addition, I wanted to participate in this ceremony to know the interaction between the Muslim people, means it is good get together of people around the world for a Muslim scholar so I’m here to analyze the opinions of them.
Question: And how much are you familiar with Imam Khomeini’s character and personality?
Hassan Slim: The background of my knowledge about Imam was made in Lebanon, in the time of the Islamic revolution, the culture now a day in Lebanon especially the Shiite community is influenced by this revolution. I can remember the day Imam Khomeini passed away, I was 13 and that day my mother was crying seeing his funeral ceremonies from TV. We all believe that the Islamic revolution caused a great improvement in the Islamic societies, so I consider myself very near to the Iranian revolution.
Question: Do you think that the Iranian Revolution has made any differences in your current country’s policy?
Hassan Slim: As you know there are many sects and religions in Lebanon, Before the Islamic revolution Shiites literary had no power but as soon as the revolution occurred they started to empower and also people started to feel strength internally, no one ever knew the Lebanon Shiites could stand against Israel those days, the Islamic revolution helped Lebanese mentally, because they had a living example in front of them so they started to believe themselves and stand against Israel and hopefully they were so victorious and this was a big surprise for the Islamic world and Arab society so that’s why the Islamic revolution made a great step for the Lebanese Shiite societies.
Question: Of course there are some problems and struggles between Shiites and Sunnis do you think that they can overcome these problems considering Imam Khomeini’s thoughts and opinions? Not only these problems but also the whole world’s problems?
Hassan Slim: Once Islam and Muslim people were having the most influence in the whole world those arrogant powers needed to reduce the Islam’s influence so the only effective way was to cause a struggle within the Islamic societies, because they knew Islam could be so powerful so they had to crack it, so they started to work on the beliefs of the Shias and Sunnis societies, they had to make Muslims societies misunderstand the real teachings of Islam so they interpreted it in a wrong way “whatever is against your opinion you should react toward it in an extreme way”, Imam Khomeini was always emphasizing on unity among Muslims, and he knew that we have two Islam in the world which one of these two were artificial and he also knew that the unity between Muslims could empower Islam that’s why he always recommended on peace and unity between Muslims, we should solve our problems ourselves through such meeting. Muslims have followed Imam Khomeini in the beginning but unfortunately when Wahhabis gained powers, they could create a wave against the Shia in the world we can notice that they can open a mosque everywhere in the world and start to propagate their radicalistic idea and this is the problem, and until we can’t find a solution for this radicalistic ideas Islam will weaken.
Question: how do you think about the solution?
Hassan Slim: Well, as I said I live in a very powerful western country I noticed that the Shia can be more organized, we don’t need a lot of money to organize people, we can support our clerics as Wahhabis are supporting theirs’, also we can support moderate Sunni scholars, just to prove that the history of Sunnis is moderate, we should go to the media of each country, we should find the scholars that can write and can speak on the TV in a moderate way, in the western world the people can only read about the radicalistic Islam because there the propaganda is in the hands of the Wahhabism
Question: How the media in your own country presents the Iran’s policy and the Islamic revolution of Iran?
Hassan Slim: In German Media they say that Iran’s policies are radical and they are conservative and they use such vocabularies but people there are educated so if there is a good ad knowledgeable Muslim Scholar there they can be easily informed and would accept it
Question: As the final question can you describe Imam Khomeini in a few words?
He had a very moderate character and this inspired people to be around him, because they saw in him a very revolutionary character, he also was a great supporter for the oppressed people, he was a powerful man and the leader of a Muslim country though the material was not important to him he adopted a very simple life, and that’s the reason that he has many admirer in the world.