An Islamic regime is unlike material doctrines and regimes. All the efforts of the material schools of thought are to improve farmlands! All their efforts are directed towards possession of houses, to have welfare, those who speak the truth, whereas the objective of Islam is loftier than these things. The ideology of Islam is not a materialism ideology. It is a material-spiritual doctrine. Islam accepts materialism under the protection of spirituality, Spiritualism, moral behavior and purification of the soul. Islam came into being for the purification of the soul of human beings; it came into being for the making of human beings. All the monotheistic doctrines have come for molding human beings. We have a duty to mold human beings. You ladies, who took the trouble of coming here, have a duty to build human beings, have a duty to rear pious human beings in your bosoms. The objective of Islam and of all the prophets is to educate people; to mold human beings into spiritual and genuine humans. In the opinion of the prophets, it is important that those human beings are made righteous. If a human being is trained, then all problems are solved. A country that has pious human beings has solved all its problems. An enlightened and pious human being will secure all the dimensions of happiness for the country. A human being who has faith in the Sublime and Glorious God is a devoted human being. A human being who is pious will cut off the hands of the tyrant, but this is not the only objective. This is one of the services that he renders. He secures freedom for the people. But this is one of the objectives; this is not all. He secures independence for the country; but this is not the only objective. He secures the welfare of the people but this is not the objective.
A human being is not an animal. A human being is a creature that can attain the highest levels of happiness; that can achieve the highest levels of perfection among all creatures; and if he is deviant, then he is meaner than the meanest of creatures. Prophets who saw that the people were totally astray from the point of view of morality; from the point of view of beliefs; from the point of view of deeds were inspired by the Sublime and Glorious God to save the human being with all the aspects that he had. If a human being were an animal like the other animals but an animal that has intelligence, an animal that is industrious, if he was such, then there would be no need for the prophets to come because this path is a path that the materialists themselves understand quite well. The coming of the prophets was to teach mankind those ways of which he is unaware; those truths that a human being does not know. Prophets came to guide towards a higher status, to a more sublime humanistic status. The Quran is a book that shapes human beings and has come in order to build human beings. It is not a book to mold animals; it is not a book to restore materialism; it is everything. It trains a human being in all his dimensions. It acknowledges materialism under the shelter of spirituality; and gives spirituality precedence over materialism.
Sahifeh, vol. 7, Page: 472-473
Speech, May 29, 1979