Ayatollah Khamenei's views on religion & intellect
Pars Today- Human being has done its best throughout history to meet his needs as he has been created a poor creature. However, the big danger lying in lurk for him is false recognition on the one hand and prescription of false responses to his needs on the other hand.
What the divine messengers have brought to take men from this perilous pass is no more than instructions in the form of divine revelation. The holy Qur'an is the unique, priceless and healing guide which has been sent down for man by Almighty God through Prophet Mohammad (Blessings of God upon him and his progeny).
Human being will not reach calm, tranquility and satisfaction in this world except with seeking help from this grand book and enjoying it scientifically.
The holy Qur'an teaches realities which the man of the 21st century, despite all material progresses that he has made, had never been able to know them. Once these realities are revealed to man and he puts them into action, they will make him powerful and happy.
Therefore, only those who are taught with the Book of God will be able to come out of manifest error and leave the course of destruction.
Enjoying the holy Qur'an will materialize only through getting close to and having continuous relation with this luminous source. What you are going to read has been adopted from Ayatollah Khamenei's book, "General Plan of Islamic Thought".
In the name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful,
Alif, Lām, Rā. [This is] a Book We have sent down to you that you may bring mankind out from darkness into light, by the command of their Lord, to the path of the All-Mighty, the All-Laudable.
Contemplative translation of ayah 1 of surah Ibrahim
"This is a book We have sent down to you that you may bring mankind out from darkness into light." So that you may be able, with the permission and help of your Lord, take these people out from the darkness of ignorance and lead them to light. The benefit of light is to illuminate the rout and the result of darkness is that man does not know what he should do where he should go!
The seeds are under the soil. Over there is darkness over darkness. What makes these seeds to become alive and sprout out of that deep darkness and tight place to reach the luminous and bright space are the drops of rain falling from the sky. The story of us, human beings, is like those seeds as we are captivated in this terrestrial world full of darkness.
And the ayahs of the Qur'an are the very drops of rain that have stemmed from the sea of divine knowledge and come down to the Prophet's celestial heart to give life to human beings, to take them out from darkness of ignorance, disbelief, oppression, corruption, sin and discord, and take them to the world of light, the world of knowledge, the light of belief, the light of goodness and the light of unity and solidarity.
Why should there be a prophet? Why should someone come from God to guide human being? Isn't human being himself able to do it? Isn't the human knowledge and thought sufficient? Prophet? Why? Acting as a messenger between the unseen and the seen, why?
We are not talking that much about the philosophy of prophethood. One word only, and that is, the human senses, human instincts and human intellect are short of guiding and directing human being.
Some creatures might be administered with their senses. [But human being] needs a superior force, a more powerful guidance which is deeper than the guidance of sense, than the guidance of instinct, than the guidance of intellect. What is the use of this guidance? Has it come to compete with your senses? Has it come to oppose your instinct? Has it come to hinder the way of your intellect? Never. It has come to guide the intellect, to train intellect, to take out the buried intellect from under tons of soil.
Pharaohs do not like people to have intellect. They do not like human beings to understand, because if they understand, their existence will perish and become a myth.
So, what has religion come for? For guiding intellect, to take the hand of intellect. Intellect is there, but, once desire is beside it, it cannot judge properly. Intellect is there, but, when avarice is adjacent to it, it cannot see properly. When bias is beside it, it cannot understand properly. It [religion] takes desires, inclinations, avarices, fears, biases from intellect; strengthens healthy, perfect intellect [and] approves it so that it understands well.
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