Spectacular literacy progress, the key to Iran’s success

Iran has one of the highest literacy rates in the world, as confirmed by UNESCO, which records over 97 percent.

Thanks to the Founder of the Islamic Republic’s all-out campaign to promote education at every level of the society, Iran has made dazzling academic, scientific, and technological progress by becoming the most literate country in the region between Europe in the west, Japan in the east, and Russia in the north – ahead of China and Turkey by a few points, while the populous Subcontinent countries of Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh, despite their British background, trail far behind with UNESCO rates of 65, 63, and 57 percent respectively.

In this regard we have prepared an article for you written by the staff writers of Kayhan International under the heading: Spectacular Literacy Progress, the Key to Iran’s Success.

"Seek knowledge from the cradle to the grave,” is among the famous sayings of the Messenger of Mercy, Prophet Muhammad (SAWA), to whom goes the credit of enlightening the minds, hearts and souls of mankind with learning at a time when the world was immersed in ignorance, idolatry, arrogance, and superstition.

As a matter of fact, the first Divine Revelation to dawn upon the Prophet started with the word "Iqra”, which means "read” – a word God has repeated in the third Ayah of the same Surah, and then said that He the Almighty has taught mankind.

No wonder, Islam attaches so much importance to knowledge and considers its acquisition as among the superior acts of Muslims – who transformed the fate of the human race with significant achievements in all fields, including technology and natural sciences at a time when Christian Europe was steeped in darkness.

In Islam, there is no separation between science and religion, or for that matter the state, all three of which are considered complimentary to each other, as is evident by the role played by the "Madrasah”, which meant both the seminary and the academy, where experimental sciences like physics, astronomy, archeology, medicine and mathematics were taught along with the holy Qur’an, jurisprudence, and theology, as well as philosophy and statecraft.

The renaissance that revolutionized Europe is indebted to the Latin translations of the works of Muslim scientists and philosophers, and so also the Industrial Revolution that followed and left the Muslim World behind because of the decadence that had set in.

This provided the technologically advanced European colonialist powers the opportunity to seize Muslim lands, plunder their resources, destroy their culture, drive a wedge between them and their religion, and impose upon them client rulers, who were more loyal to their masters in the West than to be concerned about the welfare of their subjects.

Towards the end of the 19th century, thinkers like Iran’s Seyyed Jamal od-Din Asadabadi emerged and with their pan-Islamic ideology ushered in reformation movements transcending national boundaries to awaken political, religious, and educational consciousness amongst Muslims, despite the impediments placed in their path by Britain, the colonial culprit-in-chief.

Though nation states emerged after World War 2, it was the spectacular triumph of the Islamic Revolution in Iran under the enlightened leadership of Imam Khomeini (RA) that awakened the Ummah and established a truly independent republic governed by the dynamic laws of Islam, to the chagrin of the West, especially the U.S. – the ‘Great Satan’ as that Sage of the Age called it for its policy of keeping Muslim countries dependent and backward.

In obedience to the Prophet’s famous saying quoted in the opening line of this Viewpoint Column, among the first steps taken by the Father of the Islamic Revolution was to order public mobilization for uprooting illiteracy by launching the Literacy Movement Organization.

Part of his historical declaration reads: "Without wasting time and without any unnecessary formalities, we launch the movement for rapid uprooting of illiteracy so that, God-willing, everyone would be able to read and write in the near future.”

Today, four decades later, Iran has one of the highest literacy rates in the world, as confirmed by UNESCO, which records over 97 percent.

Thanks to the Founder of the Islamic Republic’s all-out campaign to promote education at every level of the society, Iran has made dazzling academic, scientific, and technological progress by becoming the most literate country in the region between Europe in the west, Japan in the east, and Russia in the north – ahead of China and Turkey by a few points, while the populous Subcontinent countries of Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh, despite their British background, trail far behind with UNESCO rates of 65, 63, and 57 percent respectively.

It is no exaggeration to say that the universities in Iran which teach almost all subjects including nuclear science, stem cell technology, aerospace, and artificial intelligence, are ranked amongst the world’s top academic institutions.

In view of these facts, it is not a matter of surprise to see the failure of the most intricate plots of the U.S. to try to undermine the Islamic Republic Iran through an intense policy of economic terrorism.

It is also not an astonishing factor to witness the prowess of Iran’s hypersonic weapons alongside with those of Russia and China in the three-nation joint naval maneuvers that were conducted in the northern part of the Indian Ocean over an area of 17,000 km, to the exasperation of Washington, which had threatened to roll back the Islamic Republic’s growing influence in the region.

These astounding achievements are all due to education based on spiritual values that ensures success in life and guarantees salvation in afterlife, thereby making the Islamic Republic of Iran a role model for people of the region aspiring to break free of the American yoke.

AE/SS