Diary of Akbar Hashemi - March 25, 2001 - Participation in the Sheikh Tusi Festival in Qom and Listening to the Speech and Report of Seyyed Hassan Rabani, Head of the World Center for Islamic Sciences

Participation in the Sheikh Tusi Festival in Qom and Listening to the Speech and Report of Seyyed Hassan Rabani, Head of the World Center for Islamic Sciences

Full Diary Entry:

At seven in the morning, we set out for Qom. After visiting and reciting Fatiha at the graves of my mother, brother, and sister, we went to the World Center for Islamic Sciences for the "Sheikh Tusi Festival," which was held to honor non-Iranian scholars studying in Qom. This was the third edition of the festival; it included a call for papers and books, with prizes awarded to the best submissions. Notably, one-third of the winners were women. The quality of the research was commendable. There are about nine thousand foreign seminarians from 91 countries, and the submissions are in Persian, Arabic, Urdu, and English. Two researchers explained their studies, and Mr. [Seyyed Hassan] Rabani, [the head of the World Center for Islamic Sciences], presented the report and offered a welcome.

I also gave a detailed speech about the importance of knowledge as the foundation of civilizations and the significance of research as the basis of knowledge. I emphasized that research in the areas of freedom, tolerance, and avoidance of fanaticism and dogmatism thrives. I highlighted that the presence of so many seminarians from various nationalities provides a suitable ground for the research and development of Islamic knowledge and human sciences, and I awarded certificates of appreciation to forty distinguished individuals.

We returned to Tehran. I worked in my office until sunset. A Russian airplane was hijacked from Turkish airspace and has landed in Medina. The hijackers have identified themselves as Chechen and are demanding an end to Russian military intervention in Chechnya.