Ahlul Bayt News Agency (ABNA.ir), The first International Conference of Islamic World Publishers opened in Tehran on Sunday.
Muslim publishers from Islamic and non-Muslim countries are attending the two-day event, which is being held to enhance collaboration among Muslim publishers.
In the opening speech of the conference, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said, “The first mission of Islamic world publishers is to critique the Western world,”.
“The second mission is to produce Islamic products and export them to every place all over the world,” he suggested.
“Publishing books and developing scholarship are the two wings of cultural advancement. Writing books and producing ideas and culture and disseminating them is a divine mission,” he said.
He also warned against an organized worldwide Islamophobic movement, noting, “This movement not only is anti-Islamic but is also anti-Christian and against the thoughts of Prophet Moses (AS). Actually, this movement is anti-religion.”
Ahmadinejad said, “The biggest service to mankind is to introduce the reality of humanity to people. All prophets were sent for this purpose.”
He also pointed out the differences between Islamic and Western views on social life, saying, “In our point of view, the human being is a social creature and he can only flourish through interaction and communication with people.”
Commenting on the Western conception of human beings, he said that Westerners treat people like goods in a storehouse.
Elsewhere in his remarks, Ahmadinejad criticized capitalism, saying capitalists wage wars, killing millions of people to solve economic problems.
He said the U.S. economy is falling apart and its leaders “launched the Iraq and Afghanistan wars on the pretext of terrorism to gain control of their energy resources and fill the pockets of capitalists.”
Ahmadinejad rejected the concept of running the world based on materialism, saying it should be run based on justice.
He also said that liberal democracy has reached a dead-end.
“The Islamic Republic of Iran is not afraid of globalization. We welcome it because man is a global creature,” he stated.
Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance Mehdi Hosseini also spoke at the opening ceremony of the gathering, saying, “This conference emphasizes the belief that Muslims can and should form a single ummah (community).”
“Books are the best means of exchanging knowledge and culture, and publishers can play a great role in accomplishing this task,” he noted.
Publishers in Muslim countries have a greater responsibility compared to those in other countries, and “they can help promote Islamic culture and civilization.”
He also called on Muslim publishers to take action to introduce Islam to the world.
source : http://abna.ir
