Question: Would you please introduce yourself to our readers and viewers?
Answer: I am a sociologist from the University of Akhen in Germany; my main subject research work is interaction and communication between Islamic World and western world. I work with the department of civilizations and one of my subjects is the Muslim women from the view of Europe. I am also studying and teaching philosophy mainly in intercultural philosophy.
I am teaching in the university but mostly I do research work. I also give speeches in several academies context and I'm involved also in Muslim Women of Germany
Question: Please tell us how did you come to know about personality of Martyr Ayatollah Motahhari for the first time?
Answer: The first time was the time of the beginning of the Islamic Revolution and I was at the University in Germany. I've had a lot of friends from Iran and so I was a follower of the revolution and they told me about Martyr Motahhari. We hadn't had a lot of translated publications in Germany in English language at that time but they told me a few of his books and articles I could read. His books and articles impressed me very much and this was the reason why I also became very fond of reading more books and knowing more about him.
Question: As you know Ayatollah Morteza Motahhari is considered among the important influences and the ideology of Islamic revolution. He was also a disciple of Ayatollah Khomeini during the Shah's regime. To what extent do you believe that he was inspired by the personality of Imam Khomeini and how his ideology helped tenets or main principles of the Islamic Revolution be accepted by the intellectual community, compared with other Islamic government systems?
Answer: Well, I think that he was very much influenced by the character of Imam Khomeini because he was a student of him, Imam Khomeini had a deep knowledge not only of Islam but also of the society for example, and he knew a lot of things that other Islamic scholars didn't know. Ayatollah Motaharri followed him in this idea of Islamic society and also in Islamization of political government and he was a thinker of society and knew how to govern. Fore example he wanted to make sure that the Iranian people would not be following the western model and not following the eastern model but inventing something new the Islamic state and the Islamic society. In his works he gave some advices that how to do so and he also was a great philosopher and he knew about the classical philosophy and he could accept in for taking something from it to be confronted to the West. He could answer to the west from an Islamic point of view and this is I think a very important advise to do so also in our times that we could not restrain from the western world and cannot say we do our own thing but for exchanging of ideas and knowledge and of rational things you have to know also enemies and I think this could be a very good model also for our times.
Question: Considering the issue of Islamo-phobia at the present time, how Ayatollah Motahhari as an intellectual preserved the ideals of Islam from any kind of distortion or perversion?
I think that the problem at his time was not the problem we confront now because Islam was very weak at that time, it was not real count of part from the west it was nothing but a little bit of culture and it was no taken seriously from the west and therefore Islamophobia was not as strong as it is now. Islamophobia for me is a kind of racism and like other variety of racism it’s a question of power, it is a question of repression. It does not depend on Islam but it depends on the oppression of the Islamic people. It is a question of governments around the world and not accepting another culture another system of thinking and another religion and because what Islam as seems as a kind of power and this is because of this power that all these hostilities come.
Question: Generally what's the role and impact of personalities such as Imam Khomeini and Martyr Ayatollah Motaharri on Islamic Awakening?
Answer: I think that they are very outstanding people they cannot be a model for everybody because they are so far from everybody in knowledge and also in their own way of life. For example Imam Khomeini lived a very simple life and he was a model in confronting any type of aggression against women. When I look at his own family we don't need so much discussion about the women rights so if you only look at him and his own family then we know enough that was what we had to explain to non-Muslims and its right to discuss it in conferences and so on, also about the Islamic Awakening but we also can just take them as a model of life and Ayatollah Motaharri's thoughts is very important because on the one side he was very open for all natural sciences for psychology, sociology, philosophy of the best but he has had an his own standpoint he knew, he didn't follow the western model, for example what he said about biology of men and so on also political confrontation of communism, communism is gone but we should take it as a model to be confronted with the now a day philosophy and political issue. It means we have to analyze we don't like and then we had to reflect what can say to people who are believing in western politics
Considering Imam Khomeini's thoughts as well as Martyr Motahari what are the main opportunities and threats and confrontations of Islamic governments according to current regional developments
The main threat is what now exists because you know after falling of the communism the western thought that they our winners of the history and societies the only thread is Islam and specially Iran. I think we have to read a lot of the books from Martyr Motahhari and Imam Khomeini not only reading it and repeating it but we had to transform it into a modern thinking to confront the today's world. I think we can find a lot of examples how to deal with it and this movement of Islamic awakening is a good thing if we don't only remember what has been in the past but we had to reflect it what can we learn to deal with the problems today
Question: Please more elaborate on the significance of preserving unity among the Muslim Nations.
Answer: Well Imam Khomeini as well as Martyr Motahhari, they were very much concentrated on unity. They understood that it was an idea of the enemy that make diversity among Muslims in many ways and for example what Martyr Motahhari said about unity now after decades became important and we have to avoid everything that makes our enemy strong to divide Muslims. And the war is not on the religious level, it's on the political level.
Question: How about the cultural level?
Answer: I think the cultural level is the place that the war is going on; in the deeper sense it’s the economical matter as Marx put emphasis on it.