ABWA Official Website – On Tuesday, January 3, 2023, on the sideline of the “Lights of Guidance” exhibition, the session “International Opportunities for Propagating Islam in Virtual Space” was held in the Ghadir Conference Hall of the Islamic Propagation Office of the Seminary in Qom, participating the seminary professors.
In this session, while expressing his gratitude to the AhlulBayt (a.s.) World Assembly for holding the Lights of Guidance exhibition, Hojat al-Islam Dr. Mohammad Mahdi Chegini stated, “This exhibition provided a good opportunity for small institutions, as well as preachers active in the international arena to get to know and synergize with each other.”
The deputy for international affairs of the Office of Islamic Studies and Seminary Communications of the National Virtual Space Center stated, “The number of Muslims in the world is increasing, and Islam has the fastest growing rate among religions. So that according to the statistics of reliable international centers, Islam will be recognized as the first religion in the world in the near future.”
“We are worried about the tendency of the world people towards Wahhabism,” he added, “In virtual space, Wahhabis are very active, and they spend a lot of money on propagating their belief.”
Regarding the method of global propagation of Islam, Chegini said, “First, one should learn the up-to-date principles of international propagation of Islam. In the next step, it is the turn of social networks. Using the Internet to propagate Islam is highly effective due to the lack of time and place restrictions, as well as low costs.”
“A global audience is looking for a global environment. We cannot expect them to come to us and visit our website. The method of propagating Islam in virtual space should be taught in the living languages of the world, and seminaries have a great weakness in this regard. Of course, we cannot deny the limitations of our country due to filtering. But it should be kept in mind that the requirement to introduce Islam in the world is to work on the international internet,” added the deputy for international affairs of the Office of Islamic Studies and Seminary Communications of the National Virtual Space Center.
“The most important platforms for continuous and in-depth discussions about the introducing Islam on the internet are not Facebook and YouTube. Rather, there are about 40 specialized websites in this field that our experts are answering questions in this space,” he concluded.
“By God’s grace, we could get significant feedback in the shortest possible time. There have been many visits to our preachers’ accounts. In addition to accurately introducing Shiite beliefs, we have tried to show the real face of Wahhabism to the world,” Chegini said in the end.
It should be mentioned that on the establishment anniversary of the AhlulBayt (a.s.) World Assembly, the exhibition of the achievements of institutions and organizations active in the international propagation of Islam, entitled “Lights of Guidance” is being held from Saturday, December 31, 2022, until January Thursday 5, 2023, in the conference hall of the Islamic Propagation Office of the Seminary.
It is also worth noting that the AhlulBayt (a.s.) World Assembly was established on December 31, 1990, with the aim of gathering Shiites, establishing relationships within the Shiite world, promoting Shiites seminaries, solving the problems of Shiites with other Islamic Denominations, and benefiting from real and legal capabilities of Shiites.
The Assembly was established by the order of Grand Ayatollah Khamenei, the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution, on December 25, 1990, with the aim of introducing the revolutionary foundations, and thought of the Islamic system of Iran to Shiites all over the world. /345/