Dr. Shomali started by explaining the verse 34 of Surah Nur, where God makes an analogy of Himself to light.

His reference was to verse 35 of Surah Nur (light):

اللَّهُ نُورُ السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضِ مَثَلُ نُورِهِ كَمِشْكَاةٍ فِيهَا مِصْبَاحٌ الْمِصْبَاحُ فِي زُجَاجَةٍ الزُّجَاجَةُ كَأَنَّهَا كَوْكَبٌ دُرِّيٌّ يُوقَدُ مِن شَجَرَةٍ مُّبَارَكَةٍ زَيْتُونِةٍ لَّا شَرْقِيَّةٍ وَلَا غَرْبِيَّةٍ يَكَادُ زَيْتُهَا يُضِيءُ وَلَوْ لَمْ تَمْسَسْهُ نَارٌ نُّورٌعَلَى نُورٍ

Allah is the Light of the heavens and the earth. The parable of His Light is a niche wherein is a lamp —the lamp is in a glass, the glass as it were a glittering star— lit from a blessed olive tree, neither eastern nor western, whose oil almost lights up, though fire should not touch it. Light upon light.

Upon clarifying various dimensions of this verse and that it expresses maximum exposure.

He said that this light of God can be found in places which God has allowed to be elevated; special places which have become places for God’s remembrance.

Dr. Shomali explained that for a place to become special, the inhabitants must be special, and the house of the Prophet (s) is this mentioned place. He then narrated the question which the second caliph asked the Prophet (s) after the Prophet (s) explained this, about whether the house of Ali (a) is one of them, to which the Prophet (s) replied, “yes, and it is one of the best of them.”

Dr. Shomali concluded that the houses of the Ahlul Bayt (a) are like the house of the Prophet (s), both are special houses which God has permitted to be elevated.

After describing the significance of Qom according to the Hadith, and its proven accuracy through history, Dr. Shomali narrated the story of how Lady Masuma (s) came to Qom. He then gave a brief introduction to Lady Masuma (s), her name, and the value of visiting her shrine, for Imam Reza (a) has said that visiting Lady Masuma (s) is like visiting him, in the sense that you should expect anything you would have expected from Imam Reza (a), from Lady Masuma (s) too.

His reference was to verse 35 of Surah Nur (light):

اللَّهُ نُورُ السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضِ مَثَلُ نُورِهِ كَمِشْكَاةٍ فِيهَا مِصْبَاحٌ الْمِصْبَاحُ فِي زُجَاجَةٍ الزُّجَاجَةُ كَأَنَّهَا كَوْكَبٌ دُرِّيٌّ يُوقَدُ مِن شَجَرَةٍ مُّبَارَكَةٍ زَيْتُونِةٍ لَّا شَرْقِيَّةٍ وَلَا غَرْبِيَّةٍ يَكَادُ زَيْتُهَا يُضِيءُ وَلَوْ لَمْ تَمْسَسْهُ نَارٌ نُّورٌعَلَى نُورٍ

Allah is the Light of the heavens and the earth. The parable of His Light is a niche wherein is a lamp —the lamp is in a glass, the glass as it were a glittering star— lit from a blessed olive tree, neither eastern nor western, whose oil almost lights up, though fire should not touch it. Light upon light.

Dr. Shomali stated that everyone has been given some light to begin their journey with, enough to start the journey. Referring to this verse, he explained that it is our decision whether to use this light to move towards higher levels of light, or lower levels of light, if we do not take Allah as our guardian.

Dr. Shomali stated that although the light of some of the creation may not be visible to us now, such as the light of the Earth, but all will be clear on the Day of Judgment, where God says the Earth will shine with God’s light. He explained that we can feel the light in the face of the pious in our worldly life, but on the Day of Judgment it will be obvious, even to the hypocrites, who will request to take some of the pious peoples’ light.

He continued to explain the other parts of this verse as well.

After introducing the institute, H. I. Mohaddes pointed out to what he called three important aspects of Shia Islam: Intellect, that there should be no conflict between faith and intellect, Comprehensiveness of Islamic teachings, to cover all aspects of life, and the spiritual and moral aspect of Shia called Mysticism by Muslims, but mistaken as Sufism by Westerners.

The guests asked about how the life of a cleric is. In response, the life of a cleric was described, and the path to reaching religious knowledge was illustrated. It iwas also explained that the path to become an expert in Islam often takes some twenty years, studying all sorts of subjects, such as, Arabic grammar and literature, logic, economics, principle of jurisprudence, etc.

H. I. Mohaddes also talked about how he was motivated to become a religious cleric. Later, inter religious dialogue, and their benefits, such as enhancement of ethical and religious beliefs, were discussed.

The guests talked about their experience of Hijab, which was followed by a long discussion on repenting, the proper way to repent, and the importance of keeping one’s dignity, even while repenting.

Father Eduardo began by mentioning that Muslims and Christians should forgive and forget the events occurred in the past, as Jesus has commanded in the Bible, and stressed the importance of forgetting, to have a necessary and much needed dialogue between the two religions.

Dr. Shomali explained his opinion about the Islamic understanding of rationality, spirituality, and justice, and Father Eduardo expressed his impression.

Dr. Sarvardi went on to talk about various levels of justice in Islam about which Brother Joseph stated that “we are here to share justice and we are just in our first steps towards a long-term dialogue and that the main part of Christianity is philosophy”.

One of the guests talked about the ease of a dialogue with the Christian faith since both religions share the same bases. Sheikh Barati pointed out to the relationship between the two religions, in the early history of Islam and that the mercy of Christians has been reflected in Islam as well.

At the end of the session, the two guests expressed their gratitude for the meeting and exclaimed, “When many of you are talking I feel like Catholics are talking. It is a spiritual experience for me and I am talking to spiritual masters.”

After H. I. Mohaddes’s introduction, Ayatollah Alidoost delivered his speech. First, he talked about the NPT, and its weaknesses, and then he explained how Islamic rulings are issued. Pointing out to hadith and Qur’anic verses, he described the Islamic stance regarding weapons of mass destruction, and the prohibition of using such stealth. He also explained about the various kinds of religious rulings, whereby fatwa holds a position of absolute certainty, therefore, a possible change is impossible.

The board explained that the fatwa was not a new understanding of Islam regarding such weaponry, and the Islamic understanding regarding the usage of weaponry existed from the beginning of Islam, but with respect to the technology of that time.

The meeting was followed by a question and answer session where issues such as conflict of fatwa and military needs, Takfiri and Salafi opinions compared to the Shia regarding WMDs, history of Fatwas on WMDs etc. were discussed.

At the end, one of the guests expressed that he was surprised about the qualities of a fatwa, and was uninformed on that. He believed this would make a significant difference on the issue.

The guests were female activists mostly from Austria and Switzerland, operating for EPIL – European Project for Inter-religious Learning. This group were mostly Christian.

The group was introduced to Dr. Shomali and then he welcomed them to the institute and introduced himself, the institute, and the Seminary of Qom.

He then proceeded to answer the questions asked by the group members, and they included topics such as, the role of philosophy in dialogue, the dependency of the Seminary on the government, to which Dr. Shomali replied that the Seminary is independent; nevertheless, the relation with the government is good, even with the Seminary criticizes the government at times. Other subjects such as, peace and war studies, failures of religion and religious people through history, English publications of the institute, how the institute is funded, male and female international students and the freedom of religion in Iran were also discussed.

In that meeting, first the IIIS’s deputy of research, H. I. Mohaddes introduced the IIIS and its academic activities and then Finnish guests asked their questions regarding academic activities carried out in the IIIS and in the seminary of Qom and raised some discussions regarding the current global religious happenings in the world.

Some of the questions and answers were as follows:

Q) Who are the students studying in the seminary of Qom and which countries do they come from?
A) H.I. Mohaddes: The students are mostly Iranian but non-Iranian students can also study if they pass the entrance exam. There are some limitations about the entrance exam therefore they mostly go to Al-Mustafa International University. Our entrance exam requires students to have the knowledge usually acquired in ten years of seminary education therefore many applicants fail. We have accepted only 3 foreign students this year and in previous years we had only 1 PhD student.

He added, “However, we can organize short term courses for those who have not passed the exam; and the curriculum beside the Seminary classes are titles such as Jurisprudence, philosophy of ethics, spirituality in Islam, religions, principles of Jurisprudence, theology, Islamic philosophy, etc.”

Q) Who funds the institute? Is it the government?

A) H. I. Mohaddes: No, the Islamic seminary is funding. Islamic Shia seminary works using Khoms (one fifth of Shia Individuals’ interests) which is non-existent in the Sunni seminary and is received by Islamic authorities (Maraji’) during the time of Occultation of our Twelfth Imam (aj).