Minister of Culture of the Islamic Republic Commends 'Jamiah al-Mustafa'; Exporting Revolution at the Expense of the Iranian People

On Wednesday, July 21, 2023, the Minister of Culture of the Islamic Republic, Mohammad Mahdi Esmaeili, praised the efforts of 'Jamiah al-Mustafa al-‘Alamiyah' in 'exporting the revolution to other parts of the world' and stated that the actions of this institution are 'a manifestation of cultural jihad.' According to IRIB News Agency, Esmaeili, speaking at the 17th conference of 'Managers and Representatives of Jamiah al-Mustafa' in Qom, regarded the record of this 'cultural institution' as 'a valuable asset and investment of the Islamic system' and said: 'A vast international network of this cultural and revolutionary institution has been established in important parts of the world, and its trained forces continuously enter the human resource development cycle of the discourse of the Islamic revolution.' He added that 'a significant part of the cultural missions of the Islamic world in various countries is carried out through Jamiah al-Mustafa' and mentioned efforts to attract a portion of the budget from state companies, banks, and companies under the Ministry of Oil to spend on the expansion of religious and cultural thought. While the Minister of Culture promises to increase the budget and pay more attention to institutions like 'Jamiah al-Mustafa' and the Islamic Propaganda Organization, the budget allocated to these two institutions in previous years has faced criticism from various segments of society. The Islamic Propaganda Organization and Jamiah al-Mustafa al-‘Alamiyah received 2300 and 895 billion tomans, respectively, in the 2023 budget bill. In the 2022 budget bill, Jamiah al-Mustafa al-‘Alamiyah received nearly 577 billion tomans, and in 2021, it received 465 billion tomans from the government. Findings from the 'Open Data Iran' database indicate that between 2012 and 2020, more than 2,500 billion tomans of public resources were allocated to this institution, an amount equivalent to the total income of 46,000 Iranian households. According to this database's report, comparing the annual budget of Jamiah al-Mustafa with the average apartment price in Tehran shows that between 2012 and 2020, the institution received funds equivalent to the average price of over 400,000 square meters of residential units in Tehran. The 'Open Data Iran' center also stated in its report that it is unclear where and how this volume of public resources allocated to this institution is spent. There is no official report on the performance of Jamiah al-Mustafa, but its managers claim that as a result of the activities of this institution, 50 million people worldwide have converted to Shia Islam through Jamiah al-Mustafa al-‘Alamiyah. Jamiah al-Mustafa al-‘Alamiyah has declared its goal as 'training jurists and scholars and promoting the pure Islam of Muhammad' in the world. Meanwhile, in 2020, the United States designated this institution as one of the 'centers of intelligence activities of the Quds Force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' and imposed sanctions on it. This center was formed in 2008 by merging two entities, 'the Organization of Schools and Religious Seminaries Abroad' and 'the Global Center for Islamic Sciences,' by the order of Seyyed Ali Khamenei. An official from the Ministry of Science stated: 'We attract twice as many foreign students from Islamic countries'; a look at the institution of Jamiah al-Mustafa amidst a shortage of medicine, the Ministry of Health is considering cooperation with the religious seminaries and Jamiah al-Mustafa.