In his message to the closing ceremony of the International Congress on the Role of the Shi’a School in the Emergence and Development of Islamic Sciences held in Mashhad, Ayatollah Makarem Shirazi stated: “The dissemination of Islamic Sciences was one of the reasons why Imam Rida (‘a) accepted to be appointed Ma’mūn’s successor”.
According to the news headquarters of the International Congress on the Role of the Shi’a School in the Emergence and Development of Islamic Sciences, Ayatollah Naser Makarem Shirazi sent his video message to the closing ceremony of the congress which was held in the Quds hall of Imam Rida’s holy shrine. In his message, he thanked the scholars and thinkers who had participated in the congress and state: “After extensive research, we realized that the role of the Shi’a scholars in the emergence and development of Islamic sciences is still obscure to people”.
He also stated that, not only do the non-Shi’as not have much information concerning the role of prominent Shi’a figures in the development of Islamic sciences, but the Shi’as themselves are not much aware of this; he then continued: “this was why we felt such a congress was necessary to be held in order to shed light on the contributions of the Shi’a school to the development of Islamic sciences”.
His eminence also added: “The Imam provided us with clues and our great scholars followed up those clues which resulted in a lot of invaluable scientific achievements; these achievements, therefore, must be made known to all Muslims and non-Muslims”.
Ayatollah Makarem Shirazi, then, noted: “we invited to this congress over 400 Iranian and foreign researchers and they worked with each other to compile the list of the Shi’as’ scientific achievements in to several bulky books”.
He also asserted: “these researchers along with the various committees of the congress worked hard over the past two years and the result of their extensive research was more than 50 books; these books contain lists of the contributions of the Shi’a school to the development of Islamic sciences, some of which have been obscure to us ourselves too”.
His eminence further noted: “the reason why we decided to follow the congress up in Mashhad after the congress was closed in Qom was to emphasize the significant role of Imam Rida (‘a) in the emergence of Islamic sciences”.
He then discussed the reasons behind Imam Rida’s acceding to Ma’mūn’s order, who wanted the Imam to accept to be appointed his successor; he stated that one of the reasons behind this was that the Imam had a great chance to promote and disseminate Islamic sciences this way. He also asserted: “it seems fitting to further study the contributions of the Shi’a school to the development of Islamic sciences here, by the holy Shrine of Imam Rida (‘a), so that some books could be compiled in this regard and translated in to different languages”.
