[caption id="attachment_155884" align="alignright" width="229"] Mohammad Marandi (L), the head of Faculty of World Studies of University of Tehran, speaks during the forum on the letter by Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei to the youths in Europe and North America, March 16, 2015.[/caption]

A forum has kicked off in the Iranian capital city of Tehran on a recent letter by Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei to the youths in Europe and North America.

On Monday, scholars attended the conference titled “Seeking the Truth,” which was organized by the University of Tehran in collaboration with Press TV.

Mohammad Marandi, the head of Faculty of World Studies of University of Tehran, is present at the event.



The leader’s letter was aimed at informing the Western youths of the “hegemonic aspirations” of “the Western institutions of power” and never tried to pit one single ideology against another, said Mohammad Marandi.

Following the rise of such extremist groups as the ISIS and al-Nusra Front, Western media tried to depict Islam as a radical and violent ideology, Marandi added.



Further in the discussion, Abdul Alim Musa (shown below), the Muslim American activist and director of Masjid Al-Islam in Washington, also hailed the Leader’s letter, saying it was a reminder that we can fight the prejudiced representation of Islam in the Western media through educating the younger generation in the West.



Kevin Barrett, the London-based Islamic Studies expert, said the Leader’s letter warned that Muslims should never allow the Western media to portray their recruited terrorists as the representatives of Islam.



According to Barrett, the Leader made the remarks not only with regard to the ISIL group, but also about the fake terrorist groups that are active all over the world, like those who carried out recent operations that were carried out against French weekly, Charlie Hebdo, in the French capital city of Paris.

In January, Ayatollah Khamenei sent a letter to the youths in Europe and North America, urging them to study about Islam and to get firsthand information about it before accepting their governments’ propaganda.

Ayatollah Khamenei criticized “the Western governments’ insincere and hypocritical treatment” of other nations and cultures and said, “The histories of the United States and Europe are ashamed of slavery, embarrassed by the colonial period and chagrined at the oppression of people of color and non-Christians.”

The Leader said the humiliation and spreading hatred and illusionary fear of the “other” have been the common basis of the so-called superpowers in the West.

“Therefore, don’t miss the opportunity to gain proper, correct and unbiased understanding of Islam so that hopefully, due to your sense of responsibility toward the truth, future generations would write the history of this current interaction between Islam and the West with a clearer conscience and lesser resentment,” Ayatollah Khamenei concluded.

You can watch the event live on Press TV's website.

By Press TV