New partnership between Iran & Libya

Iran’s Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki says the Islamic Republic and Libya will set up economic, political and cultural committees to promote bilateral ties.

“We hope that with the formation of these committees a new era of partnership will begin between the two countries”, Mottaki said in a meeting with Libyan Prime Minister Baghdadi Mahmudi in Tripoli, IRNA reported on Friday.

The two sides discussed the prospects of developing joint oil and gas projects and constructing factories, roads and hospitals.

For his turn, the Libyan prime minister said that he would make sure necessary measures were taken to support all Iranian firms, who are willing to establish joint companies in Libya.

Mottaki also met his Libyan counterpart Musa Kusa on Friday. Bilateral relations between the two countries and the recent developments in the international arena were among the issues discussed in the meeting.

source

Iran and Libya have formed parliamentary friendship group, said a member of Iran's Parliament National Security and Foreign Policy Commission Heshmatollah Falahatpisheh.

Iran-Libya group involves 11 parliamentarians and Libya-Iran group includes 15 members, he said.

The two sides will pursue the issue of Shiite Leader Imam Musa Sadr and expansion of Iran-Libya relations, he told ISNA.

The parliament member then continued Libyan Parliament Speaker has invited his Iranian counterpart Ali Larijani to visit the country.

source

Imam Musa Sadr’s Quran Exegesis to Be Published

Entitled “Quran Exegesis”, the series has been translated into Persian for the first time by Mehdi Farrokhian and Ali Reza Mahmoudi.

It includes interpretation of Surahs Ikhlas, Naas, Falaq, Ghadr, and Takaassur, as well as a discussion titled “New Reflection on Quran and Tafseer (interpretation)”.

The series is to be published in 3000 copies by Imam Musa Sadr Cultural and Research Institute.

Born in Iran in 1928, Imam Musa Sadr became a prominent Shia scholar and thinker. He went to Lebanon in 1960 becoming a religious, social and political leader there. During a visit to Libya in 1978, he disappeared along two of his companions.

source

Conference honors Sadr, pays tribute to imam's principles

The Moussa Sadr Center for Research and Studies held a conference dubbed “Man in the Vision of Imam Sadr” on Saturday at the UNESCO Palace in Beirut to promote religious dialogue and honor the principles of disappeared Imam Musa Sadr. Speaker Nabih Berri was present at the gathering as well as Youth and Sports Minister Hussein Abdallah representing President Michel Sleiman, State Minister Mona Ofeish representing Prime Minister Saad Hariri and an array of political figures.
Head of the Sadr Foundation and sister of Imam Moussa Sadr gave a speech during the gathering in which she recalled the ideas of the imam. She referred to the imam’s definition of a “Man” as a being “of free will who forms part of the universe; a being active in its society and a being made by God.”

Rabab Sadr then explained that the imam believed caring for an individual meant caring for his society as well. “A society is made by men and nothing is imposed to it from the outside. What happens inside a society comes from the regimes men has made,” she said.
Imam Sadr was an Iranian-Lebanese cleric who disappeared in 1978 along with two of his colleagues during a visit to Libya.
Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi was suspected of holding the men hostage but the charges were never confirmed.
Representative of Maronite Patriarch Cardinal Nasrallah Butros Sfeir, Archbishop Shukrallah al-Hajj, read Sfeir’s address to the conference.
He said that religion served men and not the opposite and that religion was men’s revolution against oppression and injustice. He then talked about the role of all Lebanese in preserving their diversity and said Imam Sadr wanted Lebanon to be a model of diversity, freedom and democracy in the Arab world.

Sheikh Hisham Khalifeh, who represented Grand Mufti Sheikh Mohammad Rashid Qabbani, said that Sadr’s vision of “Man” was that of Islam and was based on three principles: the mortality of mankind, equality between all people and equal rights for everyone. “We should work on spreading these principles in our societies,” he added.


Vice President of the Higher Shiite Council Sheikh Abdel-Amir Qabalan said Sadr’s memory was still alive and the fight to reveal the truth about his disappearance was still strong. “If the case of Sadr should die then human values would die with it,” he said.
Qabalan added that all religions were one when they serve Man and God but that disagreements occur when each religion starts serving its own goals. He then presented a documentary about Sadr’s life and teachings.

Father Ibrahim Saad then read the speech of His Beatitude Ignatius IV Hazim the Greek Greek Orthodox Patriarc and said Sadr spoke in the name of justice and made everyone think of Man and God at the same time.

Sheikh Ghassan al-Halabi representing Druze spiritual leader Sheikh Naim Hassan said Sadr saw Lebanon as the land of gathering where the individual alone had little value. “Man is the purpose of being and the beginning of society,” he said.

source