Message of Islamic Awakening

Interviewed by Elham Tofighee Tehrani

Omid Najafabadipour and Fatemeh Dehshiri Parizi are the Iranian cyclist couple who have passed through many Muslim countries with the aim of carrying the Islamic Awakening message to other nations. The young Iranian couple who are from Kerman, the capital city of Iran’s central Kerman Province, said they decided to take the Islamic world cycling tour with that slogan to ease their hearts of the insults against the Glorious Qur’an in the United States last year, against the Prophet of Love and Kindness (PBUH) in Europe a few years ago, and to pay respect to the entire monotheist faiths’ holy books and grand prophets (PBUH).

To get more acquaintance with them, we decided to hold an interview with them which you can find it as follows:

Q. Please introduce yourselves and tell us about your experiences on cycling.

A. I am Omid Najafabadipour graduated in Civil Engineering and my wife is Fatemeh Dehshiri Parizi who has been graduated in Mining Engineering and she is from Sirjan Township, Kerman province. As members of two athlete families, we started cycling since 2006. We also are interested in climbing and swimming and we have visited almost all provinces of Iran.

Q. How did you decide to start cycling around the world?

A. When the American Priest, Terry Jones, offended the Muslim’s Holy Qur’an two years ago, Omid in association with his 6-member team departed from Kerman by their bicycles and pedaled throughout the Iranian border strip and 16 provinces of country with the aim of showing their disgust at the offensive demeanor of that puppet of the despotic powers. When he came back home, we, Omid and I thought that it will be so great if we carry the message to the entire world.

Q. What countries did you visit?

A. It was our first travel abroad. We began our trip on September 11, 2011 concurrent with the anniversary of Qur’an Burning in Florida and the nasty plot against Islam (the peace and friendship religion) and Muslims. We departed from Kerman and after crossing Tehran and Mashhad, we headed to Turkmenistan through Bajgiran border. The other countries we visited in this trip were Kirgizstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Thailand, Malaysia, and Saudi Arabia.

Q. Since these types of trips are very difficult for women, why did you select a two-person trip rather a Caravan which made your mission more conspicuous to other nations?

A. Initially we decided to organize our trip in a six-person group, but unfortunately because of lack of financial supports we had to start our mission by our marriage loans. Fatemeh pedaled the whole path in the full hijab coverage while other women cyclers pose as men in order to protect themselves against possible risks. My wife showed other Muslim women that Hijab is not a hindrance to development and presence of Iranian and Muslim women in various areas.

Q. Mrs. Dehshiri, please tell us your bittersweet memories of this trip.

A. Cycling in crowded places for long times and pedaling in the mountainous regions of Kirgizstan and snowy heights of Tajikistan’s Pamir, Afghanistan’s insecurity and India and Bangladesh pollutions, passing the flooded region in Southern Thailand and pedaling in burning heat of Malaysia were very difficult; however the communications and interaction with people and various cultures and particularly Muslim people’s kindness sweetened the most difficult and unbearable condition for me and my husband.

Q. What was your trip’s target under the Islamic Awakening motto?

A. Sports play a significant role in carrying messages to other nations and the available information dissemination facilities may fail to carry all information on a nation to other ones; but, sports can play important roles in this issue. The target we pursued by the 6-month trip was introducing the great culture and civilization of Iran which is a symbol of piety, magnanimity, reputation, love, kindness, peace and fraternity. We intended to communicate closely with people who are interested in Iran, to make them familiar with the land of Hafiz, Sa’di, Molavi, Ferdowsi, Imam Khomeini and Ayatollah Khamenei. As you know most people of the world are getting to know that the sole rescue and bliss way for the mankind is grabbing the divine rope, and the revolutions in the Middle East and North Africa approve the belief that they are in line with the Islamic Revolution of Iran. As the humble servants of God, we decided to take some trivial steps in this issue. It is interesting to know that when we started our mission, the Islamic Awakening establishment had not been organized in Iran yet. Although our main motto in this trip was the Islamic Awakening, as the Muslim Iranians we seized any opportunity to commemorate the great position of Hazrat Muhammad (PBUH) and respecting all Divine books, particularly the Holy Qur’an.

Q. Regarding your mission as a proclamatory mission, how far did you achieve your targets?

A. Initially cycling such a long distance seemed impossible for us, but we relied on God and He helped us to pedal more than our capacity. So we invested our maximum energy to proclaim Islamic Awakening and we are so proud of doing such a beautiful and decent task.

Q. Please explain about the banner of your group which was embossed with an image of the Holy Qur’an.

A. One of the most important purposes of our trip was reacting against the offense a fist of puppets has committed against the Muslim’s holy book. Hence, the only picture of our proclamatory banner was an image of a Qur’an which is hugged by hands of a peaceful Muslim. The image was displayed anywhere we couldn’t proclaim. Both people and tourists took pictures from our banner and heads of Cycling Federations of our host countries, political parties and Iranian Ambassador to these countries signed the banner.

Q. What were your main plans in the trip? What did Iranian embassies do to realize such plans?

A. Some of the realized plans in this 8000-km path are: Visiting religious and historical monuments, old mosques; visiting mosque Imams, people and or tourists, Shiites and Muslims. In this way we have awarded some cultural gifts in order to illuminate and make people familiar with the outstanding Islamic and Iranian culture, brilliant reflection of our trip in audio and video media of the crossed countries and taking part in various TV programs, participating in seminars and meetings related with the Islamic Awakening, visiting Iranian and other schools and universities of these countries and awarding slide shows and showing slideshows of Iranian revolution and vistas and planting friendship sapling, visiting ambassadors and cultural ambassadors and other authorities Of Islamic Republic of Iran and organizing to hold photo gallery and trip achievements under the Islamic Awakening title. In the capital cities of the countries we were hosted by our cultural ambassadors and we asked them to organize various plans to reflect our trip in that country.

Q. Did you visit people or organizations active in the Islamic Awakening field during your trip?

A. In accordance with our target and purposes, we visited various groups and parties and high-ranking authorities. We also visited Persian language professors in Uzbekistan, journalism students in Kirgizstan, head of Islamic Movement Party in Tajikistan. We were invited to visit “Ali (AS) Symbol of Unity” in Kabul and took part in a morning live TV program called “Morning Visit” and experienced our first presence in a TV live program. The program is displayed by the Noor international and popular channel whose founder was Mr. Rabbani. While inviting Afghan youth to keep their unity in this program, we transferred message of Dr. Ali Akbar Velayati, Secretary General of the International Islamic Awakening Conference and Iranian people and we extended our heartfelt condolences on the martyrdom of Mr. Rabbani, the first Islamic Awakening martyr who has been martyred after taking part in the Islamic Awakening conference, to Afghans. Our arrival in Bangkok became concurrent with beginning of the Islamic Awakening in Thailand and we were asked to answer questions of audiences.

Q. What was your main purpose by choosing Mecca as your destination?

A. While crossing various countries and cities in our trip, we always promised people to proclaim all mottos and slogans gathered in the time from Mecca to Medina. We wanted to show the world how much Shiites are oppressed and to awake countries which are still sleeping.

Q. Mrs. Dehshiri, What is your opinion about women’s role in the Islamic Awakening?

A. Shoulder-to-shoulder with men, Iranian virtuous women played important roles during the Islamic revolution years and eight-year imposed Iran-Iraq war which is indicative of knowledge and political wisdom of women of Iran. I hope they continue their sacred way along with other classes of the society. It is clear that the revolutions of the region need to train and rear revolutionary, vigilant and Muslim youth who can guarantee their life and it will be possible only by pious and virtuous women. Women share in all decisions of a society and the recent revolutions as innocent newborns need to be protected against crooks and evils.

Q. Why did you choose these countries and how your mission was reflected in the foreign media?

A. Various criteria including vicinity to Iran and the fact that they belonged to our country many years ago, the Muslim population percentage, history and culture, path and climate etc. we referred to valid news agencies of the countries and reflected our presence and message there.

Q. Which countries gave the highest cooperation and welcomed your speech?

A. Except for the two first countries, other countries had a good space for the cultural works and we took advantage of the opportunities. We gained the best cultural results in Kirgizstan including presence among prayers and Komeil supplication at Bishkek’s Imam Ali (AS) Mosque, students and teachers of Kirgizstan’s Chingiz Aitmatov School; visiting Iranians in Bishkek, Human Sciences University of Bishkekt, professors and students, planting a fraternity sapling in the university’s campus, visiting journalism students of Kirgizstan National University, visiting historical and cultural monuments of Bishkek and conducting similar programs in Tajikistan and Bangladesh, etc.

Q. Please explain about your future plans in extending your activities.

A. We intend to continue such actions in the future and our next trips are the countries which have experienced Islamic Awakening revolutions and we wish to extend our congratulations to nations of these countries. Here, we seize the opportunity and take advantage of your popular magazine to ask support of all individuals and authorities who can help us in this jihad-based movement and visit us in http://www.iacomid.com/.

Q. What is your analysis of the Islamic Awakening movements? Have they been successful in achieving their goals?

A. According to the remarks of our Leader, Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei, these movements are victorious as long as they can maintain their integrity and unity and do not let their foes make schism among them. Although increasing extension of cancerous tumors such as Zionism, Bahaism, Wahhabism, Satanism and new-emergent Gnostics and false prophets and materialistic thoughts, nihilism, Pluralism, Darwinism etc. in the current world is very dangerous for monotheists, we emphasize maintaining the unity among the divine religions which are based on monotheism, we also stress the maintenance of unity among Muslims based on Qur’an and Sunna. We cannot neglect very beautiful and divine learnings of our infallible Imams, now we appreciate the real meaning of the Hadith: “Surely Hussein is the light of guidance and the ship of salvation”.

Q. While appreciating you for this interview, please say anything you think is important to our readers.

A. We were in the Islamic Awakening Conference in Malaysia where the notice for “Youth and Islamic Awakening” conference was published. We thought that we have started our movement before starting the first Islamic Awakening conference in Iran, and we have named our mission Islamic Awakening without any hint or prediction. Thus, we decided to finish our movement in the first Islamic Awakening Conference in Tehran, so we called the authorities of the conference in Tehran and asked them to permit us to participate in the conference. They accepted our request and we came to Tehran in spite of many problems, we succeeded to Visit Dr. Velayati, and he signed our banner as the last person and our trip was ended in Tehran and we interviewed with several reporters.

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