Ayatollah Hossein Nouri Hamedani said in a meeting with Irans Education Minister, We must purge universities of anti-Islamic and atheist professors.
Nouri Hamedani, a senior cleric based in the holy Shiite city of Qom, said that devout professors had to be employed at universities to increase students spirituality.
Nouri Hamedanis comments come at a time when senior figures such as former President Ali-Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani have publicly complained about the extensive purges now underway throughout the bureaucracy. Many of Rafsanjanis protégés have been removed from their positions by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejads allies.
In the past 10 years, our universities curricula had been set up in such a way that there was an air of pro-Western inclination. But, in the present circumstances, we must change this state of affairs, he said.
We must not allow for Western thinking to rule centres of science and the countrys universities.
Universities are important and sensitive centres which educate the officials of the Islamic Republic. Therefore, if universities are not Islamic, we will face problems in the future.
Following the election of Dr. [Mahmoud”> Ahmadinejad as president, there has been a deep unity between theological seminaries and universities.
Hojjatoleslam Mohsen Qomi, the representative of the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in the countrys universities, also said, If religious seminaries help universities, then enemies can not take our values under question by creating various political currents.
