TEHRAN, Dec. 24 (MNA) – A former colleague and classmate of Mohammad Taqi Manteqi Boroujerdi (also called Harun Munis) has accused him of Faustian pact with the Devil.
Dr. Hojjatoleslam Mohsen Alviri, an Imam Sadeq University former colleague and classmate of Manteqi during 1980s, in an article published in mobahesat.com vilified him as flawed in terms of personal characters and conduct in the family and community of seminary school; “I had a long acquaintance with the hostage-taker when we were students of seminary course in Imam Sadeq University; now, with the hostage-taking in Australia, the example from one of country’s most important religious and academic centers would provide caveats to other seminary students,” wrote Dr. Aliviri, “the review of distant memory of Manteqi’s peculiar conduct in the university has yet produced no enough explanation as to his going strayed from the path of prudence and common sense,” he added.


“Here, I want to answer the question why Manteqi (Harun Munis) deviated from the spiritual highways so promoted and advertised by the religious centers and seminary schools; I have no doubt that Manteqi had suffered spiritual turbulences; if my memory helps me enough, from 1982 to 1986 he displayed very unusual character; he fluctuated between two extremes of being strictly disciplined in seminary course work and his personal conduct, and being inconsiderate of anything including his religious duties; there was a time when he questioned the foundations of the religion; other times he was a repentant from his sins; but in a short time, he was breaking his vow, renouncing his repentance and was in the middle of his abominable acts of rebellion against all norms and rules governing the religion and ethics,” elaborated Dr. Alviri, believing that however, “these attributes would not prove clinical or juristic symptoms of insanity, but definitely signaled his instable character and turbulent feats of passion for irreverence of the sanctities.”


The larger portion of Alviri’s article is a long reference to the authorities in Shia Islam about the possible sources of individual’s pact with the Devil, which is called Satan in Islam. “How an individual who was student of the seminary school and sought to serve the humanity from the paths the religion offered to him, now could be in the abyss of the ingloriousness and notoriety whose death proved to be a good source for colonial and imperial powers to feed on for their propaganda against Islam and the Household of the Prophet,” asks the article rhetorically, seeking an answer in the narratives and tradition of the Prophet Mohammad and his predecessors.


“He would have been a good server of the religion of God; but a pact with the Devil made him servant of the Satan; he joined the army of the evil; the question is still open, waiting for the judgment of the reading public,” the article concluded.


Harun Munis, reportedly a convert to Sunni Islam from Shi’ism, took hostage a group of Australian citizens in a cafe and was killed by police during an operation to release the hostages. The news story garnered mixed reactions inside Iran. The Iranian government announced that it had requested Australian government years ago to extradite Manteqi who was given verdict of guilty on serious crime and felony charges by an Iranian court, which however was rejected on the grounds that two countries had not signed an agreement on extradition of prisoners.


Other circles interpreted it as a conspiracy by the west to vilify Iran and Islam in general. The event was coincided with Australian police operations to control the wave of ISIL-related acts of crime earlier months, exacerbating the public hatred toward both events.


By Mehr News Agency


The Iran Project is not responsible for the content of quoted articles.