IRAN: AYATOLLAHS INVITE CASTRO TO BECOME A MUSLIM

adnkronosinternational:

Tehran, 22 Nov. (AKI) - Iran's religious authorities in the holy Shiite city of Qom have officially invited Cuba's revolutionary leader Fidel Castro, to convert to Islam, according to Hojatolislam Mohammad Reza Hakimi, quoted by Iran's Farda news agency. "I met Castro together with the Iranian foreign minister, Saiid Salili, and gave him some sacred Islamic texts translated into Spanish," said Hakimi, who recently returned from a government visit to Cuba.

"We spoke with Castro for several hours, and I think I almost managed to convince him to become a Muslim," Hakimi added. "Castro certain that Cuba is suffering from a lack of spirituality, and seems very interested in Islam, above all in the writing of Iran's revolutionary leader, Ayatallah Khomeini," Hakimi continued.

Khomeini in 1989 invited Mikhail Gorbachev, former president of the Soviet Union, to renounce Communism and to convert to Islam. Gorbachev's political and economic reforms in the mid-1980s triggered the non-violent transition from authoritarian to democratic forms of government in Eastern Europe, and from state-controlled to more free-market economies.