Overview
Headquartered in the Iranian holy city of Qom and with affiliated religious seminaries and Islamic colleges in over 50 countries, Al-Mustafa International University is one of Iran’s main arms for the dissemination of Khomeinist ideology abroad.
Al-Mustafa International University is tasked with training the next generation of Iran’s foreign Shi’a clerics, religious scholars, and missionaries. Since its establishment in 2007, approximately 30,000 pupils have graduated from Al-Mustafa, with many going on to subsequently teach for the university or serve as Shi’a missionaries in various countries, spreading Iran’s Khomeinist ideology around the world. It is estimated that Al-Mustafa has 40,000 foreign students enrolled at present, roughly half of whom are studying at campuses within Iran. Many Al-Mustafa graduates are selected by the Iranian regime to establish religious and cultural centers in their home countries, where they can then recruit students and inculcate loyalty to the Islamic Revolution among local populations.
Iranian Backers
Iranian Backers: Al-Mustafa was founded in 2007 by Iran’s current Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who directs its activities and is the school’s highest authority. In 2016, Iran allocated $74 million in its budget to Al-Mustafa, and it is believed to receive more funding from the Office of the Supreme Leader and from his vast business and charitable empires.
The groundwork for the establishment of Al-Mustafa University was laid in September 1979, when Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, one of the Islamic Republic’s founders considered the spiritual forefather of Iran’s reformist faction, formed the Council for Managing Non-Iranian Seminarians’ Affairs in order to attract non-Iranians interested in studying revolutionary Shi’a Islam in Iran. The Council established numerous branches abroad, particularly in Africa, and “sought to provide ideological training to foreigners in Iran and, if possible, in their home countries. It also supported foreigners in building infrastructures for ideological propaganda and networking in their home countries.” In 1993, Supreme Leader Khamenei ousted his rival from the institution and set about modernizing it, establishing one section for foreign students in Iran and one for ideological training outside Iran. In 2007, the two divisions merged into a unified Al-Mustafa International University.
The current chairman of Al-Mustafa, Ayatollah Ali Reza A’arafi, is a hard-line member of Khamenei’s inner circle whose name has been floated as a potential successor for the position of Supreme Leader. During the early portion of A’arafi’s revolutionary career, he played a key role in Khamenei’s push to “Islamize” Iran’s university and seminary system, moving as head of the Office for Cooperation between Clergy and Hawza (seminary) to replace standard humanities textbooks with versions compliant with Khomeinist ideology. During his tenure as head of Al-Mustafa, A’arafi “has magnified the regime’s efforts to export its revolutionary ideology, building a colossal infrastructure in Iran and dozens of other countries toward this end and constructing a sophisticated international network rooted in strengthened ties with groups like Lebanese Hezbollah and partnerships with other academic, religious, or political institutions or individuals”.
Revolutionary Activities Abroad
Exporting Iran’s Islamic Revolution is explicitly stated as the core goal of Al-Mustafa University. Addressing Al-Mustafa’s students studying in Iran in 2010, Supreme Leader Khamenei said, “The first lesson that the Islamic Revolution and the auspicious Islamic Republic taught us was that we should think beyond our borders and turn our attention to the vast arena of the Islamic Ummah. … Part of the great work is what you are doing. You have gathered here from nearly one hundred countries in order to become familiar with the pure teachings of Islam,” referring to Iran’s Khomeinist ideology. In 2016, Al-Mustafa’s vice president declared, “Export of revolution has always been one of the most important goals for the Islamic Republic. Al-Mustafa plays a role in preparing the ground and attain this goal. Al-Mustafa has used the Islamic soft power in the region and prepare the ground for Iran’s hard power (military) to be present in the Middle East and successfully oppose the global arrogance.”
Al-Mustafa offers a generous package of financial incentives to entice students, in effect buying their loyalty to the Islamic Republic and the Supreme Leader. The majority of students pay no tuition and are given enough money for them and their families to travel to Qom for their studies. Al-Mustafa’s Farsi website states that, “students in its Iran campuses receive monthly stipends and are provided with free housing, home loans, health care for the students and their families and child care for children. It offers financial support for families, school for children, professional education and job for spouses as well as summer camps for them. In foreign branches, students also receive a wide range of financial assistance.”
Al-Mustafa’s diffuse international presence anchors subjects loyal to Khomeinist ideology in societies around the globe and serves as a fertile recruiting pool for Iran’s Quds Force, the foreign expeditionary arm of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). There have been reports of Al-Mustafa students, particularly from Afghan and Pakistani backgrounds, joining the Iran-backed militias fighting in Syria to preserve the Assad regime. According to the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, the core members of the Pakistani Zainabiyoun Brigade, an IRGC-trained elite volunteer outfit fighting in Syria, come from Al-Mustafa University. A similar Afghan brigade also claims Al-Mustafa alumni among its ranks. In a July
In addition to providing the ideological underpinnings that inspire a portion of its students to fight for Iranian interests in Syria, Al-Mustafa trains clerics around the world to spread Khomenism in their home countries. The university boasts a presence in over 30 African countries and claims to have 5000 African students enrolled, including 2000 studying in Iran who return home several times a year for missionary purposes. Al-Mustafa operates several branches in European countries, most notably the Islamic College of London. Graduates of Al-Mustafa such as Italian cleric Abbas DiPalma have gone on to form Iranian cultural centers in their home countries, such as the Imam Mahdi Center in Rome. Al-Mustafa has also dispatched Lebanese graduates as missionaries to Latin America, where they seek to create inroads with expat communities and proselytize among local populations.
In December 2020, the U.S. government levied terrorism sanctions against Al-Mustafa International University under Executive Order 13224. It accused Al-Mustafa of enabling the IRGC Quds Force’s “intelligence operations by allowing its student body, which includes large numbers of foreign and American students, to serve as an international recruitment network.” Additionally, the U.S. Department of the Treasury noted that some of the Afghani and Pakistani fighters that deployed to Syria under the command of the IRGC were recruited at Al-Mustafa. The Chairman of Al-Mustafa Alireza Arafi called the sanctions “shameful,” adding that “pugnacity, persecution and seeking supremacy and oppression is hidden and visible in the foundation of the arrogant rule of the United States; the most obvious manifestation of this abhorrent move is the violation of human values.” While claiming the moral high-ground, Arafi paid no heed to the fact that his government sent the often poor Afghani and Pakistani fighters, including children, into battle as if they were “cannon fodder” to bolster the Assad regime, said Phillip Smyth, an expert on Shi’a militias.
Indeed, educational institutions are difficult to sanction, which makes them effective covers for the spread of radical ideologies and recruitment into extremist groups. Iran’s entire network of mosques, Islamic centers, charities, and institutions, known collectively as Dawah systems, are “generally untouchable from the counterterrorist financing perspective due to legal and practical issues,” according to the Hudson Institute. Moreover, Dawah systems are not easily shut down, even when they are suspected of aiding and abetting terrorism. A 2019 Europol report emphasized this point precisely: “one of the difficulties in closing down centers…is the providing of substantial proof [of their link to terrorism].” In other words, evidence of the Dawah systems’ true reason for existing often eludes the relevant authorities.