Hawzah News Agency- at the beginning of the meeting with Head of Iran's Seminary Ayatollah Alireza Arafi at the cultural center of the Iranian Embassy, a number of Orientalists and experts on Iran presented their views on the development of cultural and political relations between the two countries.

The senior Iranian cleric pointed that Oriental, Iranian and Islamic studies in some countries are not complete since they do not know the two important institutions of the seminary and the university accurately as well as their differences.

The scientific studies in Iran has two wings, the university and the seminary and that the activities of the seminaries are not limited to cultural affairs, but it has a background of more than a thousand years. It is engaged in both scientific and intellectual fields, he explained.

Referring to his familiarity with many Orientalist encyclopedias, he underlined that Orientalism, and Islamic and Iranian studies in Russia are more advanced and reliable than European countries.

“In the West, sometimes we are faced with the issue of Orientalism and Islamology, that despite using modern methods, they are less familiar with seminaries, which, of course, from this point of view, Russian Orientalists and Iranologists are ahead”, he added.

Ayatollah Arafi has traveled to the Russian Federation at the invitation of Mufti Sheikh Ravil Ainuddin, the head of the religious administration of Russian Muslims, to participate in the international conference "Spiritual Silk Road."

In the continuation of his travel plans, Ayatollah Arafi met with Russian experts in the field of Iran and Islam. He also met several senior Russian officials, including First Deputy Speaker of Russia’s State Duma (lower house of parliament) Alexander Dmitrievich Zhukov and discussed bilateral relations between Tehran and Moscow.