The issue of high-speed Internet has once again become a hot topic in the Iranian media with two prominent clerics addressing the issue and taking opposing sides. According to Ensaf News, Ayatollah Mohammad Reza Nekoonam, a prominent cleric in Qom, defended high-speed Internet during a question-and-answer session with university students in Tehran.

“We have put so much pressure on the Internet that our Internet is at the [speed] of a wagon,” Nekoonam said. “I say that instead of becoming like snails, let’s get on this world train. I have told my seminary students that it is necessary for you to sell the carpets underneath your feet and go buy a laptop or tablet. I said if you are not able to speak to a billion people, you are not worth anything. A Muslim is someone who is civilized, not someone who is an idiot.”

Nekoonam said that the debate over high-speed Internet is no different from those over the introduction of other technologies. He said it was the same when loudspeakers arrived, and some clerics initially called them haram. Then they said the same thing about the radio, then television, then video, and now there are satellites everywhere.

He compared the Internet to “a free mule” in that one should jump on and told others who don’t know how to use it to get out of the way, adding, “They don’t know how to us the Internet, use Facebook, so they say all of it is haram.” He warned, “The world has grown, and it is not in our hands, and it will grow more than this.”