In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful
The respected and most learned Isfahani scholars of Isfahan Religious Seminary, may their blessings last:
I thank you for your respected letter, which was dispatched during my banishment from Turkey to Iraq, and expressive of your kind sentiments and sympathy for my exile. These banishments, imprisonments and tortures which I suffer for defending the progressive commandments of Islam, repelling the domination of the foreigners from the lands of Islam, and protecting from being robbed the independence and integrity of the Islamic states and the cradle of the Shi`ah faith, which is favored the Imam of the Age, may our souls be his ransom, are a matter of honor to the Muslim nation and therefore are pleasant and delightful. The sacred religious seminary and the old as well as new universities and the young class of the great Islamic nations should prepare and equip themselves for the dark periods, which one can envisage in the future when Islam would require to be defended more than ever before. With all its bewitching charms, you and I will leave this life. Thus, it is better that we spend our short life and remaining time to serve Islam and the Muslims, and to liberate the Muslim countries from the clutches of oppression, imperialism and despotism. You, respected gentlemen, must struggle and give up vain desires and expel love of worldly things so that you will be qualified to serve the luminous heavenly laws. Wherever I am, I do pray for the Muslim nations and especially the unsheltered Iranian nation. I fervently hope that due to His special favor to the religious seminaries, God, the Exalted, would sever the hand of the wicked and protect the Muslim countries from them. May God's peace and mercy be upon you.
Rouhullah al-Mousawi al-Khomeini