In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful
Response to the doubts of the Soviet Union newspapers
Once again today certain articles have appeared in the Russian newspapers, and one in particular was translated for me which was entitled" Islam, the opium of society." When we take a look at the governmental systems of the world, we see that there are systems such as the monarchical system or the republican system, and there is the system of the Islamic government. In studying the latter, we should look at the written text of Islam to see what the nature of Islam truly is. Is it an opiate? Did its message invite the people to indolence and lull them to sleep? One only needs to study the Qur'an, which is the written text of Islam and which holds precedence over all other documents in Islam, to find the answer. Those who read the foreign newspapers and listen to the foreign propaganda should not accept everything they are told without first making their own investigations into their claims and finding proof for them, for to do otherwise is to act contrary to human nature. It is not within man's nature to simply accept anything he is told without first seeking proof for it.
Sometimes it is propagated- as it was in the newspaper yesterday- that" Islam is the opium of society," and sometimes we hear that" religion is the opium of society." This kind of propaganda is not new, it has a history, and it was started in order to distance this Muslim nation from the Qur'an and Islam. One should ask oneself what the basis for making such claims is. Why a journalist on the other side of the world does in Russia write that Islam or religion is the opium of society and what does he hope to achieve by writing such an article? The basis for this article lies in the fact that they (the imperialist countries) want to exploit you and your country, they want to colonize your country and take whatever (resources) it has. In order to do this they must first remove those things that they feel may form an obstacle to their plundering so that they can freely do whatever they want to. What constitutes a barrier or potential barrier to their plans, and what should they do about it? One of the barriers is Islam, Islam itself, or religion in general. They have carried out their studies, and it is on the basis of these studies that they have reached this conclusion and that they make their plans. They have studied the Qur'an, they have studied the religion of Islam and have discovered that the Qur'an is such a book that if the Muslims follow its teachings closely, they will deliver a punch to those people who want to come and dominate them. The Qur'an says that God, the Blessed and Exalted, will never consent to the dominance of non-Muslims over Muslims. Such a thing should never happen, they should never gain the upper hand, there should be no way open for them to do this:" And never will God grant to the unbelievers a way over the believers." «1» The polytheists should find no way open to them to do this and the corrupt powers should find no way to hold sway over the Muslims.
They (the imperialists) have carried out their studies and have seen just what Islam's stance is in this regard, what the Qur'an and the other Islamic texts say on this matter. They realize that were the Muslims to become aware of Islam's stance, were they to adhere to the teachings of the Qur'an and Islam, then it would sound the death knell for them and their plundering and domination. So what must they do to ensure that they remain in control and are able to continue with their plundering? They must distance this nation from Islam. The same applies to other religions too. This propaganda was not something that existed five hundred or one thousand years ago, it began when the Europeans penetrated the countries of the East and found them to be good prey. So they studied ways to devour this prey and it was from then that this kind of propaganda began. They used it first against other religions, but this was to prepare the ground for their attack on Islam, for the other religions were not so important to them. This propaganda was used as a precursor so they could go on to belittle Islam, to knock it from the position of great respect it enjoyed among Muslims and to distance them from it, so they could plant this idea in the Muslim mind that Islam is a religion which came to put the society to sleep so that the powerful people could devour the society! This is what they say their logic but it is not logic, and with this propaganda and those words they want to distance you from Islam. So when our youth read in a newspaper, a book or a journal that Islam is the opium of society, should they just accept it without question? Should they just read it and then say" yes, that's right"!? To do so is to act against one's Islamic and human nature. It is human nature to seek proof for any matter which is not evident; man does not accept something without first questioning it.
The text and history of Islam, the reason behind Islam's dynamism vis-a-vis the plunderers
So we have to carry out our own investigations to see whether Islam, which is documented in the Qur'an and the books of hadith, is really as they say it is. Does the Qur'an opiate the society so that the tyrants can devour the society, so that the kings can devour the society and do whatever they want to do, impose whatever rule they want? Or is the Qur'an other than this? We do not have to conduct an in-depth study to find the answer, a cursory glance at the Qur'an is sufficient. It takes only a cursory glance to see how many times the Qur'an mentions battle and against whom it tells the Muslims to wage war. So many of the verses in the Qur'an are concerned with battle and its rules; so many of them encourage the Muslims to take up arms, even order them to do so. And with whom does the Qur'an tell the Muslims to do battle? The answer to this question is not difficult to find, it does not require learning and careful investigation: the Qur'an encourages the Muslims to join battle with the polytheists. In Hijaz hostilities first began when the Holy Prophet was residing in Medina; he only had a few followers, but still they did all they could. Before that, when the Muslims were in Mecca, it was the time for laying plans and for development. There, the polytheists did not give them the opportunity to do anything. Those rich and powerful polytheists did not let the Prophet carry out his mission in Mecca. During the years that he was there, Mecca was like a prison for him- just as Iran today is like a prison for the people there but I don't want to make comparisons. When he despaired of being able to achieve anything in Mecca, and he saw that he could carry out his mission better in Medina, he secretly and quickly established underground links with the people of that town, and they prepared for him to go there. So he migrated to Medina, and shortly after he had done so, the battles began. It was the Qur'an, which is the text of Islam, the source of Islam, which called upon him to do battle, many battles. With whom did he do battle?
They (the imperialists) say that Islam is the opium of the society, that Islam has come to rock the lower social classes, the poor, to sleep, so that the powerful elite can exploit them and consume their resources! They even say that religion (in general) was created by the powerful elite for this very purpose, so that it would prevent the people from hindering them in their aims and so that the people would take everything lying down! So let us take a look at the many battles which took place in Islam at the time of the Most Noble Messenger. We will not concern ourselves here with the period after the Prophet, only the time of the Prophet himself when there was the text of Islam, that is, the Qur'an and the teachings that it brought for man, with no annotations, for it is this which they ( \the imperialists) say the powerful elite invented in order to colonize the weak and the poor and exploit their resources. Let us take a look at these battles to see whether they were battles in which the Holy Prophet collaborated with the powerful elite to attack the poor or whether he sided with the poor and attacked the powerful elite. Whoever takes even a superficial look at events in the early history of Islam will see that the Prophet gathered around him a group of poor people who were called the" Companions of the Suffah" «2» for they had no shelter except a `suffah. ' These people were so destitute that they lodged in the s uffah of the Prophet's mosque. They had nothing, they were poor. Historical accounts tell us how in some of the battles, the Prophet's followers had only one date to share among themselves and from which to gain sustenance, each man could only taste the date and then he had to pass it onto the next to do the same. This was at the time of war! The Prophet's followers comprised these poor, beggared people, and it was these destitute paupers who, while the Prophet was still alive and through the teachings of the Qur'an, later conquered Hijaz. But initially they were so powerless that the Prophet could not stay in Mecca and had to flee for Medina in the middle of the night after he had established links with some of the Medinans. When he arrived in Medina, it was the poor, not the rich, with whom he aligned himself. Can one then say that the Prophet sided with the rich to silence the poor?!
The Prophet's wars with the taghouts
All the battles that the Prophet fought were against the Arab polytheists, the oppressive and powerful polytheists. They were warriors, but the teachings of Islam had given the small number of the Prophet's followers solace and had trained them in such a manner that on one occasion one of them killed a hundred of the enemy! This happened because of the teachings of Islam, for Islam trains man to fear no power, to be afraid of nothing. It trained the Muslim warriors such that one of them said (this was later in Islamic history after the time of the Prophet), that with only thirty men accompanying him he could defeat the sixty-thousand strong vanguard of the Roman army. Those with him argued that he could not perform such a feat with only thirty men. He agreed, and so the number including him on the surprise night attack was sixty. But even so, only sixty people went and with their swords forced sixty thousand Roman soldiers to retreat! And they were from the class of the poor!
However, to get back to the time of the Prophet, we must take a look to see whether the Qur'an, which is the text of Islam, and the Prophet, who was the bearer of the message of Islam- and at that time Islam had no annotations, there was just Islam, the text of Islam, Islam in its original form with no modifications- invited the people to align themselves with the wealthy. Did Islam tell the people that if the wealthy, if those men of power, took what belonged to them, they were to say nothing, that God willing they would go to heaven so they were not to say a word!? Or was it the Qur'an which stirred these paupers- many of whom had no shelter or food and were obliged to sleep huddled next to one another in the s uffah of the mosque and to share every morsel of food they could find, even one date, among themselves- to take the Hijaz and defeat the holders of power? Can such a religion then be described as the opium of society? Or is it the awakener of society? It is you who want to opiate the people with these words of yours! It is those who say that Islam is the opium of the society who themselves want to lull the Muslims to sleep; they want to distance the Muslims from Islam; they want the Muslims to sleep while they devour their wealth. The opium lies in these words, not in Islam. They are using the words" Islam is the opium of society" to deceive the people. That which they say is the opium, not that truth which, when revealed and with a following of a number of impoverished people, conquered the lands of Hijaz and spread justice and equity to the boundaries of Hijaz.
This was at the time of the Prophet himself. Later, during the first century of Islam or in the first thirty or thirty-five years of Islam when the Muslims became more powerful, they conquered two empires: the Roman and Persian empires. They conquered Persia and Rome. «3» Was this the result of an opiate? Did Islam come to encourage compromise with Kisra «4» and to tell the people to obey him? Did Islam come to encourage the Roman people to compromise with the Roman emperor and to instruct them to obey him? Or did Islam vanquish two empires in order to spread justice throughout the world and stop the exploitation of the poor?
And now today, at such a point in time as this, that wretch writes in the newspaper that Islam is the opium of society! «5» Indolence and negligence may well have existed in the past, «6» but now the people, our youth, have looked at the Qur'an and are now aware of its message. Unfortunately, some of them accept what they hear too readily, «7» someone says something and they are taken in by his words. But when a person hears something said about a system or about anything else, shouldn't that person investigate what has been said to see whether it is correct or not? Shouldn't one question the views of this idiot who writes that Islam is the opium of society to see whether they are correct or not?
So far we have spoken about Islam itself. Now let's take a look at those who followed the teachings of Islam when they were first revealed, that is, when there was only the Prophet and the text of Islam (the Qur'an), and those Muslims of later times when Islam was involved in wars, wars between these people from the lower social classes and the emperors. Islam gave such strength to this small group of followers, these few thousand Muslims, that they went and conquered the Roman and Persian empires. «8» The soldiers of the Persian empire were very powerful in battle, they were well equipped, the saddles on their horses were made of gold, whereas the Muslims were barefooted and lacked armor, many of them walked to battle for only a few of them had a camel. They had swords and some of them had a horse, but they had perhaps only ten horses between them. So they did not have enough horses, camels or sufficient provisions, but Islam gave them strength. The teachings of the text of Islam and of he who executed those teachings gave them such strength that those people who yesterday had been nothing more than a handful of beggared people living an aimless existence today took their swords in hand and defeated the two world powers of the age: the Persian and Roman empires. They were a handful of poor, beggared Arabs who had only a few swords to share among ten or twenty thousand, they didn't all carry swords or wear coats of mail, they were ill equipped for battle but their spirit was strong- they weren't weak in spirit and heart like us- Islam had given them spiritual strength. So with a divinely-inspired strength, with the support of Islam and due to its call, these Muslims, although small in number, set off and conquered those two great empires. Less than thirty years after the advent of Islam, Iran and Rome had been defeated and the realms of Islam had been extended to Africa and even beyond to Spain. However, later the Muslims were to demonstrate incompetence, but that is another matter.
The way of the Prophet and his successors
So if we study the text of Islam we see that Islam did not come to give the kings dominance over the poor or to give those with power authority over those who enjoyed no power. This was not the case.
As for those who invited the people to Islam, such as the Prophet himself and after him the first caliphs, who were different from the others, and Hadrat Amir [Imam `Ali], may God's peace be upon him, what kind of people were they? How did they live? Were they the mullahs of the court? Was the Prophet himself a courtier, or did he do battle with the courts and defeat them? Was Hadrat Amir a courtier, or did he do battle with a power that also claimed to follow Islam, like Mu`awiyah? The actions of Hadrat Amir, may God's peace be upon him, and the Doyen of the Martyrs [Imam Husayn], may God's peace be upon him, provide the reason and license for battle between the Muslims and this corrupt regime today. The necessity for such action comes from their actions. They fought with two powerful people (Mu`awiyah and Yazid)who had taken control of Shamat «9» and who commanded armies there. Why did Imam `Ali and Imam Husayn take up arms against Mu`awiyah and his son? They too were Muslims, so why did they go to battle with them? Now someone tell us, is this man who has published copies of the Qur'an a Muslim? Our reason for carrying on the struggle to wipe out oppression and to sever the hands of the oppressors from the Islamic countries lies in the actions of Hadrat Amir, may God's peace be upon him, and the Doyen of the Martyrs, may God's peace be upon him; and even if a few hundred thousand of us have to sacrifice our lives for this cause, then it is still worthwhile. Yazid succeeded Mu`awiyah, he was a powerful man and enjoyed all the trappings of a king. So on what basis did the Doyen of the Martyrs confront the king of his time? Why did he confront» illullah [`shadow of Allah']? «10»" The king should not be touched," so why did he confront this king who recited the Shahadatayn «11» and claimed to be the successor of the Prophet? He did so because Yazid was a cheat, he was someone who wanted to exploit the nation, he and his subordinates wanted to devour the nation's wealth. Has he or this man today (the Shah) devoured the most? One must work it out.
So these were the actions of some of the people who lived during the early years of Islam, and it was through them that Islam became powerful and spread to the extent that it did. The Prophet himself fought with the powerful elite, and those who came after him in the early period following his death fought with the powerful elite and the kings, as did Hadrat Amir after them. So was Islam the opium of society? Were these people the court mullahs?
Some say that they want a democratic country. Let us consider the Islamic government, the Islamic regime, in the early years of Islam's history when there was only Islam and the text of Islam, to see whether this was a democratic regime or whether it was a tyrannical or despotic regime. If you can find stories similar to those which history relates about this period (and there are many but we will speak about only one or two now) concerning one of the leading democratic countries, then you can say that the democratic system is better. One story concerns the Messenger of God (s). Indeed there are many narratives like the one I am about to relate, but the one will suffice for the present. Another story is about Hadrat Amir (`a), and another concerns `Umar. When `Umar set off to enter Egypt- after the Muslim armies had conquered the country and Islam was a powerful force «12»- he did so with a camel which he and his slave took turns in riding; as one tired the other took his turn to walk. According to historical accounts, when they entered Egypt it was the turn of the slave to ride on the camel, so when the people of Egypt turned out to greet the caliph, they found him on foot guiding the camel on which his slave rode! This was how a caliph acted. We do not accept `Umar (as the rightful successor to the Prophet), but this action of his was Islamic. It was Islam which made him act this way, and even though we don't accept `Umar, still his action was in keeping with Islamic teachings. The Prophet also acted in a similar manner. He would ride on a donkey with someone seated behind him and would answer the questions put to him by his companion and instruct him. Can you relate a similar story about the leaders of any of these democracies? Can you name any democratic leader like `Umar who, even though his realms were several times larger than Iran or France, treated his slave in such a way, who had a camel, nothing more, and who lacked the loftiness and embellishment that usually accompanies power. Take any democratic leader and see how he enters a vanquished country. `Umar was entering a conquered land, yet his slave rode upon his camel- because it was his turn to do so- while he walked in front leading the camel. The noblemen of Egypt came to greet him they all paid homage to him, yet this was the manner in which he entered their land, and it was the teachings of Islam which made him act in such a way. «13» When the Most Noble Prophet sat with a group of people speaking to them or passing judgment, the situation was such that it was not immediately clear for someone entering the room who was who, who the leader was and who his companions were. He would sit with his followers in a circle, and it was not clear which one of them was the Prophet. He didn't even sit on a cushion, «14» like the one you have brought for me to sit on. He sat on the floor just like everyone else, and ate his lunch seated on the ground. And what a lunch it was! Do you think that he enjoyed a magnificent spread? No. When Hadrat Amir, whose realm was several times larger than Iran, sat down to a meal, one dish lay before him containing oaten bread. The lid of the dish was sealed to make sure that his daughter or son could not, out of pity for him, add some fat to the bread to make it a little softer for him. He would seal the lid so they could not touch the bread. This dry bread was the food of the emperor of a realm greater in size than Iran. This was their way of which I spoke.
The method of leadership of the Prophet of Islam (s) and Hadrat `Ali (`a)
The next story is one that I have related on a number of occasions. The Messenger of God (s), near the end of his eye went to the mosque and ascended the pulpit from where he spoke to the congregation. He told them that if any of them had suffered an injustice at his hands then they were to speak out. No one spoke out, but then an Arab (Sawadah ibn Qays) stood up saying that he had a grievance. When the Prophet asked him what it was, he told him that upon his return from a battle (of Ta'if) the Prophet had struck him with his staff. The Prophet asked him where he had struck him and the man pointed to his shoulder. The Prophet then told him to come forward and return like for like. The man told the Prophet to bare his shoulder for his own shoulder had been bare when the Prophet had struck him. This the Prophet did and the man went forward and kissed his shoulder. All along the man had only wanted to kiss the Prophet. The point of this story being that a leader who enjoyed absolute authority over the Hijaz at the time, and over some other places as well, would ascend the pulpit and tell the people to come forward if he had committed an injustice against them and not one of them could even say that he had unjustly taken ten coins from them. Could you find such a thing happening in one of these democratic countries? Would a leader there ascend the pulpit and tell the people to speak out if they had a grievance against him? Would any leader do this? Which leader would allow someone to strike him because he had at one time struck that person? Which democratic leader, which just king or president, would act in such a way? Yet they say that it is Islam that is despotic while they describe other systems as being democratic! We say that your countries are not democratic, they are authoritarian but in different guises. Your presidents are autocrats in different guises. The attributes and technical terms used in their description are many, but they have no substance.
`Ali (`a) in the presence of the qadi (judge)
Then Hadrat Amir (`a) was the caliph, his authority extended over an area a few times larger than Iran, it comprised Hijaz, Egypt, Iraq, Iran and many other places, and he was the one who appointed the judges in these places. One day a Jew went to a judge with a complaint against Hadrat Amir claiming that the Hadrat had a coat of mail which belonged to him- I can't remember all the details at the moment so I'll just give you the gist of the story. The judge, whom Hadrat Amir had himself appointed, summoned the Hadrat to come before him! Hadrat Amir went and sat before him and apparently even insisted that he be shown no preferential treatment, that judgment called for both men to be viewed as equals. So the two men sat before the judge, one a Jew and the other the ruler of a realm which comprised Iran, the Hijaz, Egypt and Iraq! The judge studied the case and found in favor of the Jew. Can you find a similar case in the history of monarchical or presidential rule? Hadrat Amir was the caliph; the Jew was his subject as was the judge. If you can, name a president, a monarch or any other leader who has acted in a similar way so that it can be said that an Islamic regime is inferior to all others. We want an Islamic regime. We are calling for an Islamic government. We want a government which allows a judge to summon the ruler to court. Can anyone do this to" His Imperial Majesty?" Can anyone go to a judge and tell him that the Shah has plundered his wealth? Can one of these people from Mazandaran province go to a judge and complain that the Shah has robbed him of his wealth? Would a judge dare summon the Shah to court?! You all know what the circumstances were like in Iran a few years ago, but even today, when all the children are shouting," Death to the Shah," would a judge dare summon" His Imperial Majesty" to court? What about the President of this country (France), could a judge summon him to court? And if he did, would the President attend the hearing and accept a ruling against him without question?
Islamic government is a government for the people
We are calling for an Islamic government, and they propagate that we want to create anarchy! Is it anarchy that we want? We want a government in Iran- if, God willing, the Muslims are successful- and in all the Islamic countries, which will not devour the wealth of the people, a government which will respect the law, which will bow to the law, which will accept whatever the law says. We don't want a government under which the law applies to the ordinary people while the ones with power are made exempt from it. The powerful ones do not pay taxes; their lands have not been divided up, such things do not apply to them. Up until the day before yesterday, all of[ Asadullah ]`Alam's estates remained untouched by the land reforms, because at one time he had been the Minister of the Court and the Prime Minister. «15» This talk about carrying out land `reforms' meant nothing, the whole thing was just a game, the `White Revolution' was just a game.
Separating the people from the clergy is the enemies' conspiracy
I am now tired, but I must tell you gentlemen that it was about three hundred years ago when propaganda aimed at distancing the Muslims from Islam and the clergy began. During the reign of Rida Shah Pahlavi, the taxicabs would not pick up clergymen. The late Aqa Shaykh `Abbas Tehrani, may God have mercy on him, said that once in Arak he hailed a taxi but the driver refused to allow him into his vehicle saying that there were two classes of people that the taxi drivers refused to pick up: clergymen and prostitutes. This was the attitude at the time of Rida Shah, and you all know what the situation of the clergymen has been throughout the reign of the present Shah. Such propaganda has come from abroad and is aimed at distancing you from the clergy and Islam so that the foreigners can take all your resources and no one will try to stop them.
I have neither the time nor the energy now to talk about that group of people, who, later in the history of Islam, rose up against the kings, to see who they were and whether they were Muslims or not. This man who has written that Islam is the opium of society should take a look at the uprising, at the movement which is a reality in Iran today, to see whether it is an Islamic movement or not. This Islamic movement has come about through the help and blessings of Islam and the Muslims, the true Muslims. It is the voice of Islam which has been raised and is delivering a punch in the mouth to Russia and America. Is then Islam the opium of society? You (the imperialists) are now saying that Islam is an opiate in order to dispirit the people so they will let you continue to devour their oil and gas! You yourselves know that it is not an opiate. You all know that it impels the people to action. Islam has taken the people toward progress, toward battle, toward fighting with the infidels and with you.
You are describing Islam as the opium of society at a time when Islam has caused thirty million Muslims in Iran to rise up against the holders of power, and when they are all calling for Islam. At such a time as this, this vile person «16» has written that Islam is the opium of society! Perhaps a few of our youth, who are unaware of the facts, will accept what he says unquestioningly. Wake up gentlemen! Wake up you young people! You must realize what their plans are; why they want to distance you from Islam; why they want to attract you to other ideologies. They are not doing this for your good, they are doing it because they want to devour you, but Islam will not let them do this, the clergymen of Islam will not let them do this. May God grant you all success. May you be victorious.