Speech [The struggles of the theologians; some achievements of the Islamic Revolution; martyrdom of Mr. Murtada Mutahhari and its reverberation]

In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful

From Khorasan the religious scholars revolted, they revolted but they had no power and were defeated. They arrested all the spiritual leaders of Khorasan. With the Goharshad Mosque incident and what followed, they arrested all, brought them to Tehran, and imprisoned them. The late Aqazadeh, «1» who was the head of the theologians of that time, was brought on to the streets with the agents, bareheaded and was taken to the court there to be prosecuted. In Isfahan, the spiritual leaders of Isfahan revolted against Rida Shah.

Any person who pays the least attention to these issues and puts aside that propaganda which they were engaged in, and thinks for himself about what the issue was, will know that it was the clergy who always fought with them. Of course, they would also create pseudo-clerics. They had clerics in their pockets. They had several of them in the `SAVAK' security organization too. These were those who, as clergymen, would go to `welcome' the Shah whenever he went somewhere. They had these too. However, the genuine clergymen were those who would challenge them. In recent times also, as you know, at the time of this same human being- Muhammad Rida Pahlavi- with the situation that he created, again, it was they who resisted, and again it started from the Faydiyyah Madrasah of Qum. And they demolished the Faydiyyah and what disturbances they created.

What I mean to say is that one of the blessings of this movement was that it gathered us all in a single place. We all were so far away from one another that we were never prepared to sit down together, discuss our issues with each other, and discuss what problems we had. You were separate and we were separate. If, for example, we were very lenient human beings, we would not engage in a fight. If we were a bit harsh, then there would be demonstrations against us at the universities; there would be protests against us at the theological center. All this was a calculated plan meant not to allow us to come together and come to an understanding with each other. Now Iran is in a most sensitive period than ever. In other words, previously they had in a scientific manner understood this matter that if we all were to be united, they would be the losers; now they literally feel this. They have literally seen it, they have felt that Iran had nothing and they had all the equipment at their disposal, and we had only our fists. But when we came together, congregated and discovered the power of faith and were all transformed; and when these `drops' collected together, a massive flood that destroyed their foundations was created, which demolished that great barrier they had erected. It broke through that dam and demolished it, at the same time that all strata of the people, some more openly, and some more covertly, were giving assistance.

Repeatedly- during my stay in Paris- they would come in different guises on behalf of the Americans, make suggestions, and give comments saying" what about this? Let him be, we will give him our backing." Recently also, when I was coming, the plan was that we should not move from there and that" Now it is early and you cannot" or" Do not come now." This was both from the government of Iran at the time of Shapour Bakhtiyar as well as from their side. They would comment," Now you should wait a bit, it is too early." I understood that it was a plan to buy time so that they had time to finish their job. Therefore, we too put our foot down and said" no, we will go, come what come may."

What I mean to say is that now they have felt and seen that a nation has united and a power has come into being. A power of faith and transformation has been born in them that they regard martyrdom as a victory for themselves and they cry out that they wish to be martyred. They stand opposite the tanks, and give their lives and shout nothing can deter us anymore, machine-guns will not deter us. «2» This is a reality, which they have literally felt. Now we are in a very sensitive situation because after what they have felt, they are now hell bent on destroying this movement, with all the power at their disposal. They enter the universities to create mischief; their agents come to stir trouble. In my opinion, a majority of them are agents of America in Islamic guises «3» and in the guise of Communists. In whatever guise that they come out from- from underground or on the ground- they are mostly their stooges. They «4» also have a hand but mostly they are in these forms. All of them interfere.

Now, we- all of us- any person who loves Iran, any person who loves Islam; any person who wants this nation to become strong, we- all of us- have a duty to be together in the same manner, as together we demolished this barrier. If a single stratum had said that we want to accomplish it, it would not have been possible for them, but when everyone got together, they broke this barrier. If now we show indifference and- God forbid- lose this Islamic congregation and this national congregation, and our movement be defeated, then this country will not see the face of happiness anymore. Because, such a movement that has no parallel in history will not be realized any more.

Those who came to me, whether they were from among the class of theologians who would send me messages and- let us assume- wished to do good, and whether from other strata who, even recently, came to see me in Paris, had despaired that such a task could be accomplished. They would out of good intentions, say that we must move very gradually and that we should let Muhammad Rida Shah Pahlavi stay, but that he should not govern but simply be a nominal monarch in accordance with what the laws would specify for him and so forth. And that later on they would set up a consultative assembly and get rid of him on the basis of legislations. He too wanted to play this trick; these people had become negligent. Out of deceit and mischief, he sent for me repeated messages saying," You let me stay here, all of Iran be in your hands, everything will be in your hands, I will only be a nominal monarch." I knew this was not the case. I would tell the gentlemen that well, if this movement which is going on at present should be weakened then can you recreate such a movement all over again? They would say `no'. I said what if this man goes against his word- now he says I will only reign and not govern but tomorrow when the movement dissipates, he draws out his sword- then do you have sufficient power to control him. Can you guarantee that he will keep his word? I said, now that we have founded such a movement the likes of which cannot be founded anymore, then why should not we state our objectives? Our main objective is not to allow these foreigners to swallow our wealth; that these foreigners should not take away our everything; that these foreigners should not push back our culture, that these foreigners should not make a parasite of our army.

Our objectives are mostly them; these people are a branch of him. Why should we now give him time so that- should he- gain strength, he cut our legs and cut them to pieces. And this should follow when he comes to power while now he claims that" O nation, O people O the `ulama'." Well, he is the same person who called the `ulama'" filthy animals." How is it that now he calls them," O `ulama', give me time. I was wrong!" He shall always commit these wrongs.

In any case, now we have a situation where things were moving, but the people were becoming indifferent to problems. They broke this barrier, and now that things have changed, these decayed remnants and the people too are turning to their own well-being, and are looking to their own needs and are moving aside a little from the main objective. They are looking at their own wants. On the other hand, those roots that have remained from them have invaded the factories and universities; and in each place, they engage in a particular kind of propaganda saying," Hey look, nothing happened." Nothing happened. What did you want to happen, then? We say until now- later on too, nothing will take place- we are now sitting together and talking freely. Before, neither would you dare to meet with us, nor would we dare to visit you. Next day, they would catch us and put us in prison, torture us, burn our bodies, roast our youth in huge pans in those underground cells. Well, what could be better than the fact that now we are sitting freely? Even if we have nothing to eat, at least we are free. What could be better than the fact that the foreigners who would come and rule over us cannot rule over us now? They have gone to mind their own business. Now they engage in mischief; at that time, they with arrogance prepared a list of those who had to be appointed as lawyers and gave it to this puny Shah and made sure the appointments were made in accordance with the list. In the book `Mission for my country', he himself has mentioned this fact perhaps for his own eulogy.

He says now it is not like that anymore and that he has put everyone in their own place. While writing about his father and saying" my father is such and such", he was forced to confess that the consulate of England and then the consulate of America, would bring a prepared list of appointees to the post of lawyers; and they would appoint the same persons. Our people were kept in complete darkness about these issues.

Now, what do you want to happen? Now what could be better than this referendum in which all the people freely- there was not a single person to pressurize them that they must or must not go- everyone freely, and every group freely, went to the ballot boxes and cast their votes? We want a country to have freedom. However, they took away all our things. What they left behind for us was a huge debt burden that they borrowed from banks and fled. They borrowed billions and ran away- in addition to taking away the jewels and our everything else. Before that, they had also stashed money in the banks of Switzerland and other places and America. Also at the time of leaving, they again took away as much of the jewels as they could. What remains, is that which they could not carry with them, and you can see how much that is; these they could not take away with them. Now, this is what is left: They took away everything and made the government go bankrupt.

Now, all sections must toil and with the help of one another help to solve these problems. Can the government alone manage and set right- a country that was devastated in this manner- with all the present weaknesses? The university must come forward and straighten things out; they must themselves straighten out the mess. The farmers must themselves make efforts. The workers must themselves endeavor. In addition, we must all be aware that the rotten roots that are their remnants are not allowing peace and calm to return. Because these people know if there be calm and this country be left on its own, these sections that are now present- and are united- will not become disoriented any more and they will not be able to ever lay hands on them. Therefore, these people pursue the objective of not allowing restoration of peace and calm. They want to separate you from us again, and separate us from others and separate all from one another. For example, previously- the way they would narrate- these army personnel were regarded in the opinion of the nation as an extremely corrupt lot. Those people also wanted this lot to indulge in bullying and so on; and both of them (the nation and army) were such deadly enemies of each other that if a group of these army men would go to a place, the people would shun that place.

Now, the situation has become such that today in the Faydiyyah Madrasah various sections of the people had gathered; one group was from Shiraz- the barracks of Shiraz; another group was the group of teachers and another group, likewise was that of the doctors from the outskirts of Qum who had all collected there. I told them, `look, we were all repelled by each other before, but now we are sitting together and are talking. ' Tribes had come here; tribes who had never spoken to us before had come; all had gathered. Well, these are the things that have happened. Of course, the reconstruction after the Revolution is a far more strenuous task.

By the grace of God, Iran's revolution was better than all the revolutions. This Revolution was White and not the revolution that they engineered. The White Revolution «5» was that in other countries such as in the Soviet Union, in France, the revolutions that occurred in those places were bloody revolutions in which millions of people were killed and destructions were wreaked; worse of all was the Soviet Union. The late Waliyyullah Qarani- the first chief of the army staff of the Islamic Republic who was martyred by 'Furqan group- said that the resistance of the Shah's regime in confrontation with the people lasted a mere three hours and a half. Well, we thought it might have been two or three days or perhaps one night, but he said it lasted only for three hours and a half. Well, these people engineered a coup, they revolted, and mutinied: first, they went after the air force to suppress the revolt there and then deployed soldiers to kill all of us and, thereby end the problem and the revolt once and for all. The nation took to the streets and demonstrated and some cadres of the soldiers also joined with the people the late Qarani told me that the whole matter was resolved in three hours and a half and these fellows were defeated. This was because the people revolted; the people became aware of their duties; they woke up and brought about this revolt and this progress.

Now once again we need to safeguard this movement in order to be able to rebuild, otherwise these destructions will remain and will cause problems for all of us. You who are at the universities must all- all sections of the university must reform the universities; those who are in the bazaar must reform the bazaar; those who are peasants must reform agriculture. All of us hand-in-hand should endeavor, to God willing, put an end to this chaos and make our country independent and free. It should not be such that we are afraid of the government. Now we are not afraid of the prime minister, neither you nor we, because there is Islam. At the advent of Islam, nobody was afraid of the Prophet. There was no fear involved. Affection was involved. The commander of the faithful, who was the leader of a huge country that stretched from Hijaz (present-day Saudi Arabia) to Egypt and up to Iran as well as some parts of Europe was not feared by the people; there was no fear involved. They sat down together; they would eat together; they would work together. He too was a laborer like the rest of the laborers. He himself- when people had just sworn allegiance to him- picked up his pickaxe and went after that subterranean canal that he built with his own blessed hands- and later he donated it to a trust. There is no more fear involved that we should be frightened of a security organization to come, take us away, and neat us up. What better than this could we ask for?

I hope that this unity is safeguarded for us; and with the unity of expression of all of us together, we safeguard that true secret, which is faith. That true secret which gave us- we the insignificant people- victory over everything was the faith of the people. Even now, some individuals come to me and ask me to pray for them to be martyred. A mother who has lost her child comes to me and thanks me and tells me to pray that her other child too be martyred. The transformation that has occurred in the spirit of the people and the inclination towards faith that has come about in people were instrumental in carrying this issue forward. Our youth are no longer afraid of the tanks. This holy city of Qum was the center of battle. This neighborhood of Chahar Mardan was the main arena of battle. A battle between the youth who had no weapons but gradually learnt to make them and fought valiantly with tanks and guns and those intimidating weapons that were present, and praise be to God, marched forward.

Now the country belongs to you; no one interferes in its affairs. You are free. Nevertheless, for the reconstruction of this country, everyone wherever he may be, must toil. In other words, no individual- none of us- should assume that he is not capable of doing anything. This individual is one person. It is right that he cannot do alone, but every individual with another individual when they work together can get things done. Just as this barrier would not have broken by the efforts of a single individual, nor a single group could possibly have been able to demolish it, but when everyone joined in, they demolished it. May God protect all of you.

In addition, we must not be in the least anxious that our people are being killed. This Islam has been founded in this manner right from its inception and it has marched forward while giving martyrs; it has constantly given martyrs and moved forward. It was the same in the era of the Holy Prophet too. In the Battle of Uhud, «6» so many people were killed and in the other battles, so many Muslims were killed but they were not worried at all. They would give martyrs and move one step forward; again they would give martyrs and move one step forward; And, praise be to God, now the situation is such that by giving a single martyr an upsurge is created all over Iran and outside Iran. Outside Iran also, the incident of the death of the late Mr. Mutahhari- which justifiably was a great loss for us and for the whole of Iran- as you are aware was a loss too, they broadcast on the radio stations that in Pakistan or in such and such place- everywhere- it has created a wave. These people too are making a mistake by killing Mr. Mutahhari. They must understand that the question is not that with the killing of a single person the people will retreat, when one is killed the whole lot comes forward and their cry becomes louder; the disgrace of the enemy also becomes more. And I hope that this spirit stays with us and with our nation. May God assist all of you and may you all succeed.