Speech [The grave duty and responsibility of the clergy and students]

In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful

I had specified your duty when I was in that place. The gentlemen who were present there heard what I had to say. And I shall say a few words about what our duty is for the sake of those who were not there.

The importance of this duty concerns this class; that is, the clergy, the university professors and students. These two groups constitute the thinkers of society; they are the thinkers. You are the two groups- the university students, whether those who have passed out from university and are now lawyers, legal experts or whatever, or whether of the clerical class who are still studying, or have finished their studies and are engaged in disseminating the faith and in other activities- in society that are the thinkers. And you are the ones that are able to neutralize the plots that are about to be hatched with utmost thoroughness for the purpose of defeating this movement. You two groups have a greater duty than the others, and your responsibility, too, is very great. All the people bear a responsibility, but yours is very great. And now they intend to create discord between you, the two groups that had become united and there was no more talk of the clergy and the university being like this and like that. All of you were together and succeeded, thanks to God, and understood that unity brings success. When you (two groups) the thinkers, came together, the other strata of the people joined you. It is your duty, and also that of the clergy and the university staff, to maintain your unity.

Now the plot is to separate you from one another. They who felt that their defeat was because of the unity among the people, realized that this unity of expression that had emerged in Iran, and perhaps, brought about by these two groups- the clergy and its preachers, prayer leaders, orators, speakers and such people and you with your lectures and your efforts bringing the people together- resulted in this victory. At one time they may think that" if the people gather together, we will be defeated," though this defeat has not been experienced by them. At another time, your victory and their defeat is actually experienced and (physically) felt. They saw that this defeat and that victory were because of your unity. A plot is now afoot to separate you from one another; to set two brotherly groups against one another and to drive the two groups of thinkers apart. If you do fall apart, neither will the clergy be able to do anything, nor you. You think that the university will be able to succeed without (the help of) of this group; no, it cannot. And they think that they are everything and the university, nothing. Not at all; it is erroneous to think so. Unity must be forged between these two strata to confront their malicious propaganda of many years by which they intended to drive you apart from one another, to line you up on one side so that you be their (clergy's) enemy, and to line them up on the other side with them being your enemies as well, and for them to come amidst you and benefit by the situation without anybody being around to question why. Now, they have come to realize that when such a power arises and such unity is formed, it results in their defeat; and they were defeated by such unity and power. The conspiracies nowadays are more and, perhaps, more precisely planned; the plot now is to separate this group from that. Plots are being implemented in Mashhad. Conspiracies have been carried out in Isfahan, and in Tehran also; they may engulf other strata as well.

What are you quarrelling over? Over somebody being very good or very bad? And a group of preachers saying from the pulpit and elsewhere that this person is an unbeliever and another group saying that he is a Muslim and descended from the Imams? What is the result of all this? The result is that you and the clergy will fall apart. You will be confronting one another and lose that unity of expression you had; and all for nothing! Losing your unity of expression for nothing and falling apart from one another will cause all the other classes to become separated from you and to develop differences, which will result in the movement not being able to accomplish its mission. What all the foreigners of East and West want is that you be divided and dispersed.

The purpose of the plots is to divide you, to make enemies and to create various factions and groups, with all of them being enemies of one another so that the outcome would be to their benefit. Should we not wake up? For how long should we be negligent? They made us negligent for many long years and duped us. Should we still not wake up? Should you of the university not wake up? You the clergy, should you not wake up? They robbed us and ruled us by means of this discord that they created. They tortured our youth to a great extent in the prisons and behaved with our clergymen in the way that you saw; and similarly with all other strata of the people. Should we still not wake up? Should we still have differences over petty matters that are nothing and fall upon one another? Should the preachers, the prayer leaders and the academicians all be at loggerheads with one another? Should we not take notice that other hands have come in and are doing all this? Should not this nation be alive to the fact that a hundred factions have announced their formation within the span of two months? This is not by chance. It is that some deliberate hands are at work to drive you of this secret of yours; the key to victory. They have realized that your unity defeated them; so they are taking it away from you by means of their acts, their propaganda and their schemes. Who are they? Such and such party; whose is it? This and that party; a hundred of them. I came across such a figure these past few weeks. A hundred groups announcing their presence! And, unfortunately, the fact is that when (many) groups are formed, they become ill-disposed to one another. It is not that all of them work for the benefit of Islam and the nation. The various groups fall out with one another and lose that unity of expression and that power because of the resulting differences. The individuals are unable to do anything; the multiple groups are unable to do anything. The nation is able to perform its tasks, but cannot do so when it breaks up into groups.

Our duty and yours is to be watchful of these plots that aim to sow discord at present. We have to neutralize them. Tell your friends when you go to Mashhad that it is now not the time for them to fall upon one another over some matter. And the gentlemen should tell the preachers and prayer leaders in the places to which they go, that they should not be influenced by the evil ones who aim to set the people against one another, defeat them and thereby benefit from the situation. They ought to give up their personal and petty differences. It is now the time to concentrate on the issue of the Constitution, the Assembly of Experts, the president of the Republic, the Majlis. These stages have to be gone through so that a permanent government is established. Iran, at present, is not on a firm footing. The country's basis has not been established yet. Discord at this time goes against the pleasure of God and is deadly poisonous to the nation. It is my duty to tell you this and for you- I do not know- to listen or not. May God keep all of you.