Speech [Progressive teachings of Islam]

In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful

Now because it is past time, I shall state a few words to you:

You know that it is a sensitive period now so that we must move this process forward and we must in these initial stages when we have the constitution, the Council of Experts, the National Consultative Assembly, the presidential elections and these things that are the foundations of a country, we have these ahead of us now and all the brothers must be united and move these issues forward. At such a sensitive juncture, your enemies and our enemies are aiming not to allow these stages to move forward; and therefore, you saw that they created a disturbance at the referendum and now also they want to create disturbances, preventing Islamic issues from moving forward. They fear Islam because Islam is a religion of equality and fraternity and race is of no consequence in it. Kurds and Fars, Turks and Arabs are absolutely unimportant; what are of importance in Islam are piety, sincerity, brotherhood, and equality. They know that if Islam is realized in this country in the manner that it is, their hands will be severed.

They want to either continue or cause a return to the same hegemony and bullying of the past; the same plundering that they would indulge in; and it is only Islam that can prevent these things. For this reason, they want to create disturbances, to create certain differences, to sow discord so that these initial stages are not overcome, and to say abroad that Iran is not capable of governing itself. The propaganda that they have engaged in beyond the borders and also to some extent inside the country saying that we have no maturity; that Iran does not have the maturity to govern itself and is in need of someone, a custodian, to come and run the affairs! And they want a return to those same problems.

Today is the day that we, all the brothers; the brothers residing in the border areas and at the center, to carry this movement forward together in the same way that you were united at the start of the movement and carried this movement forward together, from now on too so that an Islamic government is installed. Now it is an interim government that must transfer power to an established Islamic government that is based on the laws of Islam. Only then will the world and you understand that a regime which breeds equality; a regime that gives more status to the peasant than to the upper echelons is the government of Islam. That regime in which factions and languages are not at all important is Islam. We must strive to prove this matter to the world that our country is a country that has undergone a transformation from a taghouti (satanic) regime to an Islamic-humanitarian one and that it has changed essentially from within; its reality has changed and the true upheaval was not only in name that we should call it `Islamic Republic'. No, we want that all the Islamic tenets be realized in Iran in the same way that it existed at the dawn of Islam so that we can present it to the world and say that this is Islam; this is the progressive Islam; these are the progressive tenets of Islam; that which places greater emphasis on the condition of the poor and weaker sections than on that of others; that which sides with the weak; that regime which wants to liberate the weak from the bondage of those sufferings- that is Islam; for which it is absolutely inconsequential whether he is a resident of far-flung border areas or resident of the capital; whether he resides in an affluent or poor neighborhood- that is Islam. It is whose head of government such as the Messenger of Allah (s) who although being the leader; although being the leader governing a country, yet when they would come to a gathering in which he and his companions were seated, one could not distinguish who was higher and who was lower. They would come and ask which one was the Prophet! The fact that he and his companions would sit in a circle, all would sit together around each other so that there was no higher or lower or that one should have a mat or cushion placed underneath him and so forth on the same ground; and if at all there was a mat, it was for the mosque; they would sit around each other on that mat in the mosque and from that very mosque they would strengthen and arm themselves and conquer countries. One such government is what we want; it should be such that these various strata out of whom a section is plunderers should not be present; and the affairs of these peasants are to be looked after; these weaker sections; these slum-dwellers need to be taken care of. You should know that in this very Tehran, now there are slum-dwellers whose likes you will not see in Kurdistan province; you will not see their likes in your surroundings. They are so wretchedly poor- and all of them were created by the deposed Shah. In the name of" land reforms" he brought about all these miseries for the poor.

I hope that after, let us assume, the way it has been so far, now we maintain our tight rows; you who are residents of the border areas safeguard the borders with strength, while we who are here all have a single uniform expression- and that is, Islam, Islamic Republic and return to the principles at the advent of Islam. When we have this instituted, then these problems will automatically be solved. When the laws of Islam come into force they will be resolved and there shall not be the problems that those people want to create. All those powers shall be destroyed. The power is the power of Islam; it is the power of the Islamic nation.

I ask all of you and all the friends who are here, to safeguard unity and to safeguard this powerful determination and decision; and with your powerful arms, check these remnants of the previous regime. May, God willing, your country remain for yourselves, and all of these people who wanted and want to subjugate the likes of you- all of them- shall be destroyed.