Speech [The role and the responsibilities of the armed forces and the police; condemnation of all forms of terrorizing; the greatest human virtue; standing up for truth for the sake of truth]

I will first say a few words to you dear gentlemen who, as per my information, are the heads of the police departments and the police stations of the different parts of the country and will then go on to address some other general issues that concern everyone.

You are aware that conditions have changed for you as well as the other dear ones who are involved in maintaining law and order throughout the country from what used to be during the times of the taghout. Our nation had quite a different opinion about the police force during those days but today our nation relates to you in a very positive, friendly, brotherly, and supportive manner. Today you are the police force of an Islamic country and your and our leader is the Master of the Age, the Baqiyyatullah (`a). You as well as all of us should act in a manner that wins the consent of that great master, which in turn reflects the approval of God. Your duty is to steadfastly maintain law and order in all the cities of our country. Today, the entire nation supports you and you can confront the mischief that sometimes comes up in some cities with this support and through good counsel or force. You should stay alert toward those who want to create mischief either while certain personalities are addressing the public or in the lawful gatherings that take place after gaining the permission of the Interior Ministry. The revolutionary guards who are placed in the cities should also work in cooperation with you to prevent troublemakers from entering into these gatherings in order to create disturbances. There are also certain elements that intend to trouble people and create problems in the streets. You as well as the revolutionary guards from the different cities are duty-bound, as per the law, to prevent such disturbances that result in creating disunity among people and in disempowering them; and the general masses, too, should also support you in this mission. Such issues should be dealt with powerfully and with the support of the people so that our people can live their lives peacefully. And some of these troublemakers who assassinate innocent people or place bombs in various public places should be identified, prosecuted, put on trial in the courts of law, and should be punished according to the laws defined by Islam; and let me tell you that these punishments can be severe.

Dear brothers! Today you share brotherly relations with all the people of the nation. Your country is being threatened by the kuffar and the troublemakers who intend to create turmoil within the Islamic Republic, in which, by God's grace they are bound to fail. However, you- the police force- should be on full alert within the cities and the gendarmerie should maintain inter-city law and order while the army should protect the borders from internal and external troublemakers. This country belongs to all of you. This is not the time for the different forces- the police, the gendarmerie, the army, and the revolutionary guards- to be in conflict with each other. All of us today are faced with a common goal which is in everyone's interest and that is the protection of the Islamic Republic which is equal to protecting Islam and this Islamic country. At such a crucial time, any conflicts among the various forces and especially the police and the armed forces will only prove to be disastrous for the solidarity of this nation. Any blow to our solidarity will prove to be fatal. You are all duty-bound to maintain unity among yourselves as well as the other armed forces. And especially in this very sensitive stage, all of us and all the people of this country are obliged to prevent foreign hands and those who intend to reinstate the earlier conditions within this country and to, God forbid, ruin everything in this country, from gaining their motives.

If ever this Islamic Republic, God forbid, faces defeat it will be a defeat for all the Muslims throughout history. If the Islamic Republic succeeds in attaining its goals today, and if it manages to sever the hands of the big powers from this country forever and if it succeeds in eliminating the remaining elements from the previous regime and succeeds in establishing an Islamic Republic as per divine ordinances, it will ensure the safety of all the Muslim countries and especially your own country and no one will ever be able to harm it again. And this will only be possible if all the forces remain united. All the armed forces should remain united. None of the forces should imagine themselves to be independent of the rest and especially today, in these crucial times, we should function as one single group and prove to be a blow to the superpowers.

I am hopeful that you will succeed in maintaining complete law and order wherever you are stationed and shall powerfully curb mischief and disorder. At this crucial time, all the forces need to contribute at the warfronts as far as possible and each one of you stationed there should function in alignment with the rest of the forces so that, God willing, we gain ultimate victory which is for the prosperity of the entire nation, both in this world as well as the hereafter. What I am saying to all the armed forces is not limited to them and applies to everyone. While serving at the fronts where so many of our friends and beloveds are making valuable sacrifices, none of us should look at ourselves individually as a" revolutionary guard', or a" gendarme", or an" army man", or a" policeman" because in such times of emergency, talks like these are completely out of place. As per my information, there are people from the fifth column that enter into our ranks only to create dissension among the various groups. They intend to cause a split between the revolutionary guards and the rest of the forces and, thus, they penetrate into their files and ranks and instigate them against the army. On the other hand, they penetrate into the army and instigate them against the revolutionary guards, whereas in reality, the revolutionary guards, the army, the gendarmerie, and the police force are all serving a single common cause and should, thus, ignore these conspiracies that have only come into being to cause turmoil. If today, while our beloveds are busy serving at the warfronts, any such disruptive talks either against the revolutionary guards or against the army are being spread, they are only with the intention of creating rivalry between them and you should all be aware that these are the blows that the foreign forces wish to deal out to us through their agents from within and outside the country.

O our dear youth who are making committed sacrifices for the cause of Islam! Know that any kind of rifts between the various armed forces can only be due to the satanic plots of the big powers put into action, unfortunately, by their corrupt agents within the country. And if at all, God forbid, they succeed in their evil plans, neither will you survive nor the revolutionary guards and nor will the country survive. Therefore, be very careful not to fall prey to their instigations.

I strongly believe that all the armed forces should keep themselves away from political involvement. You are all honest, sincere, and honorable people while some of the politicians who have managed to infiltrate into certain positions with the help of foreign support can be very wicked and wish to drag you all into their evil politics and create rifts among you. You should keep yourselves aloof from such matters and should not get into group games. You are all from the army of the Imam of the Time (`a) and are, thus, part of a single force which is the Army of Allah. Pay no heed to their instigations. If you all remain united and if all the forces work in alignment alongside each other, and if there are no differences between the army and the other forces, your victory is not far off.

Let me say a few words to our writers and orators. All of you and our entire nation know very well that we should all strive hard toward creating unity and coordination among all the different political fronts and groups. I must however say that some tongues can be more harmful than physical force. Terrorizing and the undue use of physical-force were among the worst of the evils of the latter part of the reign of Muhammad Rida. As he discovered that he was getting weaker, he started to use physical force to strengthen his position. This terrorizing became widespread and came to be used even in the Qum seminaries during and immediately after the Revolution with the false notion that it can bear fruit.

Matters are not very different even today. However, today, pens and stinging tongues, which are much more detrimental, have replaced the use of physical force. Those who wish to speak in public- and especially since such orators are growing in number these days- should ask themselves before addressing the people if their tongues are going to work as harmful swords against a certain group or if they are going to serve as a mercy to inspire unity among the people. And if these people believe that they have their tongues completely under their own control, let me warn them that such claims are only simple to make as regards such important matters as control over the self. Yes, the Prophet Mousa (`a) made such a lofty claim and he proved to be true to his claim. He confessed to God, to have no control on anyone else, except over himself and his brother. «1» This is a very big thing to claim and only befits divine prophets (`a). We have no real control over ourselves, over our brothers, our children, or our friends. All we can aspire to do is to gain control over our own selves. When anyone worthy of being called" man" wishes to speak, he should have his tongue under his own control and he should not allow the shaytan[ devil ]to gain control over him and his tongue and allow his words to be sharper than swords and other weapons that are even worse than the weapons of Saddam.

All those who wish to address others should ask themselves if they are speaking for the cause of truth and for the sake of truth. One of the greatest virtues that any human being can hope to aspire for is seeking truth for its own sake- to love truth for its own sake and to hate falsehood purely because of its falseness. Even if his enemy is in the right, he should have the power over his self to be able to admit and admire it. And even if his own child or his own friends are in the wrong, he should have the power of distaste for it and should be able to express his disapproval of it. There are very few people who strive for truth purely for its own sake. Similarly, there are very few who are averse to falsehood simply because of its falsity. And it is not so simple for man to be able to know his own true position as regards this matter. It is necessary for a man to be able to gain his own enemy's opinion about himself in order to truly know his own weaknesses. It is not possible for us to learn only through our friends. We should take our lessons from our enemies. When we speak, we should carefully examine the reactions of our enemies, with a belief that they can see our shortcomings more clearly. No matter what our shortcomings are, because our friends are not really interested in truth for the sake of truth and are not averse to falsehood because of its very nature, approach us and praise our work and talks. They even praise what they refer to as our" battering" of the rivals and even glorify our" overwhelming" of the rival, even if they were in the right! Our friends can be the worst of our enemies in reality while our enemies can eventually prove to be our true friends. We should learn to take lessons from our critics. We should know that the praise we receive, especially in matters that should rather have deserved criticism, only comes from the inspiration of the devil and such approval is evil in nature. Our speakers, orators, and writers should pay attention to whether they are really in control of their selves. Can they also rightfully make the same claim as the great prophet Mousa (`a)? We should not forget that his brother, too, was a divine prophet and so prophet Mousa's (`a) words were also addressed to him as divine commandments. However, for those who have not attained to such a lofty status, it would only be more appropriate for them to say," Verily, neither do I control my own self and nor do I have any control over my brother".

O our brothers! Keep in mind that if, as a result of your words or writings through which you think you are only criticizing your own rival, any rifts are caused and if they result in de-motivating the army, the revolutionary guards, or the police force, and if such de-motivation results in any killings then you are also partner in such crimes because you approve of such killings. There is a prophetic saying which says that even if someone gets killed in the east and if there is someone in the west who approves of such a killing, he is also his partner in crime «2». Make sure that your pens do not prove to be daggers that stab us in the back.

Make sure that your same pens that write in condemnation of terrorizing do not end up terrorizing others. Make sure that your pens and your tongues do not serve as machine guns that pierce the chests of our own youth while you are claiming that we are being attacked! It is not only Saddam who has attacked us; you too may end up doing the same. Prior to making any speeches or writing any articles or before presenting any headlines in the newspapers, do spend some time asking yourselves why you are taking such a step and what your purpose is in taking such an action. Do you want truth for the sake of truth or are you hesitant to accept the truth if it is at the hands of your rivals? Are you averse to falsehood for its own sake or would you gladly extend your approval to false actions if they were committed by your friends. Check this out for your own selves and you will be sure to see that man is a strange being and can never know himself, right until the end of his life. Man is afflicted by this malady right until the end of his life and even if he is to be killed at the end of his life, he will prefer to be killed in a taghouti manner! History has recorded that when some evil kuffar were beheaded during the early days of Islam, they would ask to be beheaded along with their entire necks, simply so that when their chopped heads would be put up on the spears they would stand the tallest of all! Yes, man is indeed afflicted with this sickness right until the end of his life. Do not think that self-purification and reaching the station of" manhood" is a simple matter. According to our Shaykh, «3» it is a very difficult task if not impossible.

In fact quite often, man acts, thinking that he is doing something good whereas he is indulging in something wrong because his base nature is like a veil that prevents him from distinguishing right from wrong. For every incident that takes place you will find that there is always one group of people who criticizes it while there is another group who supports it. Thus, even when any incident takes place in the country, one group of people approves of it and extols it and pens start writing in praise of it while another group opposes it and condemns the incident with pens and words. Why? This is because the incident proved to be in the interests of one group and against the interests of another one. If it has taken place at the hands of friends, it is a praiseworthy development; no matter what it actually is. We judge the rightness of an act according to the involvement of our friends in it instead of judging it according to its true stand. We do not stand for justice for its own sake but we stand up for justice for the sake of our own friends. And we consider all the acts of those who oppose us and whom we treat as our rivals as bad and we criticize them. But if these same acts had taken place at the hands of our own friends, we would sit and approve of them. Thus, we do not seek truth for its own sake and we do not seek justice for the sake of justice. If someone truly wants to stand up for truth for the sake of truth, he should stand up for it and express it even if it proves to go against his own self interests. And if something wrong has taken place at his own hands he should despise it and should admit it. Do you think that these people who are raising all this hue and cry are standing up for truth for the sake of truth and falsehood for the sake of falsehood? Or is it that they want to claim that whatever they do is right and even if something wrong is committed at their hands or through their own friends, they want to portray it as the very truth. And even if their imaginary rivals are in the right, they want to portray them as wrong. Man cannot so easily free himself from the evils of his carnal self which is even worse than the evil of the Satan. But he can surely hold back his pen and he can surely take control of his tongue. He can certainly take the responsibility of checking the basis of his speech before opening his mouth. This attitude is generally found everywhere and since" I" is normally the criterion, whatever stems from" me" is good while whatever my" rival" does is bad, simply because it has stemmed from my" rival". Even something good that has taken place at the hands of a rival is bad whereas if" I" have done something bad, it is good! This is a disease and a problem to be found in man and it can only be cured with much effort. We should try to approach those who can help us cure this disease and should seek their cure. We should go to spiritual doctors and seek a remedy for our problem. Before lifting our pens to write something or before opening our mouths, we should examine our own selves and should pay attention to the political and social problems that we are facing and should check whether our input will cause turmoil and terror or if it will have a positive effect. We should examine whether our newspaper brings about the much-required peace in this country or if it creates further turmoil. If it creates turmoil then such a newspaper is spreading terror and if it creates peace for people then it is mercy and is appreciated by God.

Fear God, O you writers, O you orators, O you government and non-government employees, O you farmers- everyone! Fear God! He is present everywhere! Your tongues are moving in the very Presence of God. Your eyes are in the Presence of God. All your various faculties are within the Presence of God! Do not sin in His Presence! The biggest sin in our country today is causing rifts and pretension. The biggest mercy and in fact a duty for all of us is to create peace and prosperity.are under any compulsion. No, we have been granted free choice and it is we who create all this corruption with our own choices. It is we who choose to use our pens in order to vilify others and in order to destroy our rivals. All these are intrigues and maneuverings that are within man himself. Man usually believes that he is doing something good even when he is causing harm. He thinks his acts are for God even when they are actually in service of Satan.

May God Almighty grant success to all the Muslim nations and may He help them to free themselves from slavery to external forces and from the evil of the devils and may He especially assist them to free themselves from

the incitement of the devil within themselves! May God Almighty protect our country from the mischief of the evil elements, the foreign powers as well as from the pens, acts, and harmful words!

May God's peace, mercy and blessings be upon you.