Khomeini's Writings and Speeches:
The Ideological Foundation of the
Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps
By LCDR Youssef Aboul-Enein, MSC, USN
Introduction
With U.S. forces engaged in Iraq, an element of the population represented by Shiite cleric Moqtada Al-Sadr and his Mahdi Army is looking to establish a form of theocracy modeled after post-revolution Iran. Moqtada Al-Sadr vows to keep fighting coalition forces, and no doubt has Khomeini's books and writings in his library to refer to as he addresses the shape and content of an Islamic government Al- Sadr wishes to establish in Iraq. (Awkward- what is the significance of this statement?). To understand the core ideology of clerics like Al-Sadr and even the more rational Ayatollah Al-Sistani, who heads the Iraqi Hawza (The Iraqi Shiite Clerical Hierarchy), one cannot ignore Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's precedents, speeches and writings. Teheran's clandestine influence upon Iraq's Shiite centers and population also makes Khomeini worth discovering. The Shiite centers of Basra, Najaf and Karballah were an obsession for Iranian forces battling Saddam's divisions in the Iran-Iraq War. If the US is to succeed in Iraq, it is of paramount importance that Middle East Foreign Area Officers re-discover Khomeini's political and theological theories.
It is easy to dismiss Khomeini's rhetoric as fiery and radical, which it is, but listen carefully and you will begin to understand the concepts, context and complexity of combining democracy, Greek classics, Marxism and even the German philosopher Nietzsche in Khomeini's words. This depth should come as no surprise, since Khomeini surrounded himself with well-read men of religion. Khomeini even borrowed from anti-Shah Iranian political philosophers who would today probably be imprisoned, or perhaps worse. One such notable in Iranian political thought is Dr. Ali Shariati, whose writings in the late sixties and late seventies focused on the construction of the Iranian (Shiite) revolutionary self. For the first time, the Shiite's revered Hussein (son of Ali, the cousin of the Prophet Muhammad), who is considered an ultimate martyr from his death in the plains of Karballah, is not treated as simply a martyr. Rather, he is characterized as a revolutionary who attempted to deal with an unjust order. Hussein as a revolutionary was exactly the type of message that Khomeini could seize upon. It is noteworthy that Dr. Shariati, who wrote from exile in London and was persecuted by the Shah, was looking to create an Iranian-style democracy, but he understood that Shiite Islam could not be divorced from the character of Iran. Shariati sought to revolutionize Iran not through Marxism or military coup, but through the natural character of the masses. Being a sociologist commentator, he could not operationalize his vision and instead became the patron saint of the Iranian Islamic revolution, dying before seeing Khomeini's successful toppling of the Shah in 1979.
This essay will include excerpts of Khomeini's speeches published and translated from Persian to Arabic. These words of Khomeini were targeted for Arab audiences specifically, which in and of itself represents an interesting study, since they represent his attempt to influence Arab and Muslim public opinion and revolutionary thought. A new generation of radicals, including Hizbullah and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps are now being influenced by this compendium of Islamist (Shiite) revolutionary thought. Khomeini's discourse forms the ideological basis of the hard-line conservative clergy who govern Iran and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC -- the real military power in today's Iran). His writing is also important because it is his incitement and rapid anti-western rhetoric that begins to explain why Islamic fascists and militants have such a zealous hatred of the United States.
Khomeini's Islamic Opinion on Monarchy
One part of the problem in the Middle East is the lack of political legitimacy of many of its leaders, which leaves the region susceptible to Islamic militants, Marxists and Arab Nationalists (e.g., Baathists) offering slogans and not real institutional governance. Khomeini gave a pivotal speech in October 1971, during the 2,500th anniversary of Persian monarchial rule at the ruins Persepolis. The Shah had spent $100 million, giving a lavish party in the ruins of Persipolis, which magnified the Iranian masses feelings of distance and impoverishment. The Iranian Revolution, although a little less than eight years away, was in the wind, as Khomeini says:
"The Prophet, Peace Be Upon Him (PBUH) says that (the title) King of Kings otherwise known as Shah-in-Shah (a title used by Reza Shah) is the most hateful titles to God Most High. Islam is not compatible to the regime of the Shah-in-Shah and all those aware and observe the regime know that Islam came to tear down all palaces of the oppressive Shah-in-Shah, and the Shah-in-Shah is the biggest regime that is hateful and regressive. (1)" This speech can also be applied to monarchs in the Persian Gulf and single-person rulers in the region. Perhaps the most important aspect of this 1971 speech by Khomeini is his definition of the ultimate catastrophic event in Islamic history. It merges anti-monarchy with Shiite historical victimhood, and the murder of the Prophet Muhammad's descendant through his cousin Ali. Khomeini says:
"The biggest catastrophe in Islam is the deprivation of Ali from governing (the Muslim Community), this is the reason that Islamic governance was substituted for a monarchial one this catastrophe is larger than Karballah and what happened to the lord of martyrs (reference to Hussein, Ali's son). (2)"
This clever use of powerful images strikes a cord on Shiite Muslims in particular, but also many Sunni Muslims, who until then viewed the death of Hussein not as catastrophic, but as a tragedy. Khomeini uses such historical symbolism to explain the problems the Muslim world is facing in the 20th century.
Khomeini never passed up a chance to issue communiqués during Shiite religious observances like Ashura or Islamic holidays like Ramadan. He also closely followed events in Iran, such as the Shah formed his own political party in 1975. Khomeini's message read:
"The Shah talks about the constitution and the basic law, when he is in effect the chief enemy of this basic law and constitution, he has suppressed the very essence of the constitution. (3)"
In Ramadan of 1973 (during the outbreak of the 1973 Yom-Kippur War), Khomeini issued a message to the Iranian people through cassette tapes smuggled into the country, saying:
"This Shah who has surrendered Iran's petroleum to the enemies of humanity and Islam for use to kill brave Muslims and Arabs . It (Iran) acts as a barrier for those nations wanting to use the oil weapon against America (4)."
Khomeini religiously demonizes the Shah, always pegging the Iranian monarch's excesses against the message of social justice emphasized by early Islam. In the same speech he recorded for the 1971 festivities in Persepolis, as foreign dignitaries feasted for a week, Khomeini incites the Iranian masses that he calls Mustadaafeen (the downtrodden), saying:
"Kings follow their primal instincts. Their enjoyment is like that of animals, eating and pleasuring themselves without thought as to where these pleasures are derived? Are they permitted or forbidden (in Islam)? His enjoyment comes from the sweat and toil of the Ummah (the Muslim Community) (5)."
Note the Ayatollah combining Islamic with almost Marxist-like disdain for the rich who feed off the poor masses. Reading Khomeini's speeches, one gains the sense that he has read Marx, Hegel and even the Greek Classics. Khomeini's concept of vilayet-e-faqih the supreme religious jurisprudent involving a select few Ayatollahs guiding the moral course of Iran, is eerily similar to Plato's Republic and the Greek philosopher's concept of the philosopher - kings whose mission was to direct the moral course of his fictitious Utopia.
Khomeini's Opinions on the American Presence in Iran
Khomeini strived to undermine America's policies, which focused on bolstering the Shah as the regional peacekeeper in the Gulf and the bulwark against communism to the north. This old cleric, who at first glance seems to step out of the seventh century, understood the desires of Washington. In Ramadan of 1974, Khomeini seized on the presence of U.S. advisors and trainers in Iran, saying:
"I fear a danger against Islam from the servant of America, the slave (referring to the Shah) who does not question (orders)."
When the United States and Iran concluded a Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) during the administration of President Lyndon Johnson, U.S. advisors entered to train Iran's armed forces and coordinate the Shah's massive arms purchases. Khomeini barely conceals his hatred of the United States with the following remarks:
"They (the Shah and Majlis or parliament) have made the Iranian people less than American dogs (in their scale of oppression). If one (an Iranian) steps upon an American dog, they will not be exempt from punishment. Even the Shah of Iran, if he stomps on an American dog, he will not be exempted from being held to account and if an American cook steps on the Shah-in-Shah, no one has the right to seek redress."
Khomeini's tapes and discussions reached Iran from his exile in Iraq. (it would be helpful here to note that he is in Iraq at the time). He cleverly focuses on the revolutionary movements around the world that are bringing freedom to Africa and Asia, yet Iran, with a 2,500 year civilization, is unable to gain its freedom. To the masses that are unlearned and do not understand the intricacies of Africa's revolutions, some of which were coordinated with the colonial power to avoid a complete collapse of the newly independent nation, these words are believed in the streets. Iranians did not see the direct benefits of modern management and western techniques. For instance, the oil industry in their country was almost entirely run by British, European and American technicians. Khomeini notes in a sppech that security is an obligation for the American technician, mechanic and cook and, as for the Islamic scholar and servants of Islam, it is their obligation to be in prison or in camps.
Khomeini's speeches and pamphlets were mainly in Persian and Arabic. His important book, Islamic Governance, was published in 1969 and could be found only in these two languages until after the Iranian Revolution. As one explores his collection of writings, one cannot help but wonder who in the United States was monitoring these speeches and sermons before the 1979 Iranian Revolution. Khomeini would be in Turkey, then Najaf, Iraq from 1969 to 1975, and then to the outskirts of Paris during the final four years before his return to Iran. He mixes Islam and Iranian nationalism to foment instability on the streets. Khomeini says:
"My God, this government (the Iranian monarchy) has betrayed our national rights, on the rights of Islam and the rights of the Quran, the parliamentarians who agreed to this decision have committed treason the entire world knows these are not the lawmakers of Iran and if they are such then I (the religious establishment) have isolated them (from our society). They are excommunicated from the legislative body and all legislation they have endorsed is considered void (5)." Note that Khomeini as other Islamic radical ideologues never spends time explaining exactly how this is a violation of the Quran. Debate is not encouraged, just slogans. As he continues his remarks, he says: "The Umma (Islamic Community) is responsible to raise its voice (in opposition) and ask why did you commit this act? Why did you sell us? You are not representatives to us and even if you would remain you are traitors to us and we shall remove you from the legislature (6)."
Today, it is easy to take for granted that the Arab world is saturated with satellite television and the Arab news network Al-Jazeerah. But in Khomeini's days, his cassettes and criticism of the Nuwab (lower legislature) and Majlis (the parliament) were new and offered an exciting aspect of political discourse unknown to the Iranian masses of the seventies. In the streets, the fiery debates within the Majlis were ignored and the masses did not connect with the political intelligentsia whose criticisms were confined to the classrooms and upper middle class gatherings. This cleric, who spent a lifetime opposing the Shah through cassette tapes, cheap pamphlets and grassroots organizations in Iran and abroad, was gaining results. In many respects, the Iranians were getting a civics lesson from a theologian, not a lawyer or elected official.
Khomeini and His Battle with the Mullahs
The Shah, and in particular his internal security service known as SAVAK, had a few ayatollahs and mullahs on their payroll. These religious figures published books and manipulated media programs in Iranian television featuring pro- monarchy religious leaders on the airwaves. Iran's monarchy understood that this would be a war of ideas as much as it would be through exiles and political suppression.
"If only the Muslim Umma (the global Muslim community) understood the principles of the Quran and comprehended the heavy responsibility of the Ulama (the religious establishment), the false religious jurists will fall and those clerics truly in touch with society (will flourish). If the establishment, the (security) apparatus and false men of religion falls in society, then they will not be able to deceive the people and do the bidding of the imperialists(7)." It is notable that the powerful clerical establishment, led by hard-liners like the current President of Iran Ali Khamenei, is in essence betraying one of Ayatollah Khomeini's cardinal remarks: "The Faqih (Islamic jurist) who focuses on collecting the people's money and material things of this world cannot be a trusted steward of God's laws and an executor of those laws (8)." Today, the mullahs cannot divorce themselves from the profits, power and money made during their Revolution. Some Ayatollahs were punished for this corruption, like Khomeini's confidante, Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazari, who was placed under house arrest for bringing to light the corrosive aspects of power on the religious mission of the ulama.
Khomeini also casts dispersions on those senior clerics supported by the Shah. According to him, they cease to become scholars and are political tools, as he says:
"Those who join this apparatus are filled with lust (desires), no more. The Iranian people view them with contempt, just as those who preserve God's laws view them with contempt (9)."The overall text that this excerpt came from is significant as it was crafted and delivered for the Muslim Student Union of North America and Canada and designed to form a constituency in free democracies that could freely direct criticism at the Shah. This same tactic would be employed less than two decades later by Abdullah Azzam, one of Usama Bin Laden's spiritual guides. Assam brought Sunni Islamic militants to the United States to recruit terrorists, finance operations, and organize conferences in the United States during the last two to three years of the Soviet-Afghan War. Khomeini discovered early on, as did Azzam, that free democracies were an excellent location to fundraise, procure equipment and organize conferences away from the prying eyes of the repressive police and intelligence apparatus of the Middle East.
Khomeini on Imperialism, Israel and the United States
Ayatollah Khomeini has never made his hatred of the United States a secret, and his reference to imperialists paints a wide brush that encompasses America, Europe and Israel. Specific anti-American references include:
"All our calamities and all our problems are from America and all our calamities and all our problems are from Israel. Those particular nuwab (parliamentarians), ministers are from (agents of) America, all hired to oppress this poor nation further. Iran's economy is in the hands of America and Israel. Iranian markets are outside the hands of Muslim merchants (10)."In another speech, he remarks how Israel and the United States have turned Iran into their own base of operations. He also devotes a great deal of time discussing Israel as a creation designed to weaken and divide Muslims. One of his more dangerous remarks advocates halting renovations to the the Al-Aqsa Mosque (Dome of the Rock Mosque in Jerusalem) until Palestinian land is liberated, so that the dilapidated state of Islam's third holiest shrine can serve as a constant reminder of the need to destroy Israel.
Khomeini combines the concepts of freedom, religion, and Marxism that easily entices those in Iran who are not well read. He lambastes class imperialists, saying:
"The imperialists do not allow the establishment of a single leader in Iran's secular and Islamic Universities because they fear the ideas of Iranian men. The singular person who opposes them ideologically is the threat to their existence (11)."
"A s long as the Muslim Umma is tied with these secular institutions and continues to compare secular and divine law, they will not see the face of tranquility and freedom they (the Iranian regime) wish to distance us from the freedoms present in the Quran (12)." Khomeini does not explain what he means by "freedoms present in the Quran" and in today's Iran, ideas are suppressed in favor of blind obedience to the faqih (Islamic jurist), including dissent among Muslim faqihs. This is because Khomeini's message is primarily to the masses who thrive on his slogans and look to Khomeini as a means of holding the Shah accountable, a duty the Majlis (parliament) is incapable of performing.
Khomeini's remarks, like Islamic militants today, seize on the image of America and the west as a decadent culture by relying on mass media as their source. He charges imperialism with poisoning the thinking of Iranian youth, of organizing and directing Iran's intellectual programs and organizing the mass-media of the country. It is a great irony that all of these charges levied by the late Ayatollah are things he coveted for his own government and are currently being implemented in the Islamic Republic today.
Amazingly, Khomeini blames the exacerbation of the Shiite and Sunni schism on imperialism. Yet this is a schism that goes back centuries, when Sunni Ottomans battled Shiite Safavids until the nineteenth century. Khomeini himself capitalized on the Shiite/Sunni schism when he and Saddam Hussein engaged in an eight-year battle during the Iran-Iraq War, employing the rhetoric of this historic divide.
The Goals of Khomeini's Revolution
If Khomeini's goals could be summarized from his book Islamic Governance, they would be Islam, independence of Iranian independence, expulsion of Israeli agents, and unity with Islamic nations. He makes the argument that Muslims are responsible for the preservation of Islam and this obligation is more important than prayer. His program is the unity of the Islamic world, unity of Islamic nations against Zionism, Israel and imperialists who steal the treasures of Iran. He ties into this vision discussions on martyrdom, noting that the blood of Iranians is not as valuable as the Imam Hussein.
He also constructs a series of remarks in support of clerics fomenting anti-Shah activities in Iran. Khomeini encourages Iran's mullahs to say:
• "Outside powers must not interfere with the resources of this nation;
• Iit is vital that the Umma elect the nuwab of parliament;
• The people and men of faith need to be instigators of matters involving Iranian nationalism;
• Should preserve freedom of the press (13)."
Khomeini captures his list of grievances that bolsters the argument of men of religion being the check against the monarch's excesses. "If only men of religion were empowered, then they would not permit (14):
• this nation's enslavement by England then America;
• Israeli dominance of Iran's economy;
• Israeli goods to be sold in Iran without taxation;
• the oil concession to be given away;
• the corrupt use of the public treasury;
• a monarchy that does what is pleases, even when its is 100 percent against the interest of the Iranian people;
• American agents to act on behalf of the monarchy and encourage their expulsion."
Khomeini's Definition of an Islamic Government
The most elusive and debatable concept in Islam is determining what constitutes an Islamic government. The Prophet Muhammad left no clear guidance on how Muslims should govern themselves, and the main focus after his death was to recreate a society based on the values he had left behind. Muslims resorted to the caliphate, a system that pre-dated Islam and offered a means in which tribal elders selected an urban ruler based on consensus. Most Muslims agreed with the idea of the caliphate, but a few felt that Muhammad's descendants, namely his cousin Ali bin Abu-Talib, should succeed him. If an Islamic government is defined as Wahabi, as in Saudi Arabia today, it has no room for other Islamic madhabs (schools of thought) and Shiite Muslims. In Iran, Shiites comes in different varieties (usuli, akhabri, twelvers and seveners to name a few), yet what dominates Iran is usuli, twelver form of Shiite Islam.
This means that a singular form of Islam, be it the Afghan Taliban Deoband-Wahabi Islam or Iran's official Shiite Islam, isolates a majority of Muslims who make a dizzying collection of thought, discipline and theological interpretations. Let us look at Khomeini's vision of an Islamic state:
"Islamic government is the government of Shariah (Islamic law), none rules, the Shariah rules. The Shariah are divine laws that govern mankind and Islamic governments, it is taken from the principles of Muhammad (PBUH), the Caliphs and certain known (just) personages (14)."
"The reason for the revelation of the Shariah is to constitute a government, not in the image of an empire (15)."
"Our Muslim leader is a person who is in the mosque, issues rulings and cultivates the moral of the army. If a stranger entered the Mosque of Muhammad, the prophet was indistinguishable from the other Muslims (there in prayer)(16)."
Khomeini wrote an entire book on the subject of Islamic government, a concept that is alien and difficult to quantify among Islamic thinkers since the Prophet Muhammad left no clear guidance on how Muslims should govern themselves. Khomeini paints an image of how the fourth Caliph Ali ruled, writing:
"The Commander of the Faithful Ali governed an region of such vastness, encompassing Iran, Egypt and the Hejaz (the Red Sea Coast of Arabia), he had agents in Kurman, Ahvaz, Khurasan and Basra, he lived a meager existence that a poor student today could not exist on and if the Islamic government remained as it was then, the oppression, transgression, and lust for the forbidden would not have come to pass, all this originates first from the leaders, they are the ones that cross into the dens of degradation, lust and corruption (17)." He does not tie how early Muslims govern, and when forced in his thesis to elaborate on the structure of an Islamic government, he writes in terms that may be familiar to a liberal democrat, such as preserving security and justice for all. Khomeini adds an Islamist spin, emphasizing, "we must form a government that preserves the security of people, one that has the trust of the people, one which they can trust to surrender their concerns the goal in Islam is the formation of a strong government based on the Shariah (Islamic Law), and the supremacy of the Shariah, even if this umma (community) lives on wheat bread in the shadow of a just government is better than living in palaces and entertainment while losing freedom and security (18)." It is also useful that the concept of freedom in the Middle East tends to be associated with justice, not liberty (as it is in western democracies), a psychology Khomeini understood and exploited.
Perhaps his most insightful speech advocating Islamic Law as a form governance without explaining that it would be he who would interpret the law and therefore create a theocracy was during a Hajj (Pilgrimage) speech given in 1963. In this speech, Khomeini declares that an Islamic ruler must be a Faqih (Islamic jurist) immersed in the understanding of Islamic law; this is his clearest statement of his intent to establish a theocracy (19).
Conclusion
Khomeini left a copious amount of speeches, writings and papers that need to be rediscovered as a basis for Shiite extremism and as inspiration for those Muslims aspiring to a theocracy. The most rationale challenge to the concept of the Islamic state is that Muslims are varied in their practice representing Shiite and Sunni, within those two there are Hanbali, Shafei, Maliki, Hanafi, Jaafari, Usuli, and Akhbari . . . the list goes on. The only way to balance this diversity is through a secular democracy.
Khomeini's writings also demonstrate the elaborate grassroots machine he created in exile. From reaching out to Muslim student associations to encouraging clergy to use the Hajj (Pilgrimage) as a means of exchanging views on salvation of the Muslim community, Khomeini developed a first-class psychological operations campaign. He monitored major events in Iran and also Islamic observances, never missing a chance to criticize the Shah. In weakening the Majlis and its two dominant political parties, the Shah weakened Iran's institutions, reducing the legislature to its nickname on Iran's streets as: "Yes and Yes, Sir !!. (20)" The Ayatollah also allied himself with secular leftists in France, only to drop them during the first year of civil disorder which Iran was thrown into following the fall of the Shah.
The best translation of Khomeini's writings in English include Ervand Abrahamian's Khomeinism: Essays on the Islamic Republic (University of California Press, 1993), which takes a critical look at Khomeini through his own words. A more recent biography of Khomeini is by Baqer Moin Khomeini: Life of the Ayatollah (New York: Thomas Dunne Books, 2000). These books form an excellent start into your studies on Khomeini and the rise of the Shiite clerical establishment into Islam's first organized papacy and their ascendancy to power.
Editor's Note: LCDR Aboul-Enein is Director for Egypt and North Africa and Special Advisor on Islamic Militancy at the Office of the Secretary of Defense for International Affairs and a frequent contributor to the FAO Journal. All translations of Arabic sources are the author's and represent his understanding of the material; any errors or omissions are his.
Author's Note: LCDR Aboul-Enein wishes to thank the Pentagon and Temple University Librarians for making the Arabic sources available for study and Ms. Mara Karlin, a Graduate Student of International Affairs at the John Hopkins University School for Advanced International Studies (SAIS), for her editing and valuable comments that enhanced this essay.
Notes
(1). Speech given in 1971 on the occasion of the 2,500 year anniversary of uninterrupted monarchial rule in Persia. From the Arabic Al-Thawra Al-Iraniah (The Iranian Revolution) by Dr. Ibrahim Disooki Shatta. Dar-Al-Kuttub, Beirut, Lebanon, 1979. p. 137.
(2). Dr. Shatta's Al-Thawra Al-Iraniah, p. 138.
(3). Bayan Thawri (Revolutionary Declarations) issued during the Shah's formation of the pro-monarchic Ristakheez Millet Party dated Safar 1395 AH (1975). In Arabic.
(4). Bayan Thawri (Revolutionary Declarations) issued in Ramadan 1393 AH (1973). In Arabic.
(5). Bayan Thawri (Revolutionary Declarations) undated and entitled, "Against Capitulations/Legal Preferences and Immunities for Foreigners. In Arabic.
(6). Ibid
(7). Bayan issued on 9 Safar 1393 (AH) (1973)
(8). Khomeini, Ayatollah Ruhollah. Hukumat Islamiyah/Islamic Governance, Arabic edition. Lesson 7, page 9.
(9). Khomeini's message to the Muslim Student Union of North America and Canada, 1970.
(10). Revolutionary Declarations on Legal Immunities.
(11). Khomeini, Ayatollah Ruhollah. Mubaraza bi-al Nafs (The Revolutionary Self), page 89, published in Arabic (publisher unknown).
(12). Khomeini's worldwide message to Muslim students, 1972.
(13). Remarks directed at the 20th anniversary of Khordad Uprising of 1963, a protest movement stimulated by the clergy against the White Revolution modernizing reforms imposed by the Shah.
(14). Hukumat Islamiyah/Islamic Governance, lesson 8, p.8.
(15), Ibid
(16). Ibid, lesson 2, p. 24.
(17). Ibid, lesson 6, p. 122. (18). Ibid, pp. 27-29.
(19). Khomeini's 1963 Hajj Message.
(20). Meyer, Karl E. The Dust of Empire: The Race for Mastery in the Asian Heartland (New York: PublicAffairs, 2003) paperback edition, pp. 78-81