Imam Khomeini’s Last Will and Testament

And if God forbid the servile and ruinous Pahlavi regime had survived longer certainly our young people, the children of Islam and of our country to whom the nation looks for its future would succumb to the satanic plots and conspiracies of the corrupt Pahlavi regime and to the propaganda of the mass media and to the insinuations of the Western and Eastern-oriented intellectuals or would ruin their youthful days in corrupt quarters or perhaps would serve the world-devouring powers and pitch the nation into total ruin. The Blessed and Supreme Lord obliged us and our youth by ridding us of the evil of the corrupt and predators.
My last word now to the Islamic Consultative Assembly for today and for all times and to the present and future presidents, and to the Council of Guardians and to the Supreme Judiciary Council and to the government, present and future, is that they should look out for any deviation from the true course of Islam and from the interests of the nation by our news agencies and print media.
We should all remember that the ‘freedom’ of the Western brand which causes the ruin of the youth and boys and girls is condemned in Islam and by common sense, and that to hear, to write, to speak and to publish against the dictates of Islam and in a manner abhorrent to the moral virtue and ethical principles of society and against the best interests of the country is prohibited (haram), the prevention of which is the individual responsibility of all of us and all Muslims.
Destructive freedoms, and anything religiously prohibited or against the social propriety in the Islamic Republic or against the reputation of the Islamic Republic should be prevented, or else each and everyone of us will be responsible for it. If the people and the youth of Hezbollah9 should encounter instances of the violation of such considerations they must report the same to relevant institutions, and if officials in those institutions should show indifference towards it the youth are responsible for taking action to prevent it. May the Supreme Lord be the Aider of all.
My last word to the [political] groups [parties] and grouplets [factions] and to other people who are active against the nation and the Islamic Republic, and primarily my last word to their leaders in and outside of Iran is to call on them to have a retrospective glance at their long experience to find out for themselves that having tried their hands at everything, at every plot, and having tried their luck with any foreign country and personality should have proved to them that they cannot change the course of the life of a patriotic nation by assassinations, bomb blasts, disreputing and nonsensical propaganda; that no government can be toppled by such inhuman devices, and especially the government of the Islamic Republic, which relies on a nation of young children and adults, old men and women who do perform acts of self-sacrifice for their goal, for the Islamic Republic, for the Holy Qur’an and their religion.
You know (and if you don’t know, you are far too simple¬ minded) that the nation is not with you, and that the armed forces are your enemies; and if -only taking it for granted- they were once your sympathizers, you repelled them by your crude acts and as a result of criminal acts perpetrated by your provocations, you could not win friends but made enemies for yourselves.
N. My last word of altruistic advice to you in the last days of my life is that I wonder how you may bring yourself to fight a tyrannized nation which, for 2,500 years, has been plagued by cruel monarchies and which rid itself of the oppression of a regime such as that of the Pahlavi’s and the world-devouring Western and Eastern powers by giving away their best children and youth as martyrs in their fight for freedom.
How could a human being bring himself to behave like that with his own people for [the sake of] attaining some office; safeguarding neither children nor the elderly? I exhort you to cease such useless and unwise perpetrations and guard against playing into the hands of the world-devouring powers.
If you have not committed a crime return to your homeland and into the fold of Islam, wherever you are, and repent and rest assured that God is Compassionate and Merciful and, God willing, the Islamic Republic and the Iranian nation will forgive your wrongdoing, and if you have committed a crime for which there is a divinely-decreed punishment still turn back midway and repent, and if you are bold enough accept the punishment you should suffer and thereby save yourself from God’s retribution. If you do not want to return home, then do not waste your life any longer and spend the remainder of your life in a vocation which ensures your eventual good.
I also advise the supporters of these people in and outside Iran to think about the reasons why they consecrated their youth to serve a people who are indisputably working for the world-devouring powers? Why they promote their schemes? Why [are they] entangled in their traps? In whose interests and for the sake of whom are you wronging your own people? You are playing into their hands, and if you are in Iran you will see for yourself that the million-strong masses are loyal to the Islamic Republic, for which they perform acts of self-sacrifice.
You clearly see that the present government in this country is wholeheartedly at the service of the people and the impoverished masses. Those who hypocritically pretend to be committed to the masses or bear such labels as mujahid or fada’eyan [devotees] are actually antagonizing the very people who are God’s creatures, and they are exploiting you for their own purposes and for one of the world-devouring power poles. If they [the masterminds and leaders of the two grouplets] are outside Iran they are having fun at the heart of either one of the two criminal power poles, and if they are in Iran, they live in their sumptuous common hide-outs as wretched criminals, continuing their criminal acts and plunging you youthful people into the jaws of death.
My sincere advise to you is this: I would urge you to take the opposite course •and reunite with the deprived masses who are serving the Islamic Republic wholeheartedly, and to work for an independent and free Iran so that your country and your people will be rid of the evil of opponents and so that you may all continue honorable lives.
Wherefore and for how long do you intend to take orders from a people who think not but of their own interests; (a people) who, resting in the lap of the superpowers and sheltered by them, are fighting their own people, and who are sacrificing you for their own dire ambitions and for their craze for power. During the past few years since the triumph of the Islamic Revolution, you have readily seen that their acts do not tally with their pretensions; that pretensions are only devices for cheating unsophisticated youth.
You know that you are no power against the roaring ocean of the nation, and that by what you do; you will only harm yourself and ruin your life. I have now fulfilled my obligation for guiding you, and I hope you will heed this advice of mine which is reaching you after my death and which is untainted by ambition or self-interest, and hope also that you will save yourself from the Eternal Punishment of God. May the Beneficent guide you onto the right path.
I give my last word and advice to the leftists, such as the communists, the Fada’eyan Khalq Organization and others, by asking them: How did you bring yourself to subscribe to a broken¬ down school of thought without first having formed a sound idea of other schools and Islam, with the help of people who are well¬ oriented about schools, especially Islam? Whatever prompted you to indulge your fancy unjust a few ‘isms’ which are devoid of content among learned and inquisitive people? What motive is prompting you to pull your country into the fold of the Soviets or China, and wherefore should you be prompted to wage a war with your own people in the name of concern for the ‘people,’ and why should you have contributed to plots against your nation and against the tyrannized masses in this country and in the interests of foreign enemies? You see that since the birth of communism, those who have pretended to subscribe to its ideology have led the worst authoritarian, most absolute, and worst monopolistic governments in the world.