Imam Khomeini’s Last Will and Testament

Now you are shouting protest cries because while corruption is not dispensed in our city streets, this or that young man, mainly under the influence of deviate groups, may be put on trial for having committed wrongful acts, or may be executed for being corrupt on earth (mufsid-fil ardh) or for [armed) revolt against Islam and the Islamic Republic. You join causes and shake brotherly hands with the people who expressly condemn Islam or challenge it by firearms or in writing and in rhetoric which is more saddening than armed challenge. You call ‘the apple of your eye’ the people whom God decrees to be executed. You sit beside the political actors who conducted a bloodbath on March 514 killing innocent youth, and calmly watch the scene, and you consider your attitudes and your acts as being consistent with Islam and the operation of the government and the judiciary council, which punish sworn enemies of Islam and the Islamic Republic], and the deviated atheists for their wrongdoing as being unjust, and cry out for help.
Knowing somewhat the past of some of you, my brothers-in-faith, and having liking for some of you I am sorry for you, but I am not sorry for those who were bandits disguising themselves as nice people md wolves clad in shepherds’ garb, and about humbugs who hoodwinked all and who meant to ruin the country and the nation md serve one of the predatory power poles.
Those who have martyred valuable youth and men and ulama who are educators of the society, and who did not even spare the innocent children of Muslims, have brought infamy upon themselves and have made themselves wretched beings before God. For them the return road is closed, since they are totally governed by the animal in themselves.
But you pious brothers-in-faith, why not help the government and the majlis, which endeavor to assist the deprived, the oppressed, the barefooted and those people deprived of all means of livelihood? Why do you complain? Have you compared the bulk of government services for the people during the short interval since the establishment of the Islamic Republic-allowing for all hard luck and post-revolution afflictions which are common to every revolution, including the imposed war and the millions of Iranian and non-Iranian war refugees and the innumerable obstructions¬ with development services for the same period during the past regime?
Do you not know that at that time development services were the privilege almost solely of cities, and even then of the affluent sector of the cities with poor and deprived people benefitting little, if at all, from those services, whereas the present government as well as Islamic institutions render services for those groups of deprived people with all their hearts. Therefore, you pious people, too, support the government so that the projects will be implemented sooner, and hope that on your journey to heaven you will be wearing the badge of service to God’s men. (I, myself remored sections from here).
O. One of the topics which needs be recalled here is that Islam does not approve of tyrannical capitalism, which tends to deprive the oppressed and downtrodden masses. On the contrary, it sharply condemns it in the Book and so do the traditions.
They consider ii counter to social justice, although certain half-witted people who are uninformed about the Islamic government and political issues in an Islamic state have somehow pretended and still persist in their writings and in their lectures that Islam advocates uncontrolled capitalism and private ownership, and with such interpretations of the Islamic dictates they have marred the brilliant visage of Islam, thereby paving the way for the invasion against Islam by malevolent people and for intimating that an Islamic government is a government like capitalist governments of the West, such as the United States, England and other plunderers of the West, and there are others who, relying on the judgment of such silly people, or perhaps maliciously and without bothering to check with true Islamicists, they are fighting Islam.
But at the other extreme Islam is not a system of government like communism and Marxist¬ Leninism, which condemn private ownership and which advocate community ownership with varying degrees, and which have undergone certain transformations over the past years, once recognizing the principle of communal ownership, to even authorize polyandry and homosexuality under an absolute dictatorship, but [an Islamic government] is rather a moderate system of government which recognizes private ownership only to a level and allowing it only within bounds, the implementation of which system in its true form will ensure the turning of the wheels of a healthy economy which is required for a healthy political system.
Alternatively others, relying on their own corrupt interpretation of Islam and due to their lack of sophistication about Islam and the healthy economy that it advocates, have adopted a position at the other extreme, even occasionally adducing certain verses from the Holy Qur’an or from the Nahjul-Balaghah pretend that Islam is compatible with such deviated schools as Marxism, disregarding other verses in the Holy Qur’an and in the Nahjul¬Balaghah, advocating community ownership according to their own myopic outlooks, and supporting blasphemy, dictatorship and strangulation of the masses by a small ruling body which acts like animals.
My last word to the majlis and the Council of Guardians, the government, the President and the Supreme Judiciary Council is to call on them to be resigned to divine decrees, to resist falling prey to the empty propaganda of the marauding pole of capitalists and the irreligious communists, to recognize and respect legitimate private ownership and private capital obtained within the bounds of Islam and to assure the people of your recognition of such principles so that private capital will be invested in productive activities so that it will contribute to the self-sufficiency of the government and the country both in light and heavy industries.
In addition, my last word to the wealthy and the owners of legitimately-obtained money is to invest their lawful money in healthy enterprises, in farms, factories and our villages, resting assured that the enterprise is a lofty act of worship.
I exhort all to endeavor for the welfare of the deprived masses, and remind them that their eventual good is dependent on serving the deprived masses of the society who have suffered hardships and agonies during monarchies and the rules of feudal lords. And benevolent are those of our moneyed people who volunteer to build houses for pit-dwellers and shanty-dwellers, and who provide for their welfare, and let them be assured that such acts will bring them good in this world and in the Hereafter and of course it is far from equal that one person should be homeless and another have many apartment houses.
P. My last word to that sector of the ulama and imposter clerics who oppose the Islamic Republic with different motives, who spend their lives in subversive schemes, who collaborate with conspiring oppositionists and political actors, sometimes reportedly doing so with the aid of the colossal amounts of money they receive from the ungodly capitalists, is: To date you have not gained anything by such wicked acts, nor do I see it likely that you will do so at any future time.
If you have done such acts as you have for worldly purposes, which God will prevent you from fulfilling, then it is better that as long as it is not too late for repentance you repent your acts and join the cause of the oppressed and impoverished nation, and support the Islamic Republic, which guarantees your good in this world and in the Hereafter, though I feel it is unlikely that you will want to repent before it is too late.
But as for those who antagonize the Islamic Republic based on the misjudgments of certain other individuals or groups or on the strength of their verdicts which, whether with or without malice, antagonize the Islamic government, and who -in their own judgment- try to subvert it for the cause of God, and who pretend that this Republic is as bad as or worse than the toppled monarchy, I only advise them to think things over with a clear heart in solitude and compare this Islamic Republic with the past regime, and also remember that all revolutions throughout the world have also been characterized by chaos and transgressions, and instances of opportunism as unavoidable realities.