Imam Khomeini’s Last Will and Testament

In this last will and testament of mine I will do it as briefly as I can, trusting that our men of letters, our sociologists and our historians will disillusion Muslims that the prophets were (A.S.) concerned solely with spiritualities, that involvement in government and management of the state affairs is condemned in religions, that the prophets and the saints refused to get themselves involved in these areas and that, by the same token, we, too, must guard against getting ourselves involved in those concerns is a sad mistake which entails the destruction of Muslim nations and opens the door for the bloodthirsty colonialists.
On the contrary, the idea that is discountenanced is the very existence of satanic and dictatorial tyrannical governments which are instituted for the very purpose of domination over the masses. Corrupt worldly pursuits, including the accumulation of wealth, the gaining of power and the status of worldly gods and, in essence, involvement in such worldly concerns which tend to make man overlook the Blessed and Supreme Lord.
Institution of a government for administering justice in the interest of the oppressed and downtrodden masses, for preventing tyranny and oppression and for instituting social equality similar to what Solomon and the Glorious Messenger of Islam (S.A.W) and his noble disciples struggled for is among prime duties and -its establishment is a lofty act of worship since the rational politics which mark such governments is a principal social requisite.
I exhort the wakeful and vigilant people of Iran to neutralize such plots relying on their Islamic perceptions, and also exhort our self-committed writers and public speakers to help our nation, and thereby eliminate the conspiring worldly satans of our time.
C. And of the same category of plots -and perhaps more malicious than the rest -is the hostile propaganda by way of rumor-making which regularly festers the air throughout our country, boiling down in essence to such insinuations that the Islamic Republic, like its predecessor, has not done anything for the people; that the ‘poor’ people, with such fervor and enthusiasm as they had, did acts of self-sacrifice to rid themselves of the tyrannical rule of the oppressors only to find out eventually that they were plagued by a worse regime; that the arrogant moneyed class has become even more arrogant, that the oppressed masses have become more oppressed, that the prisons have become crowded with the young people who were the hope for the future of the country, that acts of torture are now more common than and more beastly than they were during the past regime, that everyday a number of people are executed in the name of Islam, that the government here would have been wiser if it did not call itself ‘Islamic’, that these times are ever more terrible than it was during the times of Reza Khan and his son, that the people are being drowned in a deluge of agonies, hardships and ‘high cost of living, that the people at the helm of the state are transforming this government into a communist government, that the personal properties of the people are being expropriated, that they are being denied civil liberties in every aspect, and the likes of such rumors which are being published as a strategy for a malicious scheme.
That they are the tools for promoting a conspiracy can be readily witnessed. Rumor making is undertaken as a periodical and regular device, each rumor being published for several days until another is in the air; the usual platforms for airing them being our taxi cabs, our city buses, and wherever a small gathering of people presents itself as a potential form for airing those rumors; and once one rumor has lost its credibility another is invented and aired.
And it is unfortunate that some of our ulama who are unsophisticated about satanic devices are likely to fall prey to publishers of rumors and allow themselves to conclude that what they hear in the form of rumors is true, because they are uninformed about the state of world affairs, about the world revolutions, and about the developments and the inescapable hardships that have followed other revolutions elsewhere in the world, and about the developments which are in the interest of Islam, and who listen to those rumors with blind eyes and who out of no ill will, or perhaps with deliberate ill will, promote the same insinuations.
I ask of you all not to try to find fault with the Islamic government and not to try to discredit the government or indulge in scurrilities against the system without first having studied the present status of world affairs and compared the Islamic Revolution in Iran with other revolutions elsewhere in the world, without first having studied the situation in other countries during and after revolutions, without first having looked at the afflictions inflicted on this country by Reza Khan and his son Muhammad Reza as a result of their plundering of the wealth of this nation, without first having studied the destructive pre-revolution dependence [on foreign powers], as well as the ruling system in government ministries at that time, without first having studied the status of the nation’s economy before the revolution, and of its armed forces; without first having looked at the centers for corrupt fun-making, and recalled the places for dispensing intoxicants [liquor stores] and for promoting an abandoned way of life and irresponsible attitude ,in every aspect of the people’s daily life, without first having recalled the shabby status of education in the pre-revolution time, and the ruling situation in high schools, and in our colleges and universities; without first having recalled the status of our movie houses, and recalled also the professional places for debauchery, the status of our youths, our women, and the afflictions of the holy, the religious people and self-committed freedom-lovers and our oppressed but virtuous women during the past regime, without first having recalled the status of our mosques at that time and also studied the cases of those who were executed after the Islamic Revolution or who were found guilty and sentenced to prison terms, without first having investigated the performance of public officials, and observed the collection of data on the assets of capitalists and big landlords and on the status of hoarders and profiteers, without having investigated the condition of the post-revolution courts and revolutionary tribunals against the status of our justice system before the revolution.
And having compared the post- revolution judges with their predecessors before the revolution, and investigated the status of the deputies of the majlis [parliament] of the Islamic Republic and members of the cabinet as well as governors and other post-revolutionary officials and compared it with that of their predecessors, without having studied the performance of the government and of the Construction Jihad2 in under-privileged villages, which did not even have piped water and basic health care services, and compared it with the situation during the past regime in light of the burden of the war imposed on Iran and its natural consequences, such as the multi¬ million war refugees and bereaved families and war-injured people and the million-strong refugees from Afghanistan and Iraq in the face of economic sanctions against Iran and regular plots against Iran by the United States and its agents in and outside of Iran, to say nothing of the shortage of Islamic propagandists, religious judges, and the confusion created since the culmination of the Islamic Revolution by the enemies of Islam and deviated people and even by feeble-minded friends of the Islamic Revolution, or of tens of other things.
I ask of you all to have mercy upon this estranged Islam which, in the wake of hundreds of years of the tyranny of power-wielders and as a result of the ignorance of the masses is now only revived unsteadily like a tottering child beleaguered by enemies in and outside of our country, and ask of you also to judge for yourselves whether you would not do better by supporting the oppressed and the tyrannized people rather than condemning the Islamic Revolution, and think of the assassinated people, rather than supporting the hypocritically self-righteous3, the tyrants, the capitalists, and the cruel hoarders.