Imam Khomeini’s Last Will and Testament

Every person within his power and within the power of his influence must be in the service of Islam and the country, and must diligently prevent the infiltration of agents of the two colonialist powers, as well as the adherents of the Western or Eastern bloc ideologies, and rest assured that the enemies of Islam and Muslim nations, that is the ravaging superpowers, infiltrate Muslim countries gradually, systematically and in a creeping manner, exploiting the very people in those countries for luring them to the trap of exploitation.
You must watch against such things and rise up against them as soon as you witness an indication of such infiltration, and you should not give them a respite. May God be your Aid and Protector. I also call on the members of the Islamic Consultative Assembly (majlis), present and future, to refuse votes of confidence to any person who should be found to be deviated and who should have paved the way to the majlis by fraudulent means and political artifice, and make sure that not one subversive and foreign-inspired element will find his way to the majlis.
I also advise the officially¬ recognized religious minorities to learn a lesson from the era of the Pahlavi Dynasty, and elect their representatives from among the individuals who are committed to their own religion and to the Islamic Republic, who are not inspired by the world-devouring foreign powers, who are not inclined to atheistic, deviate or eclectical schools of thought.
I call on all majlis members to maintain a fraternal spirit and good will in their daily association with one another, and to make sure that, God forbid, the majlis bills will not be un-Islamic, that they are loyal to Islam and observe the divine decrees so that they will prosper in this world and in the Hereafter.
I call on the respectable Council of Guardians (Shuraye Negahban), and the future councils, to carry out their Islamic and national duties with the utmost care and scrupulousness without allowing themselves to succumb to any power and prevent the ratification of law bills which are against pure Islam and the Constitution without any hesitation, and also have an eye to the exigencies of the day which sometimes will have to be executed by way of Secondary Ordinances (Ahkam Thanaviyah) and at other times by way of the decree of the Guardianship of the Jurisconsult (Wilayah al- Faqih).
I call on the noble people of Iran to be in the political scene, whether on the occasion of the elections for the majlis or presidential elections, or for [the Assembly of] Experts for determining the leadership council or the leader. For example, 1n elections of Experts for determining the leadership council they should remember that if they do so carelessly and if they do not elect experts for the council on the basis of religious criteria and the relevant laws, it is likely that they will thereby have inflicted irreparable damage to Islam and to the country, in which case everyone will be responsible before the Supreme God. Therefore, to keep oneself aloof in such circumstances would be a cardinal sin, whether committed by the people, or the ranking ulama, or businessmen, or farmers or workers, or government employees who are responsible for the fate of this country and Islam.
Then as the old saying goes, an ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure, or else the situation will be out of everybody’s control. This was truly experienced after the Constitutional monarchy. There is no better remedy than to have a nation who, throughout the country, does only according to the Islamic dictates and the Constitution, to have a people who solicit the opinion of the committed educated people and people independent of the foreign powers and people who are well-reputed for their faith in Islam and in the Islamic Republic as well as the committed members of the ulama on such occasions as presidential elections, elections for the majlis and who make sure that the President and majlis deputies will be elected from among the candidates who have felt the oppression and deprivation of the oppressed masses and who are concerned about their welfare rather than from the group of capitalists, or landlords and aristocrats who indulge in sensual pleasures and who know nothing of the bitter taste of deprivation and hunger and the barefooted.
We should remember that as long as our presidents and our majlis deputies are worthy people and are committed to Islam and concerned about the country and the people, the [country’s] problems would be fewer and more easily managed. The same considerations should be emphatically observed when electing Experts for determining the leadership council or a leader.
The Experts who are elected by the nation should also consult the leading ulama of their time, and the religious personalities and committed learned men and make sure that as long as they work with scrupulousness they will prevent many problems, and will easily solve those that may be encountered. Articles 109& 110 of the Constitution define the serious responsibility of the people for electing Experts and in turn the latters for electing leadership council or for electing the leader, and it is evident that the slightest negligence and carelessness is most likely to inflict grave damage upon Islam and the country, make them responsible to God for their carelessness.
This era being the era of the inroad of the superpowers and their dependent elements in and outside of Iran seemingly in the name of Islamic Republic and actually against the Islamic Republic, and more truly against Islam, I admonish that the responsibility of the leader and the leadership council is to consecrate their lives to the service of Islam, the Islamic Republic and the deprived and oppressed masses, and watch against the notion that they are dignified by reason of their offices since, truly speaking, offices like that are very heavy and precarious responsibilities in the performance of which any lapse, if, God forbid, is committed out of worldly pursuits, will be a life-long infamy upon the incumbent and will entail God’s wrath upon him in the Hereafter.
I implore the Beneficent Almighty God and supplicate Him to receive you and me in His Kingdom only after He has helped us to pass proudly through this grave ordeal and to save us in our endeavors, the rest of the public officials ranging from the president to lower-level officials, depending on the gravity of their responsibilities, too are likely to lapse into pitfalls, today and in the future, wherefore they should always feel conscious of the presence of the Blessed and Supreme Lord wherever they are and feel themselves as being in His blessed company. May Almighty God lead them on the right path.
H. Judicature is a prime business of the government, and a branch which deals with the lives, properties and chastity of the people. By this last will of mine I call on the leader and the leadership counc1l to do their best in the designation of an incumbent for the highest judicial position and make sure he is self¬ committed, has experience. and is an authority in sharia laws, as well as Islam in general and politics, I call on the High Judiciary Council to rehabilitate, as diligently as they can, the judicial affairs which during the past regime had degenerated into a shabby and deplorable condition, and to dismiss people who might be occupying judiciary seats in our law courts toying with the lives and assets of people without being really concerned about Islamic justice, to gradually reform the justice adm1ninstration diligently and steadily, and to replace judges incompetent and unqualified from the point of Islam by other religiously educated and competent nominees with the contribution of our theological schools, especially graceful Qum Theological School, so that with the grace of the Blessed and Supreme Lord, Islamic justice will prevail throughout the country, By this last will and testament and in view also of the traditions attributed to the Infallible Fourteen4 (A.S.) in relation with the gravity of judiciary affairs and also in relation with perilous position of the judgments, I exhort all respectable judges of today and tomorrow to assume this task with due commitment and prevent the occupation of judiciary seats by unfit people, and advise the qualified people not to reject the offer of involvement in the task. Let them know that as great as the risks of this position are, just as great is its divine recompense, and know also that for qualified persons to engage in the task is a religious duty.