This month Muslims from all over the world will travel to the Hijaz for the Hajj, which will take place early in February. The worldview of Islam is a dynamic system of thought. It brings to life and modern relevance events that took place a long time ago...
After the Islamic Revolution in Iran, Imam Khomeini (r.a.) started a tradition of issuing an annual message to hujjaj as they gathered in the Hijaz for the Hajj. Here we reprint an abridged version of his message to the hujjaj given in Dhu al-Qadah 1403AH (August 1983CE).
The philosophy of Hajj, i.e. one of the major philosophies of Hajj, lies in its political dimensions, for the suppression of which criminal hands are at work from all around. The important aspect of Hajj has not been less than its devotional aspect, since its very beginning.
The present anthology is designed to serve as a detailed and reliable introduction to the ideas and pronouncements of Imam Khomeini for those who have no access to the original Persian texts. Imam Khomeini has been a prolific writer and frequent speaker, and this volume represents only a fraction of his total output. We have excluded writings that deal with technical aspects of Islamic jurisprudence and philosophy, although passing reference to such matters inevitably does occur in some of the texts we have translated. We begin with the best-known work of Imam Khomeini, his lectures on Islamic Government, and then proceed to offer a selection of his speeches and declarations, which, chronologically arranged, form an outline documentary history of the Islamic Revolution.
1“Islamic Government” is an exact translation of the original Persian title, Hukumat-i Islami. However, the reader should bear in mind that the book does not purport to offer either a complete scheme of Islamic political philosophy or a detailed plan for the establishment and functioning of an Islamic state. Its purpose is narrower and more specific, and geared to the audience to whom the lectures were delivered: students of the religious sciences, who might be expected later to assume positions of influence in Muslim society.
1A BODY OF LAWS ALONE is not sufficient for a society to be reformed. In order for law to ensure the reform and happiness of man, there must be an executive power and an executor. For this reason, God Almighty, in addition to revealing a body of law (i.e., the ordinances of the shari’a), has laid down a particular form of government together with executive and administrative institutions.
1ISLAMIC GOVERNMENT does not correspond to any of the existing forms of government. For example, it is not a tyranny, where the head of state can deal arbitrarily with the property and lives of the people, making use of them as he wills, putting to death anyone he wishes, and enriching anyone he wishes by granting landed estates and distributing the property and holdings of the people.
1IT IS OUR DUTY TO WORK toward the establishment of an Islamic government. The first activity we must undertake in this respect is the propagation of our cause; that is how we must begin. It has always been that way, all over the world: a group of people came together, deliberated, made decisions, and then began to propagate their aims. Gradually the number of like-minded people would increase, until finally they became powerful enough to influence a great state or even to confront and overthrow it, as was the case with the downfall of Muhammad ‘Ali Mirza and the supplanting of his absolute monarchy with constitutional government.’
1Neither a speech nor, strictly speaking, a declaration, this is an extract from Kashf al-Asrar, a book published by Imam Khomeini in 1941, soon after the forced abdication of Riza Shah. The book was written at the behest of Ayatullah Burujirdi in systematic refutation of an anti-religious tract that had appeared a few years earlier. Given its wide-ranging contents and those of the book it was designed to refute, as well as the currency of anti-religious literature in the period of Riza Shah, Kashf al-Asrar is largely political in nature and, in fact, constitutes his first public political statement.
1This declaration was given from Qum on the occasion of the fortieth day after the assault on Fayziya Madrasa that took place on March 22, 1963. Source: Khomeini va Junbish (a collection of speeches and declarations) (np., 1394/1974), pp. 1-3.
1This speech, delivered at Fayziya Madrasa in Qum, is particularly notable for its fearless words of reproach addressed to the Shah. Source: Khomeini va Junbish, pp. 4-7.
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