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RELIGION AND STATE
The Imam as a man who created a new order had a character with several aspects. Two of those aspects were the scholarly and political dimensions of his personality. In an interview with Hozour magazine in June 1991, the imam's son, late Hojjatoleslam Seyed Ahmad Khomeini spoke on these dimensions of the Imarn's personality:
The Imam attended the Arak seminary when he was about 21 years old. The founder of the renowned Qom seminary, late Sheikh Abdolkarim Haeri Yazdi lectured at the Arak seminary. Once he went to Qom for pilgrimage. There the ulema asked him to stay in Qom. He accepted the offer and later his pupils including the Imam left Arak for Qom. In that city the Imam completed most of his primary courses including jurisprudence, principles of the religion, and ethics in the classes of Ayatollah Haeri Yazdi. At the same time he taught other lessons as a tutor.(3)The Imam studied philosophy with Ayatollah Raflee for four years. After completing the Manzumah, he began to learn Asfar at the classes of Seyed Aboihassan Ghazvini. After two or three sessions, the Imam found out that he already knew the subject matter. Having proved that, he started to teach the Manzumah. Several clergies including Ayatollah Morteza Motahari were his pupils in the Manzumah course.
Scores of clerics and ordinary people attended the Imam's ethics classes at the Fayzieh School in Qom. The Imam's teaching method was very impressive particularly when he taught topics on resurrection and the afterlife. One day the Imam met with late Mr. Elahi, a mystic from Ghazvin and the great mystic late Mr. Shah Abadi. During their talks the Imam found out that Mr. Shah Abadi was a great master of philosophy. The Imam invited him to teach at Fayzieh, and himself studied the Fossus of Ibn Arabi with him for six years. According to Ayatollah Haeri Yazdi's son, the Imam was one of the last scholars who had studied on the topic and were able to lecture on mysticism.
The Imam has been quoted as saying that once when he was going to the school where he lectured he saw a number of people holding a discussion on the book The Thousand Years Old Secrets. He decided not to go to the school for a month or so and write the book Kashf ul Asrar.
All those who knew the Imam as a young man agree that he was a pious man who prayed for long hours and never attended a circle where there was any backbiting. Nor did he allow such behavior in his presence. At the same time, while striving for self purification, he attached importance to political activities and was politically active at the times of both Ayatollah Haeri Yazdi and Ayatollah Boroujerdi. For instance he opposed Reza Khan Pahiavi's policies towards the seminary and clerical order. He recalled that in part of Reza Khan's reign the clergy had to go out of town early in the morning and return after dark to avoid being harassed by the police.
Following the death of Ayatollah Haeri Yazdi the Imam supported Ayatollah Boroujerdi as his successor. On that time Ayatollah Boroujerdi was receiving medical treatment near Tebran. According to his wife, the Imam as a young scholar of the seminary wrote 50 to 60 letters a day to high ranking clergies across the country demanding their support for Ayatollah Boroujerdi. Finally the Ayatollah went to Qom and the seminary was thus strengthened from a scholarly point of view.
After Ayatollah Boroujerdi's death many clergies published their assertions on religious matters pretending they were doing that because seminary could not left without a superintendent.. They also collected the sums that were normally donated to the late Ayatollah. The Imam, who was 62 years old on that time, went on with his teachings and did not take part in these activities. He never tried to declare himself a marja', a clergy to whom people should refer for their religious problems. Although his pupils like Mirza Jafar Sobhani were active in his support, the Imam himself did not take even a single step in this direction. What really mattered to him was educating young clergies and thinking about the future of Islam.
Later, when Ayatollah Seyed Hadi Shirazi, a successor to Ayatollah Boroujerdi died, again the Imam refused to work towards becoming the marja'. High ranking clergies of Qom sent a message to the Imam who was in Tehran on that time calling on him to declare his willingness for religious leadership but the Imam still refused to do so. However, under the tremendous pressures coming from the high ranking clergies and ordinary people the Imam accepted to publish his Ressalah.
Both at the time of Ayatollah Haeri Yazdi and during the days of Ayatollah Boroujerdi the Imam was the standard bearer of political activities in the seminary or Hozah. At the time of Ayatollah Borojerdi he was assigned by the Ayatollah and other high ranking clergies to meet with the Shah twice because he was the only one who could speak with the shah and warn him against his policies without any inhibition. Nevertheless, when martyr Navab Safavi and his friends were sentenced to death, the Imam criticized ayatollah Boroujerdi and other clergies for failing to take a critical stance against the Shah. While other clergies urged the Shah not to put clergies to execution with their clerical dresses on, the Imam insisted that they should not be executed at all and if they were, they should have their clerical dresses on so that the people would know them.
There were regressive clergies at the seminary who even believed the philosophy and mysticism classes sponsored by the Imam were too radical for the seminary and its pupils. They even declared the Manzumah untouchable and said those who studied philosophy were blasphemous. Imam launched a major struggle against the old way of thinking at the seminary and furthered it until victory. In fact many believe that one of the greatest achievements of the Imam was the enlightenment he introduced at the seminary and traditional divinity schools. He strongly believed that enlightenment should begin at the schools and find its way to the streets. He furthered this struggle single-handedly.
In this way, on the one hand he worked hard for the enlightenment of the students and on the other hand he had to fight against the Shah's regime and its oppression. Finally, by educating revolutionary pupils the Imam witnessed their victory over the regressive factions in the seminary and managed to guide his pupils throughout the struggle against the regime until its final victory in February 1979.
ARRIVAL AND DEPARTURE
Former interior minister and now the speaker of the Islamic Consultative Assembly (Majlis) Hojjatoleslam Au AkbarNateq Nouri, was a close eye witness to the late Imam's arrival in Iran in February 1979 and to his final departing in a magnificent funeral, both attended by millions. Speaking in an interview in the special issue of Jomhuri Eslami newspaper, he explained that he was not supposed to attend any one of the two events. However, his presence in both of those events turned out to be constructive and helpful.
"On the first of February 1979 like thousands of others I had a pass that allowed me to welcome the Imam upon his arrival in Mehrabad airport. But it so happened that I got in car that was moving behind the vehicle that carried the Imam. There was only one other vehicle between us that carried the TV crew that filmed the event. I saw the Imam's car all the time, but when we reached Behesht Zahra Cemetery I found out that his car was no longer there. I asked the film crew why they did not come along and they answered because the Imam was not coming. I jumped out of the rear door of our moving car to see what had happened. With great effort I reached the Imam's car. The car was out of order. And there were hundreds of people practically on the car. The engine was on fire but the Imam was still in the car. Mr. Rafighdoust who was driving the car was worried about the Imam's safety but the Imam kept saying, "don't worry, nothing is going to happen!" Rafighdoust said that the Imam wanted to get off the car and go and talk to the people but I locked the doors an~ kept him inside as I feared for his safety. The car was moving with the pressures coming from the hands of people who surrounded it.
At the same time,an army helicopter landed nearby and the Imam got off the car and reached the helicopter and went aboard. I too found myself in the helicopter and finally we landed in lot 17 of the cemetery.
In a strange way a similar event took place during the Imam's funeral many years later. On the welcoming day, after his speech the Imam went towards the helicopter but fearing for the safety of the crowd the pilot took off while security arrangements on the grounds were gone too. You have probably seen a photo of the Imam in Behesht Zahra in which he is not wearing his turban. That photo was taken in this very moment. Worried for his safety, I kept shouting but no one could hear me. Even for one moment I thought I lost the Imam. People pulled him from one place to another. But he was so clam. It was a strange power that pulled the Imam out of that turbulent crowd.
This scene was similar to another scene on the funeral day. On that day the pressure from the crowd has made me helpless but a hand from the occult saved the Imam's bdy from among the crowd and reached it to where it should have been several long minutes ago. In that scene too, the people were pulling the body towards themselves but a strange trend carried him towards the burial site. The clean body was moving by a hand from the occult.
On the funeral day I went to Mossalla, where the body was. I did not go to Behesht Zahra in the morning. With millions of others we prayed for the Imam and I moved towards the cemetery as soon as the prayer came to its end. Had someone asked me why I was in such a hurry to go to Behesht Zahra, I had no answer for him.
The long way between Mossalla and Behesht Zahra was filled with those who have come to say farewell to their Imam. Yet, when I reached the cemetery, the population was unbelievably large. When I got there I planned to stay out of the area where the containers were. But with the pressure coming from the crowd, all of a sudden I found myself in. So we climbed the containers and came down from the other side ike others without noticing what we have done. There, I tried to go to the area that was dedicated to state officials. When I got there everybody was mourning. After a while, I found out that there was order. Both the people and the police had lost their control because of sorrow and grief. I remembered the experience of the day of Imam's arrival and began to become anxious. I thought it was absolutely impossible to bury the Imam's body in the presence of the crowd. I discussed my worries with the police and asked them to think of order. A few minutes later the helicopter that carried the Imam's body arrived. The wooden coffin was longer than the helicopter's width and it was visible in both ends.
As soon as the helicopter landed and the people saw it, they rushed towards it. So, I went to the microphone that was in the area and called on the crowd to be calm. But nobody could listen to me. The people pulled the coffin out and it was now moving on their hands around the area. The crowd was not willing to give the coffin for burial. 'After a few minutes, the coffin was no longer visible. We only could guess where it was by seeing a turbulence in the. moving crowd. Nothing was under control. When I decided to go among the crowd, my friends told me that I could be killed under their feet. But I went there and started shouting at the people and the disciplinary forces. Finally an ambulance went ahead from among the crowd and the forces put the coffin inside the ambulance.
However, when the vehicle reached the grave the body was once again outside by carried away by the crowd. When they got closer to where I was and when I saw that the shroud was moved away revealing the Imam's legs, I could no longer hesitate. I got hold of the coffin, put a turban on it and kept it in the officials' section. Then I got the radio and called for the helicopter. When it landed, I climbed the ambulance and moved the coffin into the helicopter. When it took off parts of the coffin were still out of he helicopter. First we landed at the military academy downtown Tehran and then flew to a helicopter pad near the Imam's house. From the pad we took the coffin to the house by another ambulance. This time, Ayatollah Khamenei sent a shroud he had kept for himself. At four o'clock in the afternoon the Imam's body was taken to Behesht Zahra once again. Some of the crowd had left because it was announced that the funeral as postponed to the day after. Nevertheless, when the helicopter reached the burial area once again they rushed to the scene. With much difficulty the coffin was laid by the grave. I went into the grave and buried the body of our beloved Imam with the help of two other men.
As soon as the burial was over the crowd rushed once again and I was sure that I was going to die under their steps. But in a strange way, an outlet opend and I could come out of the grave with my bare feet. Then a container was put over the grave and the funeral came to its end.
MILLIONS MOURN
The commander of army helicopter unit who accompanied the pilot of the helicopter, now general Mohammad Ansari recalls that he was on a military mission the day before the Imam's demise. When he was listening to the morning news the day after he could not believe his own ears. "I simply did not think I could bear such a great sorrow," he says. However, when he was told to take part in the missions relating to funeral he accepted it without hesitation.
"The army's helicopter units had started their activities at 3 o'clock in the morning. Most of them carried the reporters coming~ from various countries. From the sky for the first time saw how huge the crowd was. There were millions of them over the hills. When they were saying the prayer for the Imam, it looked as if the greatest computers of the world have made their movements harmonious. After the prayers the people started to go to Behesht Zahra cemetery. I was the pilot of rescue helicopter. The pad at Mossalla was already unusable as it was occupied by the people. We landed near the cemetery and the land crew managed to take the Imam's body into the helicopter. A large number of people and official were now in aboard, so some of them had to get off before the final landing in the crowd. I did a landing in a desert area and some of them got off.
Everybody thought that the people at Mossalla had not reached the cemetery yet. That was true. But there was an equally large population in the cemetery from last night. I tried to land among the crowd two or three times but my attempts failed because of the crowd that was on the ground. As son as we landed the guards and the police who loved their Imam forgot their responsibility and rushed to the helicopter like other people. A moment after the coffin was outside the helicopter and was being carried on the shoulders of the people. We were ordered to take off again but this was not possible. About fifty people were inside the helicopters and even more were on top of it. The reason why they were in the helicopter, was that when the coffin was taken out from one side, the mourning people on the other side still thought that it was somewhere inside.
We decided to take off and when we did it as something like a miracle. Anywhere in the world taking off among such a big crowd would have killed several individual by the rotation of the rotor blades. There were so many people hanging from the helicopter that it was practically impossible to take off but we managed to do it with the coffin miraculously inside the helicopter.
This mission was an honor for me and the entire helicopter unit. We had done this once again upon the Imam's arrival in Tehran after 15 years in February 1979." In both of these situation the nation proved their love for and their devotion to their Imam by their cordial and highly emotional behavior.
