After love and affection for God and the saints, the Imam reserved the maximum amount of his love and affection for the people. He considered affection for the people to be tantamount to love of God and would always state: “Our enemies have failed to grasp two things: one being Islam and the other being the people.”
Name of the narrator: Hujjat al-Islam wal Muslimeen Hashemi Rafsanjani, ‘Etelaat’ daily, dated July 14, 1980
Title of the Book: Impressions and Memoirs about Imam Khomeini's Practical Behaviour, vol. 1, chapter two, pages 119 & 120