At the sensitive juncture of the history when the Islamic movement did not have any organization in, mosques were able to compensate for this important shortcoming and played greater role in uniting the people
Therefore, Imam Khomeini advocated that the clerics should go out from the mosque to a broad community. They not only love the religion, but also love the country and people.
Mosques in Iran are not only substantial, but also have an evenly developed attraction based in the holy city and the capital to cities and villages around the nation, and form a mosque network.
In Iran, religious sites are at the same time holy and historic; and people visit them for both of these reasons.
Some of Imam Khomeini’s statements in this regard come as following:
Imam Khomeini: The mosque is the emancipation center. In early Islam, soldiers and armies were dispatched from mosques where political decrees were made.
Sahifeh-ye-Imam, Vol.10, page 33
Keep the mosques and religious assemblies which are Islam’s fortresses against the evils, vibrant and mobilized, and confront these heartless imperialists wrathfully and loathsomely.
Sahifeh-ye-Imam, Vol.2, page 470
If the Sanctuary and the Divine House, the Holy Mosque and the prayer niche are not secure grounds providing safety and support to the defenders of the honor of the House and the prophets of God, where else shall they find safety and security?
Sahifeh-ye-Imam, Vol.20, page 298
Keep the mosques full and inhabited. You, the academic and the religious students, none of you should desert the mosques. Mosques are the fronts. The fronts should be depth occupied.
Sahifeh-ye-Imam, Vol.12, page 337
Almost all of these holy sites in Iran are of great artistic and architectural importance built throughout the country, in different cities and at different times.
One of interesting fact they share is the combination of faith, art and a desire to create something new and unique.
All these artists and architects living in different eras spanning through hundreds of years had tried to use the new trends of their time, and find a way to attach it to the original plan for a mosque.
Consequently, it can be said that the religious sites in Iran are not just a mosque in which you can go and say your prayers or pay tribute; they are a source of pride and honor for people.
And it has been the case with these religious sites for centuries; this way of feeling and regarding the holy sites is common to all of the people of Iran.
Be it at the time of them being built or five hundred years later, now, in which some of them are being used mostly as museums.
The usage may differ, but the place they have in people’s hearts and the kind of pride people get with them had always been the same.
As they are the manifestation of the art and knowledge of the people of this country.