Imam Khomeini’s kin have recorded in their memoirs, accounts of the conditions and states of mind and soul in which the Imam was during his last years of life. Their accounts show that His Holiness, the Imam seemed to have realized that the moment of joining the Beloved was at hand. Aside from the Imam’s mystical or agnostically states during these last years, his messages and sermons, and his political positions and attitudes, had such qualities that made them quite distinct from those of the past.
Imam Khomeini’s recent messages reveal his foresightedness and a sense of responsibility vis-à-vis the era after him. Imam’s earlier statements were aimed at guidance of people and authorities in respect to daily issues of the community and assuming proper positions against problems from which the country and the world of Islam were suffering. However, his recent messages more markedly show a summary of past and present problems, and a view of the future and specify Muslims general duties vis-à-vis future responsibilities. This indicates that the Imam cherished a feeling of departure (from this world) and in view of it, he attempted in his last years to recall or review the total values, ideals and objectives for the realization of which the Movement had been organized, and to draw up the Islamic world revolution on the basis of those ideals and values.
In his messages, by presenting his own evaluation of the factionalism that exist within the country, and throughout the world of Islam, and by his analysis of the dominant rules and orders in the contemporary world, Imam Khomeini had tried to pave the way for future generations to distinguish and choose and to set forth the duties of each stratum (of population) for prevalent conditions when he is no longer among them.
Imam Khomeini had penned his detailed divine-political will or testament dated February15th 1982 (26 Bahman 1361), several years before his heavenly departure. This last testament of the Imam, already translated and published in various languages, is Imam Khomeini’s eternal message and contains the principles of his thought, and ideology and it will, forever, be a guide for his followers. The writing of such a will, on such a level, scale, and dimensions, is an unprecedented undertaking among the Shiite jurisprudents and religious authorities. It shows the Imam’s deep awareness of the current and future needs of the Islamic societies and of his own responsibility in connection therewith.
Imam Khomeini’s recent messages are, in fact, a description and an interpretation of the values, well defended in his testament or last will and of the political issues described therein. A special feature of these messages is the Imam’s emphasis on the necessity of paying attention to two types of antithetical understandings of Islam. On the strength of countless historical evidences, Imam Khomeini believed that Islam and other divine religions have, from the earliest times, been presented in two contradictory features. On the one hand, there is the distorted Islam, which is at the service of despotic colonial rulers and has been developed by lying pseudo-clerics. On the other, there is the pure, Orthodox Islam that has survived through the ages by the blood of crusaders and the ceaseless effort of the religiously dedicated ulama and has remained immune from superstitions, distortions and embellishments. One of the secrets of Imam Khomeini’s success in making the Islamic society rise and move has been his ability to clarify those perpetual antithetical understandings of Islam and the characteristics of each.
Imam Khomeini believed that carelessness and a lack of recognition of this historical reality, have been the cause of infiltration by colonialism in Islamic countries and the Muslims staying away from the eras of their own great and famous civilization and culture resulting, ultimately, in getting bogged down in the present dire conditions as we all witness. Unfortunately, the Islamic governments whose mottoes once were: “Islam is the supreme and nothing is superior to it.” and that “God will not let the unbelievers triumph over the faithful” (Quran 4:141) are today, even for the safeguard of their borders and their own beings begging help from the enemies of Islam, the heathens and the pagans.
Imam Khomeini has defined the two different perceptions of Islam as: the “Pure Islam” and the “American version of Islam”. He believed that that Islam in which the definite Quranic decrees and the traditions of the holy Prophet regarding social responsibilities are ignored; that Islam in which the decrees and chapters regarding jihad, enjoining to good and interdicting the evil, Islamic justice and decrees relating to social and economic relations is ignored and abandoned; that Islam in which Muslims are barred from participation in politics and their own destiny and in which religion is viewed merely as a number of personal prayers and individual devotional acts without regard to their philosophy and real spirit, is fabricated and formulated by the USA and its affiliates.
To prove his analysis, His Holiness Imam had telling historical proofs and evidences of the conditions prevalent in Islamic countries. He believed that neocolonialism is the result of the efforts made by the former colonialists. Their previous efforts to change the faith of the Muslim peoples by means of Christian missionaries had failed, and from then on, they have aimed their efforts at neutralizing the progressive decrees of the religion of Islam, and to render this religion ineffective from within, whose results is quite clear. Today, in most Islamic countries the systems of government, the constitutional laws, political and social legislations, and legal procedures are all derived from anti-religious Western laws and processes, which, in their real essence, are not compatible with laws derived from divine inspirations. It is the Americanized Islam that permits the Western culture with its moral corruptions and degenerations infiltrate deep into Islamic communities and threaten the seed and race of the Muslims. It is the American version of Islam that shields puppet governments and empowers them, so they in the name of Islam confront the true Muslims and at the same time, plan submission and compromise with the USA and Israel—the enemies of Islam.
In his recent messages, Imam Khomeini has emphasized with greater clarity, the fact that mankind’s only way out of present dead ends is their return to the era of religion and religious devotion. The only way open to Muslim countries, to rid themselves of the present deplorable circumstances is a return to the Orthodox Islam and to their independent Islamic identity.
Source: The Narrative of Awakening, Pages 231-252