The Return to Mashhad

Ayatollah Khamenei
The Return to Mashhad
Ayatollah Khamenei in the Keramat Mosque in Mashhad in 1976

The Father’s Eyes

He returned to Mashhad before New Year’s Eve. He didn’t have the news of his father’s eye pain. When he was in Qom, his father had mentioned the issue in his letters. He had done surgeries before which were ineffective. Haj Sayyed Javad was waiting for Sayyed Ali to come. He wanted to go to an optometrist. He thought that his son would arrive in Mashhad at the beginning of the month of Ramadan. He didn’t think that he would go to Zahedan, get arrested and end up in Qezel Qaleh Prison. His father’s eyes were weakened. Now they had to hold Sayyed Javad’s hands to walk. “It was the first time that I saw my father needed someone to be with him… The past year that I had been in prison, and Qom, amidst the struggles; I didn’t know why he has been left alone; it was really hard and horrible for me.”

They decided to go to Tehran. The treatments in Mashhad weren’t effective. They hoped that the treatments in Tehran would be effective. They had to wait for the New Year’s holidays to finish. Sayyed Ali, who couldn’t be idle, decided to repeat the experience he had on Norouz (Iranian New Year) in Qom in 1963, this time in Mashhad. Without appearing as the leader of the job, he consulted with some relatives and the like-minded and started publishing manifestos and slogans against the regime. When they published it, they threw it for people from the roof of the shrine and its neighbours.

Meeting the Imam in Qom

The father and son headed towards Tehran. Their host was Ayatollah Mirza Ja’far Lankarani. Mirza Ja’far Lankarani had a house in the Khaniabad area of Tehran; he held congregational prayers, taught religion and guided people in Vazirdaftar Mosque. They took Sayyed Javad to the clinic of a few optometrists; they all regretted the fact that his vision cannot be recovered. It was in the same days that the news of Imam’s release and his coming back to Qom was spread. The SAVAK agents brought the Imam to Qom at 10:00 at night on April 4.

A crowd of lovers of Imam Khomeyni headed towards his house to visit him. On that night and the day after, almost 4000 people went to visit the Imam. People decorated the streets, bazaar and stores when they heard the news. They held ceremonies privately and in public. When the news reached Tehran, Sayyed Ali and his father headed towards Qom.

Qom or Mashhad

During the time that Sayyed Khamenei went to Tehran, then Qom and returned to Mashhad, he was about to make a hard decision, maybe a landmark decision for the time being; to stay in Qom or to go back to Mashhad and be his father’s mate. He had been so familiar with the scientific atmosphere and struggles of Qom, that he couldn’t compare it to any other place. His birthplace, Mashhad didn’t have such an attraction; at least he didn’t think that he could bear living in a city where he has to keep quiet. However, he soon changed his mind about the political atmosphere of Mashhad, but his view on Qom gave him such advantages that he could hardly find in Mashhad.

What he preferred to do was to accompany his father to Mashhad and return to Qom. He went to one of his friends who was a cleric, Aqazia Amoli; his house was at Hasanabad Square in Tehran. He knew him as a faithful wise man. He explained the issue regarding what was in his mind. He heard a response which made him ponder to the extent that made his decision easy. He said: leave Qom and go to Mashhad; I know that for you, both this world and the hereafter is in Qom. I know you can’t leave them but God can move your world and the hereafter from Qom to Mashhad. The problem which was getting intense got solved; he felt evolved. He didn’t have a disturbing face anymore.

His friends soon found out about his evolution. When he informed his parents that he’s about to come and stay in Mashhad, they didn’t believe it. Later, he said that his success in life was due to his listening to his parents, doing good to them and performing his obligations towards his parents.

The Political Atmosphere of Mashhad in 1964

His insight towards Mashhad soon changed. He assumed that Mashhad was a cold and soulless city after the incidents of June 5, 1963. The return of Sayyed Hasan Qommi to Mashhad had bolded the political atmosphere of the city. He was released on April 6, 1964, and returned to Mashhad from Tehran. There had been a great welcoming ceremony for him. Very soon the ceremonies in his house became a place of gathering for the revolutionaries. In 1964, there wasn’t any picture of the elite and university people confronting the regime, but the thing that made the struggles in Mashhad common among the clerics was the presence of Ayatollah Milani and Qommi.

The Political Positions of Ayatollah Milani

However, Sayyed Khamenei who had learned the alphabets of politics with Imam Khomeyni and was very active didn’t like the political stances of Ayatollah Milani. He had talked to him several times and even argued which he remembers as harsh and bitter arguments, but he praised his personality.

The Political Positions of Ayatollah Qommi

Ayatollah Sayyed Hasan Qommi was from a famous revolutionary family. His father, Ayatollah Sayyed Hoseyn Qommi was always clashing with the policies of Reza Khan and later on Reza Shah which its peak was the bloody incidents in Goharshad Mosque. Even though Ayatollah Qommi was biased in his struggles with the regime, he confronted harshly, was brave and courageous, didn’t have any mildness in his political behaviour, but his political insight was not acceptable for those who were knowledgeable and revolutionary from the university or those not from the university.

Sayyed Khamenei was in contact with the offices of both famous scholars of Mashhad. He was the only person among his friends and colleagues who went to both offices.

The Neutral Majority

Most of the scholars in Mashhad [at a rank lower than Ayatollah Milani and Qommi] were neither revolutionary nor did they take a stand against it. The fact that they had to go against the regime wasn’t a solved issue for them. They didn’t have the motive to enter such arenas.                                                     

The Students of the Islamic Seminary of Mashhad

Most of the students of the Islamic Seminary of Mashhad were interested in politics. Even though the number of clerics who were eager and ready for the struggles were little, but they showed interest in these issues. They paid attention to the revolutionary, imprisoned and political clerics.

The students of the Islamic Seminaries of Mashhad didn’t suffice to traditional propagation of religious issues by going to small towns and villages in the months of Muharram and Safar; they kept the fire of struggles on. It is right to say that the general flow of the clerics in Mashhad was never cut off from adhering to the movement of Imam Khomeyni. It always continued with distributing manifestos, lecturing in faraway districts, helping the political clerics and…

The Sessions Down the Street

Some of the storekeepers and businessmen of Mashhad showed interest in politics along with the very few active clerics. They, along with others from different social classes who if were observed, would be identified as rich, poor, workers, students… gathered in meetings which elevated their political and social knowledge. These gatherings started in 1964 and soon became known as “the sessions down the street.”

The session was started from the time when they invited Sayyed Khamenei to give a lecture for them during the month of Ramadan. He didn’t have the intention to give lectures in Mashhad. He travelled on religious occasions; he had lectures in other cities. He believed that accepting the invitation of his fellow-citizens would distract him from continuing his studies. They invited Sayyed Khamenei to have commentaries of the Quran; he accepted with some conditions. The start of the exegesis was from Surah al-Ma’idah.

It was a few days to the month of Safar. Sayyed Muhammad-Jawad Fadhlullah, the younger brother of Sayyed Muhammad-Husayn Fadhlullah, a scholar from Lebanon had come to Mashhad. Sayyed Javad wasn’t staying at Sayyed Khamenei’s house but he was with him during his stay in Mashhad. He suggested to go to the green region of Iran, Mazandaran and Gilan; they went. They went all over Mazandaran and then Gilan and got separated in Tehran. Sayyed Khamenei got to Gorgan on June 12, 1964, the first day of Safar. He had informed his Gorgani friends about his trip. Very soon lectures were arranged for him; a lot of people listened to his words in the first ten days of Muharram.

In the second ten days of Safar, he gave lectures in Mosalla Mosque which was an important mosque from the time of the Safavids. Even though his words didn’t have a political cover, but they were new for the youth of Gorgan. He had planned for his lectures as he did for the lectures of Birjand and Zahedan. He kept his frank words for the third ten days of Safar on the occasions of the demise anniversary of Prophet Muhammad and the martyrdom anniversary of Imam al-Hasan and Imam al-Ridha, peace be upon them. He prepared the ground to get to recount the bloody incidents of Feyziyeh Seminary and June 5 of last year. Some of the youth who attended his lectures and later on became his fans got excited and began to move. His lectures weren’t only limited to the old Mosalla Mosque; sometimes he gave lectures for people in the bazaar, and sometimes in houses and mosques. People welcomed him greatly.

His lecture on July 6/26th of Safar was very long and harsh. At the end of his lecture, he said to those present there: “I will recount to you many things tomorrow. Wait for it.” The first report that was received by the SAVAK of Gorgan about him was his lecture on that night because he had made “insulting words regarding the rulers of the society.” He had talked about Abouzar, that whenever he talked, they replied in beating him with a bayonet. Movafaqi, the head of SAVAK in Gorgan, informed the intelligence service of Sari about the issue; he also asked the gendarmerie to summon Sayyed Khamenei and give him warnings.

On the morning of July 7, the police and security forces of Gorgan were looking for one who had inflamed the city. Sayyed Khamenei went out of the city with the suggestion of one of his friends who was a cleric; they went to take a rest and breathe some fresh air so that the fatigue of the lectures in the recent days would vanish.

The forces went to all places that they could have found a track of Sayyed Khamenei. The Gorganis who had liked Sayyed Khamenei in the 25 days, wished that he had run away. When he came back to the city in the afternoon of the same day, his fans came to the house of Agha Qodsi, one of the benefactors who lived there; they asked him to go out of the city. They said that it’s not in his interest if he stays.

Sayyed Khamenei made an istikharah and opened the heavenly book: “Indeed God has bought from the faithful their souls and their possessions for paradise to be theirs: they fight in the way of God, kill, and are killed. A promise binding upon Him in the Torah and the Evangel and the Quran. And who is truer to his promise than God? So rejoice in the bargain you have made with Him, and that is the great success.” (Quran, 9:111) He said that he will stay. The istikharah‎‎ is good. Those who were against his stay said: It’s not good; it’s about killing. He said that the verse is giving the promise of paradise, what better than this? They insisted and brought reasons and said at last that you made an istikharah‎‎ to stay, now make one for leaving! He opened the Quran: “When they entered into the presence of Joseph, he set his parents close to himself, and said, ‘Welcome to Egypt, in safety, God-willing!’”

It was good but they respectfully made him leave Gorgan with the excuse of istikharah‎‎. They reached to Behshahr at midnight. They got on the bus before dawn and departed for Tehran. When Sayyed Khamenei arrived in Tehran on July 8, he wrote a letter to his father and informed him that he has been in pursuit in Gorgan, that he has left there at the appropriate time and now he’s in Tehran. He has the intention to go to Qom and take his stuff to Mashhad.

Another Meeting with Imam Khomeyni

It was probably on the same trip that he went to meet the Imam in order to talk about attracting the clerics from all cities. He had heard that some clerics in cities had complained about Imam’s inattention towards them. When he was going towards the house of Imam Khomeyni, Mohammad-Javad Hojjati-Kermani joined him. It was 7 or 8 at night. He met Shaykh Hasan Sanei, Sayyed Mohammad Varamini and some others over there. The hot weather of Qom had taken the Imam to the basement. There were a few people there. When they finished, I said “I need to talk to you, do you have the energy? He said: How long does it take? I said: 20 minutes.”

Sayyed Khamenei started his words by saying that you may be talking to people three or four times a year but the clerics who perform the daily prayers in mosques interact with people three times a day. If they don’t tend to agree with you, they can; they will succeed. “Treat them a little bit warmer and more kindly.”

The meeting which was supposed to take 20 minutes, took almost 45 minutes. As if he had pointed to a very sensitive issue, Imam began to answer; he said: How much should I act in contrast to my method and conduct? I have been friendly to some of them to whom I shouldn’t be friendly so that they might be attracted. I’ve spent hours for them to come and talk and I listened. What else should I do? If I want to write a letter to Ayatollah Milani, I will address him as Hujjat al-Islam; I address people less than him as Hujjat al-Islam. “At the same time, I'll try my best that they don’t be disturbed.”

Marriage

It wasn’t long passed returning to Mashhad. Banu Khadijeh who was thinking of his second son’s marriage suggested to him a girl who was raised in a religious and traditional family. She stepped forward and arranged the preparations for the khastegari (courtship). She did the same things for Sayyed Ali, that she had done for Sayyed Mohammad four or five years ago.

Haj Mohammad-Esmaeil Khojasteh-Baqerzadeh, the bride’s father was of the pious and learned businessmen of Mashhad. He accepted that her daughter should get married to a cleric just returned from Qom who has decided to live in Mashhad; Ayatollah Milani and other great scholars of Mashhad know him, acknowledge him and like him.

The marriage expenses which were on the groom’s head, and wasn’t that much, was paid by Ayatollah Haj Sayyed Javad Khamenei. The expenses of the aqd (wedding contract) ceremony was to the bride’s family, which was significant. “They were well-off, they could and they did [afford it]. At the beginning of autumn 1964, Sayyed Ali Khamenei and Ms. Khojasteh got married. The marriage sermon was read by Ayatollah Milani.

The Imam’s Exile

After a few weeks of their marriage, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeyni was sent to exile in Turkey on November 4, 1964. The news of his possible exile to Turkey had come to Mashhad a few days earlier. It was mentioned in the political gatherings and especially among the clerics. A very important meeting was supposed to be held at Ayatollah Sayyed Hasan Qommi’s house. The security forces were aware of the political meeting. One of the invited ones to the meeting was Sayyed Khamenei. Other than Ayatollah Milani, almost all other famous people of Mashhad such as Shaykh Mojtaba Qazvini, Shaykh Kazem Damghani and Shaykh Gholamhoseyn Tabrizi had attended the meeting.

The Sit-Down Strike in Goharshad Mosque

Sayyed Khamenei, Vaez-Tabasi and some others also talked during the lecture of Shaykh Mojtaba Qazvini. They arranged to go to Goharshad Mosque the day after, give a lecture and invite people for struggles. Sayyed Khamenei accepted to be the lecturer of the ceremony; at the end of his lecture, he would announce the sit-down strike.

The young scholars present in the house of Ayatollah Qommi suggested this; Shaykh Mojtaba Qazvini and Sayyed Hasan Qommi accepted it. The gendarmerie of Mashhad closed Goharshad Mosque before the morning Azan with the command of the security commission of the province. No commuting was allowed.

The Reaction of Ayatollah Milani

The day after, most of the participants in the house of Ayatollah Qommi went to Ayatollah Milani’s house to find a way to protest to the exile of Imam Khomeyni. Sayyed Khamenei and his fellow-thinkers were in harmony with Haj Shaykh Mojtaba Qazvini that if Ayatollah Milani was about to get over the issue without any friction, they would react to him. Then Ayatollah Milani read the letter which he had written to Imam Khomeyni for those present. It was a strong and well-tuned letter.

Inviting Ayatollah Milani to Migrate to Qom

It was a while past the exile of Imam Khomeyni when a group of enthusiastic clerics of Qom came to the conclusion that there is no one better than Ayatollah Milani to fill the gap of the absence of Imam Khomeyni in the Islamic Seminary of Qom. Ayatollah Abdorrahim Rabbani-Shirazi headed towards Mashhad as the representative of the group of clerics to discuss the issue with Ayatollah Milani. Sayyed Khamenei learned that Rabbani-Shirazi intends to invite Ayatollah Milani to Qom and settle there, and secondly to write a letter to be distributed in Qom to keep the struggles alive. They headed towards the house of Ayatollah Milani together. Since the meeting was supposed to be private, they didn’t enter from the public door. Ayatollah Milani welcomed Ayatollah Rabbani-Shirazi warmly.

There was a second meeting too. Ayatollah Milani didn’t accept moving to Qom in both meetings; he rejected it, but he wrote the manifesto that they asked for which Ayatollah Rabbani-Shirazi took with him to Qom.

A Bitter Meeting with Ayatollah Milani

Sayyed Khamenei and his very few fellow-thinkers sat down together to consult on how to continue the way they had chosen. They were clerics studying in Qom who had now returned to Mashhad. Shaykh Mohammad Nahavandi and for some time his brother Sayyed Mohammad were among the meeting members. In one of the meetings, they come to the decision to go to Ayatollah Milani and ask him to do something, give a manifesto or anything that makes people move. They gathered at the library of Ayatollah Milani at the appointed time; as planned, Sayyed Khamenei started to talk. “I started arguing with him that you can do this and that, why don’t you do it? He said: I don’t have anyone. People aren’t with me… We said: No, people are with you. He said: no… slowly, we became angry, he got a little harsh too. The meeting was one of our hard and bitter meetings with Ayatollah Milani.”

The consequences of confronting the regime was one of the problems; poverty was another affliction. My poverty in Qom, continued in Mashhad as well; this time with a wife who wasn’t familiar with its bitter taste. The hardness of poverty was still ongoing.

Sayyed Ali Khamenei continued his jurisprudence studies with his father when he returned to Mashhad. He used to go to his own old house in the morning, then after finishing the scientific circle in his father’s old room, he went to Navvab School to teach.

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