Political Leap

Clamour in the Seminary of Mashhad

The events that took place in the Seminary in Mashhad in the middle of June 1970 and led to the arrest of a number of clerics there, in fact, had no similarity to its past seven years since the beginning of the Islamic movement. Two events provoked the Seminary of Mashhad which the latter fueled the first, and brought Ayatollah Khomeyni’s name to the social arena of the city more than ever before.

Ayatollah Sayyid Muhsin al-Hakim passed away in Iraq on June 2, 1970. Proponent clergymen of Ayatollah Khomeyni in Mashhad, whose numbers were few, while expressing regret at the event, sought to propagate and promote Ayatollah Khomeyni’s marja’iyyah (source to follow or religious reference) by drawing the public’s attention to follow or so-called imitate him. It should be noted that after the death of Grand Ayatollah Boroujerdi, the Pahlavi government attempted to turn people over to Ayatollah al-Hakim and keep the Shi’ah religious authority outside Iran. Hence, Ayatollah Khomeyni’s marja’iyyah plan, launched by his young cleric supporters in the early 1960s, culminated.

The government’s reaction to the death of Ayatollah al-Hakim was not without effect in the turbulence of this group of clerics. All the evidence showed that the function of the government was, in appearance, to preserve the respect and honour of the religious authority, but in the context of the matter, it was a matter of turning the public away from Ayatollah Khomeyni. Immediately after Ayatollah al-Hakim’s death, Reuters News Agency named Ayatollah Sayyed Abolqasem Khoei as the global Shi’ah religious authority.

The second event that stirred the Seminary of Mashhad after Ayatollah al-Hakim’s death was the martyrdom of Sayyed Mohammad-Reza Sa’idi in Qezel Qal’a Prison. Sayyed Mohammad-Reza Sa’idi was arrested on June 1, 1970, for delivering a speech against the United States’ Investment Consortium in Iran. He had a continuing connection with Ayatollah Khomeyni in Najaf and had no concern about publicizing his (Khomeyni) name in his speeches. During interrogations, he publicly praised him and did not fear that he was following Khomeyni’s policy.

Upon the sad news of Sayyed Sa’idi’s martyrdom in Mashhad, some of the clerics who were cautiously promoting Ayatollah Khomeyni’s marja’iyyah, revealed their intentions and took the matter to the seminarians of Mashhad. They went to the teachers of the seminary and demanded the closure of the lessons (and lectures), and sympathy with the bitter incident. They also urged seminarians to refrain from attending seminary courses.

The story does not end there. it was also shaped a kind of organization among the seminarians to increase the mobility of the seminary in Mashhad, included preparing a handwritten statement signed by the Seminary of Mashhad. The announcement was partially disseminated and was struck on the wall in places such as the Seminary Schools, the Goharshad Mosque and the Holy Shrine (of Imam al-Ridha) area.

As the announcement spread, many slogans were placed on the walls of the seminary schools, all in support of Ayatollah Khomeyni. But it wasn’t all that made Khorasan SAVAK frightened. Meanwhile, a pamphlet entitled “Lessons from the Supreme Shi’ah source of emulation on the Issue of the Wilayah al-Faqih” was distributed among the seminarians of Qom who were likely to have arrived in Mashhad. The 42-page booklet got to the hands of SAVAK. Now, besides exalting Khomeyni’s name, his jurisprudential views on establishing an Islamic government were also available to the public. The regime’s intelligence service did not know that this booklet reached Shaykh Javad Hafezi by Sayyed Khamenei. Hafezi was considered Khamenei’s companion in Mashhad and believed that “Sayyed Ali Khamenei is one of Khomeyni’s fighting men to devote his life for.”

Arrests Begin      

On June 14, the Khorasan SAVAK ordered the provincial police to arrest Sayyed Ali Khamenei, Abbas Vaez-Tabasi, Mohammad-Reza Mahami and Sayyed Mahdi Tabatabai. The first to be arrested were Shaykh Ali Tehrani and Ahmad Mollazadeh.

While threats came and SAVAK conjured up an atmosphere of potent menace, they did not have any firm and definitive evidence against Sayyed Khamenei, despite the belief in the effective activities of him, and the allegations against him were based on hearings, interrogations, indirect and far-sighted information. it suggests that Sayyed Khamenei’s political activity in Mashhad was not without security considerations.

The Chase Continues

The head of Khorasan SAVAK, General Bahrami, strongly sought to arrest Khamenei, Tabasi and Mahami. On several occasions, he asked the provincial police chief to arrest and hand over the three clerics.

Perhaps one of SAVAK’s failures in finding Sayyed Khamenei was his relocation to a new house. By early April 1970, his furniture had been moved. The new residence was considerably old and semi-dilapidated and in the neighbourhood of Sayyed Ali Taha’i’s house, one of the philanthropists of Mashhad. Seven months of repairs and mason work made it habitable. The house was his own, but at that time his debts were skyrocketing.