Search and Find the East

September 8, 1979
Imam Khomeini's message in the Faiziyeh School in Qom, to mark the massacre of the 17th of Shahrivar (September 8) of the previous year.
In the Name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate
And indeed sent We Moses with Our signs saying: 'Lead thou out thy people from the darkness into the light and remind them of the days of God; verily in this are signs for the patient, the grateful'(14:5)
God is the Guardian of those who believe He taketh them out of darkness into light and those who disbelieve, tyrants are their guardians and they take them out from the light into darkness
They are the companions of the fire, therein shall they abide. (2 :257)
These are two subjects which oppose each other -'the taking out of darkness into light' and 'the taking out of light into darkness' -the doing away with darkness and the taking of people to the light and opposing this, doing away with light and taking people to darkness. This latter is the profession of the tyrants (taghut). Every disharmony is darkness, all backwardness is darkness, all 'westoxication' is darkness, those who turn their attention to the West and foreigners have taken the West to be their direction of prayer (qiblah) and their attention is directed to the West. They have moved into darkness and their saints are idols.
Eastern societies which, by means of internal and external propaganda, by means of the orders of the internal and external agents, have turned to the West and have the direction of their prayers, the West, have lost themselves. They do not know themselves. They have lost their gloriousness and honor and in place of that sits a western mind.
Their saints are idols. They have entered darkness from the light. All of the problems of Easterners and, among them, our problems and miseries, are the very cause of our losing ourselves and someone is sitting in place of us. Thus, you see that, in Iran, until something does not have a Western name, it is not accepted. Even a drug store must have a Western name. The material woven in our factories must have something in the latin script in its selvedges and a Western name is put on it.
Our streets must have Western names. Everything must have a Western color to it. Some of these writers and intellectuals either put a Western name on the books they write or, when they express an idea, they do so on the behalf of a Westerner. The defect is that they are also 'westoxicated' and so are we. If our books did not have these titles, or our material did not contain that script and if our drug stores did not have that name, we would pay less attention to it. When we turn to a book, a great deal of attention is paid to finding foreign words. They forget their own phrases and the word itself.
Easterners have completely forgotten their honor. They have buried it. In place of it, they have put others. These are all darknesses which a tyrant transforms us to from light. It is these very tryants of the past and present -who have reached out towards 'westoxication'. They relate everything to the West. They take all their subjects and sources from the West and have given them to us. Our universities were at that time Western universities. Our economy, our culture were Western. We completely forgot ourselves and in place of us we put a Westerner.
I, recall that a member of the family of the deposed, accursed Mohammad Reza got tonsillitis and they brought a surgeon from Europe while, for the doctors here it is a simple operation, and this was only so that the world would know that someone who is forcibly at the head of a country and that they recognize to be the king of that country, believes that there is no doctor in Iran to operate on the tonsils. You know what damage this does to Iranian medicine. This is traitorous to the people of Iran that they are introduced to the belief that in all of its country, there is no doctor to operate on someone's tonsils. How much this helps colonialism and the West! How much self-respect of our country is lost with this way of thinking!
When I was young, I remember my eyes weakened -they are still weak -and at that time, 'Amin ul-Mulk, God's Mercy be upon him, was an eye doctor. I went to Tehran to have him treat my eyes. A person who knew him and I, suggested that I go to see Dr. 'Amin ul-Mulk. He said, 'One of the Daulahs [of the court] had become near-sighted. He had gone to Europe to see a doctor. That doctor asked him, 'Where are you from?' In answer, he said, 'I am from Iran.' The doctor had asked, 'Isn't 'Amin ul-Mulk there? ' He had answered, 'He may be, but I do not know him.' That professor had then said, 'Amin ul-Mulk is better than we are.'
We have good doctors, but our minds have become Western brains. The same is true of the doctors. When you go to see them, they themselves say, 'You have to go to Europe,' because their minds think this way. They have lost themselves. They have lost their strength. We and they have both lost our self-respect and our sense of nationality. Until this nation does not come out of this 'westoxication', it will never find independence. As long as our writers -whose books are as they are, who, for every subject which we have, want to express according to such and such a foreigner and Westerner -do not leave aside these dependencies, you will not find independence.
The attention of some of our women is turned to the idea that such and such a mode must come from the West and such and such ornamentation must move from there, here, so that whenever something is found there, it is imitated here. As long as you do not put aside these imitations, you cannot be a human being and independent. If you want to be independent and have them recognize you as a nation, you must desist from imitating the West.
As long as you are in this state of imitating, do not wish for independence. As long as all of the words of our writers are Western, do not hope to have your nation be independent. As long as these names appear on your streets and your drug stores and your books, and your parks and in all your things, you will not become independent. It is only the mosques which do not have Western names and that is because the clergymen, until now, because of their type, are this way. Otherwise, everything must have a Western name -both those who write use Western names and those who want to read, unless there is a Western name, do not accept it.
'And those who disbelieve,' disbelieve in God's blessings and realities are dark and covered in them. Their saints are idols. 'They take them from light into darkness' -from absolute light, from guidance, from independence, from nationalism, from Islam -they take these out and put them into darkness. We have now lost ourselves. Until what is lost is not found, you will not become independent. Search and find it. Search for and find the East.
As long as we are as we are, as long as our writers are as they are, as long as our intellectuals think that way, as long as our freedom-seekers seek that kind of Western freedom, it will remain as it is. They cry out that there is suffocation, there is no freedom. What has happened that there is no freedom?
They say, 'These clergymen do not allow men and women to turn somersaults together in the water. These clergymen do not let our young people go to bars or gambling houses and seek out prostitutes. They do not allow our radio and television to show naked women and that type of ugly, lewdness. They do not allow our children and young people to be entertained.' This is an imported kind of a freedom which has come from the West. It is a colonialistic freedom, that is, colonialist countries dictate to those who are traitors to their own countries so that they can promote these freedoms. They are free to take heroin. They are free to smoke hashish. They are free to go to gambling houses. They are free to go to houses of entertainment and, as a result, our young people, who must be active in relation to the fate and des.tit1y of their country, become indifferent.
An indifferent person cannot think for a country. Those who are and have been deceived from abroad are foreign agents and they promote prostitution. The promotion of these actions pulls our young people towards corruption. The result of their work is this that a country which gets its strength from its young people and the young people must manage it, they take this strength away from our young people. As a result, thoughts about what goes on in this country and what the ruling bodies are doing to the country or the fact that they brought Mohammad Reza to this country is put out of their heads. In place of serious minds, silly minds appear. As a result, the person who should be a human being, who thinks about his own destiny, this thought is taken away from him. This is a type of freedom which we have to call colonialist freedom. This is other than freedom which must be amidst a people. This is a type of freedom which has come from abroad. They brought us and our young people up like this.
A young person who forms a habit with these kinds of things and no longer thinks about who takes our oil, our steel, our gas. He says, 'What's it to me! Leave me alone to my pleasures. Do I have time to waste, putting efforts into those things?' This is how they brought us up.
Until these unjust writers do not save our young people from these kinds of thoughts and do not promote a healthy kind of freedom and do not prevent their steps and their pens from writing about these corrupt freedoms, there is no hope that we will have an independent and free country. This hope must be taken to the grave.
Moses (a) was appointed to take his tribe from darkness to light. The assignment of all of the prophets was this that they take people away from darkness and from these things which oppose the way of humanity and oppose the way of a nation and enter them into the light.
An enlightened heart cannot stand by silently and watch while their traditions and honor are trampled upon. An enlightened heart cannot see its people being drawn towards this baseness of spirit or watch in silence while individuals around Tehran live in slums. They want to bring you up in such a way that you remain indifferent in all of your affairs. They do not ask why these poverty-stricken people have remained in poverty and why others take our oil. It never appears in your mind that we have such problems. Look at how your hearts were fifteen, twenty years ago when there was no perseverance. There were only a few people opposing this who occasionally protested and there was neither protest in our mosques nor in our universities -no place.
The second command which God gave to Moses (a) was to 'remind people of the Days of God' (ayyam allah). All days belong to God but some days have a particularity and because of that particularity, it is called the Day of God (yaum Allah). The day that the great Prophet of Islam migrated to Medina is one of the days that is called the Day of God. The day that he conquered Mecca is one of the days called the Day of God. It is the day that God showed His strength as where an orphan whom later everyone rejected and who could not live in his home, after a short time, conquered Mecca. He brought the tyrants, the wealthy and the powerful under his influence and he said to them, 'You are free.' Thus such a day is one of the Days of God. The day of Khawareh is a day when Hazrat Ali (a) unsheathed his sword and did away with these corrupt and cancerous tumors. This was also one of the Days of God (yaum Allah).
These so-called sacred people whose foreheads showed the mark of prayer but do not know God, these were the people that Amir al-muminin killed. He arose against them and there were even men in his army who arose against them. But because of the course of the Battle of Siffin, the Imam saw that if they remained, they would corrupt people, he killed all of them except those who had escaped. Thus, this day is among the Days of God (yaum Allah). The days which God, the Most High and Exalted, brings something to punish the people, he sends an earthquake, a flood, a thunderstorm, in other words, he whips people so that they will become human beings.
These are all Days of God and they are things which relate to God. One of the days of God is the 15th of Khordad (June 5, 1963) when a people stood against a force and they did something which caused almost five months of martial law. But because the people had no power, they were not consolidated, they were not awake, they were defeated. Of course, they were defeated on the surface, but actually, that was a point of victory for the people. The 17th of Shahrivar (September 8, 1978) was another one of the Days of God when a people, men, women, young people and older people, and stood up and, in order to get their rights, were martyred. You must recall these Days of God as you have and you must not forget them. It is these days which build human beings. It is on these days that our young people leave their places of entertainment and enter the battlefield. These are the Divine Days. These Days awoke our people. God commands that you enter the Days of God (ayum Allah) into the minds of people.
Do not forget this great Day which passed for our people and were Days of God like the 15th of Khordad, the 17th of Shahrivar and the Day that that wicked man [the shah] left, was one of the Days of God. A nation which had nothing, broke a force in such a way that nothing remained of it, not only was that power opposing you, but all of the powers of the world, as well. I was aware that the whole world had supported him. The army and Bakhtiar supported him and tried to keep him here.
America was holding him up with both hands. When he fled, they held up Bakhtiar with both hands. They sent people to us saying, 'This is from us. This belongs to us.' They were servants. Do not be surprised that they put someone for 10, 15, 20 years in the false form of a nationalist for the day when it will serve their purposes. It is possible that a person prays in a mosque for 20 years and worship God and then one day work for them. It is possible that a person claim honesty and claim to be a nationalist and swear at foreigners, write articles against them so that they influence the hearts of the people for the day when they want to come to power.
That day was the day when he [the shah] left and this man (Bakhtiar) replaced him to protect the interests of foreigners. Do not discount this. It happened. You saw how they told us, 'It is too soon. Do not go to Iran now.' They wanted to consolidate their powers and end the troubles so that there would no longer be a possibility of going. That was also one of the Days of God (ayum Allah).
One of the great Days of God, the Most High and Exalted, was the night when they had planned a coup d 'etat when we were in Tehran. They announced a 24 hour martial law so that even in the daytime people should not come out. Later they informed us that they had intended that night to kilt the leaders of Qom and whoever opposed them, finish them off and end the job. God did not want it to be so. That was an enlightened insurrection of a responsible nation which took place and the power of that side joined this side and we were victorious. This was the Divine Will and one of the Days of God.
Do not forget this that all of the conspiracies were fixed so that on one night they would fall into place and have a coup d'etat and all the people who could do something would be destroyed and the nation returned to the way it was. God did not want it to be so.
This was one of the Days of God which you, the enlightened and noble people of Iran, with your hearts filled with faith, should not fear. Even though they had announced martial law that day, you went into the streets and did away with that which they had wanted. They had wanted the streets to be empty so that they could bring in tanks and place them everywhere and at night be busy with their crime. God, the Most High and Exalted, answered the cries of this nation. That day is one of the great Days of God.
All powers supported them, not just the super-powers but other powers as well. Those who work for the rate of that day and according to the idea that whoever pays more is better, eat according to the rates of that day. Everyone supported them that day. In spite of this, God the Most High and Exalted, blessed you and made you victorious over these great powers and curtailed the hands of foreigners. With the Will of God, their hands will remain curtailed. This is a great Day of God.
Do not forget that we had a 15th of Khordad and this was the beginning of the Islamic movement of Iran. Do not forget that we had a 17th of Shahrivar and we must not forget that on that day, we gave so many martyrs and so much blood and the nation arose against foreigners and their agents. Blood was spilt, but it was victorious and also all the other innumerable days.
Recall days that they attacked us with complete cruelty and you, with complete courage, your men and women, stood against them. Someone told me, 'I saw, with my own eyes, that a child of 10 or 12 was riding a motorcycle and went towards the tanks. The tank ran over and killed him. 'A spirit was born which prompted a child to do such an act. Empty handed, a monarchial empire of 2500 years, 2500 years of criminals was done away with. If a person studies history perhaps there is not one person among them who was more or less distant from their crimes. Those who were like them called themselves 'people of paradise'. They were also criminals.
One of the shahs blinded his own courageous son so that the day would not come when he would gain power but the principal crime and the person who was a genius at crime was this Mohammad Reza. His father was not a criminal to the same extent because this Mohammad Reza both inherited criminal tendencies and he himself was a criminal. He was a genius in crime and kept everything we had backwards in the name of the â€کGreat Civilization'. He wanted to obliterate our Islam in the name of Islam. He wanted to take away our honor. He wanted to destroy our great history. He was more original in his crimes -that very person who is wandering over the world at the moment.
Do not forget your honor. Our intellectuals and writers and our groups of scholars should turn their attention to their own honor and glory. They should not prostrate themselves so much towards the West and writers of books. You yourselves have things to say. What difference does it make to you what so and so from the West said? Why do you quote from a foreigner so that the spirit of our young people becomes melancholy and show them to be out of their framework. You people must protest and not buy anything from a drug store with a foreign name until they change its name. These beloved university students of ours should pay attention to the fact that when a writer quotes from a foreigner do not buy that book and do not read it. If you do this and buyers pull back, they will stop doing it. They want customers. When a commodity -has no customers, it is discontinued.
Push away and turn your backs on things which pun you to the West and trample upon your honor and in place of it, they put Western things. With the Will of God, if there is time, I will speak more about this. I cannot now express the whole situation. I pray for you. May God continue His Mercy upon this nation in the way that He blessed this nation and showed it Mercy and saved us from foreigners and their agents so that foreigners will no longer penetrate. May God give you ill happiness, health, greatness, strength and seriousness. May God save you from those kinds of freedoms which are Colonialistic and have come here from abroad.
Peace be upon you, and the Mercy and Blessings of God.