Social justice was a principle he would preach throughout his life.
Furthermore, he pointed to corruption in the government as a
sign that the Pahlavi regime was evil, not good.
The contempt he held for the Pahlavis, father and son, would
lead Ayatollah Khomeini eventually to depart from the stance
taken by other Shiite clerics. They, too, believed in strict
Qur’anic ideals. However, they did not believe that they should
take an active role in political matters. Khomeini disagreed.
Islam, he contended, was political as well as religious. “In fact,”
he wrote, “if one refers to the practice of [Muhammad], which
are the main Muslim texts, one sees that they deal as much
with politics, government, the struggle against tyrants, as with
prayers.”^10 Later, after being released from one of several periods
of confinement for his radical activities, he would state his
opinion emphatically: “All of Islam is politics.”^11
Interestingly, Ayatollah Borujerdi strongly discouraged teachers
and students in Qom from involving themselves in politics. He
went so far as to dismiss politically active ulema. Khomeini,
despite his strong feelings about the Pahlavi regime’s policies,
did not challenge his leader as long as Borujerdi was alive. He
expressed his views to his students, but he did not criticize Pahlavi
publicly during the years when Borujerdi was his superior.
With ever-increasing scrutiny, however, he noted recurring
indications that Pahlavi posed a menace to Islamic authority. He
criticized Pahlavi’s literacy program that sent educated military
personnel into rural villages to teach youngsters, for Khomeini
believed all teaching should be done by Muslim clerics. He felt
that by granting women certain freedoms, the government was
corrupting them. And he openly suspected that Pahlavi’s land
reforms, which affected the mullahs’ financial security, were
drawn up by the Israelis.
Khomeini would be in his sixties before the time was right for
him to openly press his case against Shah Pahlavi. When that
time came, the shah would find him to be a bold, baffling, and
unbending opponent.
The Scholar From Khomein 25