In the Footsteps of Martyrs 193Long before his messianic rise to power in Iran, however, Kho-
meini was a devoted disciple of the great mystics of Islam: the Sufis. In
fact, as an idealistic university student, the young Ruhollah secretly
filled his notebooks with astonishingly passionate verses describing
his yearning to be united with God as a lover is united with his
beloved.
“Oh, I desire a cup of wine from the Beloved’s own hands,”
Khomeini wrote. “In whom can I confide this secret? Where am I to
take my grief? I have yearned a lifetime to see the Beloved’s face. I am
a frenzied moth circling the flame, a wild rue seed pod roasting in the
fire. See my stained cloak and this prayer rug of hypocrisy. Can I, one
day, tear them to shreds at the tavern door?”
These may seem startling words for a future ayatollah. But to
those familiar with the principles of Sufism, Islam’s other major sec-
tarian movement, they are not at all unfamiliar. For Sufis, Islam is nei-
ther law nor theology, neither creed nor ritual. Islam, according to
Sufism, is merely the means through which the believer can destroy
his ego so as to become one with the creator of the heavens and the
earth.