324th Night of Memory - 4

Memories about Supreme Captive of War

Adjusted by: Iranian Oral History Website
Translated by: Fazel Shirzad

2021-7-27

The 324th Night of Memory program was held in person in the open area of the Arts Center on Thursday, May 27, 2021. In this program, Engineer Mehdi Chamran, Mr. Bijan Kiani, and Hojjatoleslam Mohammad Hasan Abu Torabifard expressed their memories. Besides, the book “Salam Agha Seyyed”, was unveiled. This night of memory was organized by Davood Salehi.

In the fourth part of the Night of Memory program, Hojjatoleslam Seyyed Mohammad Hasan Abu Torabifard expressed his memories of his brother Seyyed Ali-Akbar Abu Torabifard. At the beginning of his speech, he thanked the honorable family of the patient and resilient captives, the dear captives who pointed to a part of their valuable memories, the Captives Cultural and Social Institute, the Arts Center, and the staff of the Night of Memory program in holding this gathering and said: "The divine, scientific, spiritual, and political life of my great brother during the blessed and fruitful life is instructive, inspiring, and honorable at all times, and can be the path to happiness for today and tomorrow's generation as the embodiment of Islamic values and the manners of the saints and the path of dignity."

He continued: "If we want to describe shortly this personality of this character trained in the school of Quran and innocent Imams (PBUH) in a few words, it can use an effective and instructive sentence that was defined during the captivity as the slogan of the captives: "Be pure and serve!" The late Abu Torabi’s personality consists of these two words and the interpretation of this sentence. From the beginning of life and when he attained understanding and thought to the end of his material life, he had the determination and will to be pure; in the field of thinking, belief, ethics, and behavior; without purity and purity, man is not adorned with righteous deeds. The statement made by Mr. Mahmoudi Muzaffar from an Iraqi commander, who is a good man, clarified the purity of his soul for anyone who lived with him in the shortest possible time.

The narrator continued: "Martyr Chamran's relationship with him was relatively short, but he was completely in love with Abu Torabi. There were two photos in front of his eyes in martyr Chamran's private room; the image of the great Imam and the image of the Imam, the image of Sayyid Azadegan. Efforts to live clean must be on the agenda. His life is a man service. He had the service to the man with the levels of humanity on the agenda. A believer, a Muslim, and a person who is deprived of the blessings of faith and Islam. Serving a person who is even on the opposite front, to provide the ground for his guidance. This purity and service are embodied in her memories and manners, and I will briefly mention the memories that express this truth."

Abu Torabi continued: "In the first years of the 1960s, our noble grandfather wanted to donate money to our father for the first time. That day, he provided twenty thousand tomans and gave it to my noble father, with whom he could provide a suitable house. My father, who lived under normal circumstances, gave this money to my brother, who was at the beginning of life with his wife. Because his honorable wife was from a family with originality and adorned with piety and faith with good living conditions, and he wanted to go to the shrine of Imam Ali (PBUH) as a stranger. At the same time, a person had gone bankrupt and was in prison with a debt of about twenty thousand toman, and I knew him. My brother, who had no capital from the world, gave the whole twenty thousand toman to this family to release him from prison. This was a sign of their self-sacrifice; Sacrifice of his all material capital, at the beginning of their life with his wife."

The narrator continued: "At the very beginning of my life in the second half of the 1960s when I went to Najaf Ashraf to see him, after the six-day war between the Arabs and the Zionist regime, the great Imam Khomeini condemned the Zionist regime and called on the Islamic world to support Palestine in the six-day aggression and issued a message in 1947. That year, I went to Mecca to see my brother and his honorable wife. In Kazemin, a very large and very heavy bag was added to the set of equipment we had with us, and it was placed on top of a bus that took us from Kazemin to Kuwait and from the Kuwaiti border to Saudi Arabia for the Hajj (Mecca)."

In the evening, at the Saudi border, Saudi agents went on top of the bus in search of the bus and inspected the equipment. They probably had received a report to inspect him. My brother who was a teenager and thirteen or fourteen years old and said: Inside this bag, there are the leaflets and announcements of the Imam. If this bag was identified, our situation would be change. The only thing I saw in their very difficult life was that he was worried about their wife and me. I was sure that if he was alone, they would have no anxiety.

Abu Torabi continued: "Since there was no one to convey this message to the Muslim, she put himself at great risk from the very beginning of her adolescence as a committed human being to Islam, the Muslims, and the oppressed nation of Palestine." At that time, two people from Najaf Ashraf prepared for this sacrifice. One is the current Friday prayer leader of Yazd, who was identified and arrested in Saudi Arabia and spent some months in prison, and the other is my brother. There is no time to explain that I went on the bus and with the help of God Almighty, in front of the eyes of the Saudi official, these leaflets were moved in such a way that they could not recognize. Later, during the Hajj, these leaflets were handed to the Muslims and Iranians, in various ways, who visited the House of God; without endangering us. Purity and making himself available were two outstanding qualities of Abu Torabi. He performed a material service there, and here a sacrifice and political service to defend the Palestinian people, which Palestine, Jerusalem, the Golan Heights, and part of the Sinai Desert were occupied within six days. And then, the occupied territories multiplied. "

The narrator continued: "Today, following the same struggles that began in the second half of the 1960s under the leadership of the great Imam and the management and guidance of the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution, the Palestinian nation has become a power that poses a serious threat to the Zionist regime and with the glorious struggles that took place in the last days of Ramadan this year, another golden scene was formed in the struggles of the heroic nation of Palestine, which promises the immediate victory of this nation and the end of the disgraceful life of the Zionist regime."

He continued: "In the same years, he was released after returning to Iran and after the period when he was in Qasr prison and the circumstances that he had. After his release, a new period of his struggle began, which was mainly accompanied by the great martyr Seyyed Ali Andarzgoo. Here, he had also sacrifice and forgiveness which can be found rarely. The late Abu Torabi was an exceptional arm and support for the martyr Andarzgoo. The Supreme Leader told me that whenever I saw your brother, the memory of Seyyed Ali Andarzgoo was reflected in my memory. On the night that martyr Andarzgoo was martyred in the holy month of Ramadan, I went to see my brother that morning. He was very worried about martyr Andarzgoo and told me that Andarzgoo stated that he was worried about what would happen if I was arrested by the Pahlavi strongholds. The mosque of Ayatollah Haghshenas, which was located in the bazaar of Tehran, was the place of prayers during the nights of Ramadan, and my brother suggested to martyr Andarzgoo that to participate in these prayers. They were supposed to go to Markazi province and they had weapons as well. He suggested that this plan is very good, it is better to repeat the trip with delay. In the meantime, he had called an old friend who had not been in touch by phone for ten years and martyr Andarzgoo was sure that SAVAK no longer controlled his phone; but the phone is under control and they find out that martyr Andarzgoo was going to his house and so on."

The narrator continued: "The late Abu Torabi had completely dedicated his life to defending the dear nation of Iran in the face of the Pahlavi government at the highest level of self-sacrifice and under constant threat and danger. That is, from that year until the victory of the revolution, he was always in danger, and his family, despite all these problems, always felt this danger and threat. This is how he lived. Like Mr. Mahmoud Muzaffar, who deservedly praised his wife, my brother also paid attention to this issue. This responsibility was on the strong shoulders of his family during their life together. I believe that he was not worried about his children even for a minute during his captivity because of the trust, belief, and confidence he had in the moral, behavioral and managerial structure of his spouse. All his thoughts were on the dear captives. If he prayed, it would be for honorable captives."

At the end of his speech, Abu Torabi said: "I hope that God Almighty will have mercy on us so that we can use what we have for our reform, purity of thought, belief, and morality, behavior, and service to others." May God increases your successes and approvals, and may he confirm the Islamic Revolution in the way of purity and service to the Islamic nation and human society. May the dear captives benefit from the prosperity of this world and the hereafter with their brilliant works, and may their precious religious, moral, and political life always shine with their glorious resistance and endurance as the best way and plan of life for our dear nation and the young generation. I wish God happiness and increasing success for the dear leader of the Islamic nation and the servants of the Islamic nation and your nobles, and I ask God Almighty for the blessed existence of Imam Mahdi (PBUH), for his healthy and haste in his emergence."