The text of the Imam’s declaration and the exemption from polytheists in 1969

Translated by Mandana Karimi

2025-4-10

In 1969, the Imam issued a declaration on the occasion of the Hajj period and included the verse of exemption from polytheists at the beginning of it and said: The Kaaba, the House of God and the House of Truth have been taken by the Israelis and you are watching. The US has taken the Kaaba.

In 1969, we published the discussions of the Imam’s guardianship of the jurist under the title of Islamic Government to take with his declarations to Saudi Arabia during the Hajj period; but the Saudi government had banned the entry of any printed matter and even imposed a death sentence. Therefore, we held a meeting with 7-8 friends (I can boldly say that during that period of exile, there were about 7-8 of the Imam’s trusted companions and they would throw themselves into fire and water in the way of his Imam.) and we consulted on this matter. In that meeting, gentlemen such as Doaei, Mohtashami, Ferdowsipour, Hamid Ziyarti and Hassan Karroubi participated. On the other hand, we were not an elite force and had nothing in terms of organization and experience. In this process, Mr. Mohammad Hossein Shariati and Mr. Mohtashami, along with his wife - who was pregnant - played a key role. In this regard, we contacted a number of students and said that we would pay for your trip to Mecca and you would distribute the Imam’s declaration and books in Mecca. Among those people, we can mention gentlemen such as [Mohammad Reza] Naseri, Shushtari, who later became the Minister of Justice, Hekmat was from Gonabad, Mohammad Amin, Hekmat’s brother, Morteza Niknam and Ahmad Nafri.

The news of the book Islamic Government and the Imam’s declaration had spread in Iran and the Hijaz before anything else, as Nasiri himself - the head of the Iranian SAVAK - had come to Mecca with a large number of SAVAK members to arrest the carriers of the Imam’s messages and books.

Mr. Shariati, Mr. Mohtashami, their wives, and I safely delivered the books and leaflets to Hijaz. (The method of transporting the books was as follows: Mr. Munir al-Din Shirazi gave the plan to build double-walled ice chests and we placed the books and leaflets between the walls. Then we placed each of them in a pack of buses carrying pilgrims to carry ice and cool water.) During the distribution of leaflets and leaflets, Mr. Nasseri was arrested in Mena desert. I was also surrounded by officers, but I escaped by changing my appearance among the women, some of whom noticed and screamed. One woman even grabbed my collar and tore it. We still had half of our work left to do when the friends responsible for distributing leaflets got scared and stopped working.

In this situation, we stopped the program in Mecca and transferred all the books and leaflets to Medina, where the Sadat and the Shiites distributed them on a very wide scale, so that a huge wave was created among the Islamic nations.

Source: Khaterat-e Sal-haye Najaf (Memories of the Years of Najaf), Vol. 2, Tehran, Orouj Publishing House, Vol. 1, 2010, pp. 184-186.