About the formation of the Islamic Revolution Committee on 2 February 1979
Compiled by: Faezeh Sassanikhah
Translated by: Fazel Shirzad
2025-02-21
One of the things that the Imam did immediately after the revolution was to establish the Islamic Revolution Committee and appoint Mr. Mahdavi Kani as the chairman of the committee. He also established the committee's headquarters in the National Assembly building, not in the meeting area, of course, but in the rooms that were related to the staff of the Assembly. After that, he divided Tehran into zones and in each zone, introduced a mosque as the headquarters of the committee of that region and placed one of the congregational imams as the head of that committee. Thus, with the establishment of the committee, almost the committees was in charge of all the responsibilities of the police, in addition to responsibilities from the courts and various tasks of judicial officers. The Central Council of the Committee, which was gradually formed from the members of the Committee, began to work by Ayatollah Mahdavi Kani and the assistants he selected, such as Mr. Nateq Nouri, martyr Motahari, and martyr Mofateh. Martyr Motahari stated from the very beginning that I could not accept responsibility and act in this area, so do not entrust me with anything. Perhaps they had a meeting or two with Mr. Mahdavi Kani and then they said that this was not within my power and that you should not ask me to accept this responsibility. He left at the very beginning, but there were other men who were helping in different departments and a large number of different forces who had been working under the Welcome Committee joined the Islamic Revolution Committee.
Ayatollah Mahdavi Kani also established an inspection organization that would inspect the regions and organize the organization of the regional committees.
In some places, the mosque council had differences of opinion and problems with the group of young people who had come for security. They had to go and solve the problem in the mosque by holding meetings. Sometimes it was necessary for them to return to the Central Committee and consult and seek the opinion of Ayatollah Mahdavi Kani, or they had the authority to make decisions on the spot. As a humble person, I was a member of the Central Committee in the inspection area as my first official activity.
The work location of some people in Tehran was found out and they were given a mission to go to their places and help form the committee. Some were given a mission in the same Central Committee and started working. People would arrest some SAVAKIs, thieves, and extortionists who had escaped from prison during the days of the revolution and bring them to the committee and hand them over or report. The work of the committee was very extensive. Both protecting the revolution, and discussing urban order, and on the other hand, economic problems, hoarding, and....
All these cases were reported by the people to the committees, and the committees would form organizations according to the reports that came. This organization sometimes started with a table and one person and they told him to sit down and prepare these reports so we could see what we should do. Then, as the workload increased, that person would ask for more staff and gradually the work would expand. This situation existed both in the central committee and in the committees in different regions of Tehran and the provinces. At the very beginning of the committees’ activities, Ayatollah Mahdavi ordered people to form committees in the provincial centers and organize their sub-groups. In this way, the people were suddenly in the middle of the battle of protecting the revolution and various places, properties, administrative buildings, and the houses of the court’s dependents, etc. It was on 16 and 17 February that the Imam announced that the honorable people should hand over the weapons they had taken from the barracks and military and law enforcement centers to the committees. On the other hand, he also announced that the military personnel should return to their work. The enemies of the revolution presented analyses in foreign newspapers and radio stations stating that, given the amount of weapons in the hands of the people, it would be enough for the people themselves to destroy the revolution. They were killing each other for personal gain, and weapons were a sign of power, so anything could happen, and they suggested that the people, relying on these weapons, would express the demands of their tribe and people and declare autonomy. Of course, these slogans and the lines drawn by foreign intelligence surveys were more effective at the borders.
At that time, I was serving in the Central Islamic Revolutionary Committee as an inspection member. They also made photo cards and gave us them, which gave us the authority to resolve any problems we encountered in the committees with the cooperation of the central council of those committees, which was usually formed under the chairmanship of the mosque’s imam or a person sent by Mr. Mahdavi Kani. I remember that the Islamic Revolutionary Committee of the Imam Hussein (pbuh) Mosque in the eastern region was formed under the chairmanship of Ayatollah Haqqi, who was also the imam of that mosque, and I had many meetings with these friends. I also knew some of them, and this area was almost our own, and we organized it in detail with them, and a precise division of labor was made, and everyone’s duties were clear. As far as I knew, this committee was one of the least controversial committees. Most of my work area was in eastern Tehran toward central Tehran, and I was not active in western or southern Tehran, and there were other friends.
I remember that in the case of the Imam Hussein (pbuh) Mosque, some members of the council had problems with Mr. Haqqi himself and some had problems with a number of people who had come. For example, they said that this officer was retired and came here to give us orders and prohibitions, while we know that he was a bad person before the revolution and now he wants to take over all the work of the committee. We would send for these people and they would come and talk to them and hold meetings. Among these people, I came across an officer who had retired many years before the victory of the revolution. We identified his home and gave his name to the Central Committee and inquired about his connections with the General Staff and saw that he was a positive and religious person and that the things they were saying about him were not true. There were two other people with him who were completely caught up in rumors and gossip, and we couldn’t trust them, so we removed them from the committee council and they were dismissed, as they thought, but we introduced that gentleman who is a good advisor, who can both educate the youth in military matters, and who is well-established and elite, and who is also benevolent and has no problems with the people, and who can cooperate with the traders and the board of the mosque, because the committee council was usually made up of the board of trustees of the mosque. It was necessary to make some changes there and transfer a few people. Naturally, these transfers could have caused tension, but fortunately, the issues were resolved with the meetings we had with Mr. Haqqi.
If we were to investigate the history of Tehran committees right now, the Imam Hussein (pbuh) Committee is one of the most well-established and successful committees, while Nizamabad Street was a place where some of the bad guys had a base. Among the religious people in the northeast of Tehran, in the back alleys of Nizamabad, there were also evil people who had acquired weapons and were evil-doers and had built bases for themselves there. It happened many times and it was reported that these evil people would stop cars, assault people’s honors, and start fights. I would go there with the driver of the cars that the Central Committee had taken from the police, with their sirens on, and we would contact the center with the radios we had. If force was needed, we would request it by radio, and the force would come and we would arrest some of the evil people. Some would announce a warning right there and say that this is our history, but now we have done nothing.
One night, they reported that there had been a shooting and a teenager had been killed. They had spread the rumor that the Committee members had beaten the teenager at a checkpoint. In the early morning, a number of these people, who were friends with the child's father, had attacked the committee's base, which is now at the Nizamabad intersection in Mahdia, and at that time was the Husseiniyeh building where the committee had its base, as supporters of that family, to evacuate and take away the "A" armory. They had said that we would kill you all. I went with the team that we were serving and arrested them. Then we held meetings and the truth of the matter became clear that this teenager had been cleaning his weapon and because he didn't know how, he pointed the weapon at himself and the bullet went off and he was killed. Statements were taken from those who witnessed the incident and minutes were taken and their families were also explained. We arrested several people and they were detained for a week and then they promised to stop doing these things and if they had any complaints to come to the committee to complain or tell the central committee so that we can look into it. If they want to take up firearms and cold weapons themselves and do something, they will be responsible for the consequences. We had more or less similar incidents in the eastern region of Tehran.
Source: Fathullahzadeh, Morteza, Rafiq Boroujerdi, Memoirs of Akbar Barati, Iran Publications, Spring 2024, p. 135.
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