The Imam also studied with Sayyid Abu al-Hasan Rafi'i Qazvini (d. He held two classes on philosophy and ethics, a public one at the Madrasa-yi Fayziya and a private one in his own home that was attended by a number of gifted and favored students including the Imam. 1924), who had been teaching in Qum since 1911. 1872), the author of Sharh-i Manzuma, one of the basic texts of ‘irfan the Imam was thus affiliated to one of the principal lines of the teaching and transmission of Shi'ite gnosis.Īnother early guide was Mirza Aqa Javad Maliki Tabrizi (d. 1926), a pupil of Husayn Sabzavari who had himself studied under Mulla Hadi Sabzavari (d. His first guide in the pursuit of ‘irfan was Mirza'Ali Akbar Yazdi (d. His immediate purpose in going there in 1920 was no doubt to study with Shaykh 'Abd al-Karim Ha'iri, one of the principal authorities of the day in jurisprudence, and he distinguished himself in this essential area of Islamic learning long before his emergence as a marja'-i taqlid in the early 1960's.īut in Qum he soon developed an interest in ‘irfan and associated disciplines that set him apart from many of his contemporaries and was, indeed, often viewed with suspicion and even hostility many years later he had occasion to remark: “It is regrettable that some of the ‘ulama should entertain such suspicions and deprive themselves of the benefits to be gained from studying ‘irfan.” It is precisely this inclusion of the political in the Gnostic that is perhaps the most distinctive feature of the Imam's persona.Īs for the chronological primacy of gnosis in the life of the Imam, this is amply demonstrated by the history of his early years in Qum. The Imam is generally regarded, by both Westerners and Muslims, as nothing more than an unusually gifted revolutionary leader, yet all who knew him intimately, as well as many who met with him but briefly, can testify that he possessed a vision transcending the political at the very same time that it controlled and embraced it. It is nonetheless legitimate - or at least inevitable - to speak of the Gnostic ( ‘irfani) and political aspects of his life and activity and to accord a certain primacy to the former, in terms of not only chronology but also significance. The integrality and comprehensiveness of the Imam's personality and vision of Islam are such that analytical distinctions among their various dimensions are in a sense artificial, reflecting an effort to understand the Imam rather than his actuality. It was with a gaze fixed on “the source of magnificence”, a mode of vision utterly different from that of the common political leader, that the Imam led a vast revolutionary movement to success. The aspiration “ to pierce the veils of light and attain the source of magnificence” may therefore be regarded as a constant element in the devotional life of the Imam, and only by bearing it in mind can the totality of his struggles and achievements, including the political, be correctly understood. It appears in texts and pronouncements belonging to different phases of his life: in the commentary on a hadith of Imam Ja'far al-Sadiq (A.S.) concerning “the meeting with ALLAH” ( liqa'ullah), contained in Sharh-i Chihil Hadith, a work completed in 1939 in one of his works concerning the inner dimensions of prayer, Mi'raj al-Salikin, also finished the same year in Jihad-i Akbar ya Mubaraza ba Nafs, a lecture on ethical purification delivered in Najaf in about 1972 in the lectures on the exegesis of Surat al-Fatiha that were televised in December, 1979 and January, 1980 and in Rah-i 'Ishq, a letter written by the Imam to his daughter-in-law, Fatima Tabataba'i, in 1983. The Imam always assigned great importance to the study and recitation of the supplicatory prayers of the Imams (A.S.) from the Ahlul-Bayt (A.S.), as a means of attaining Munajat-i Sha'ban spiritual insight as well as petitioning the Creator, but this appeal from the Munajat-i Sha'ban seems to have been particularly close to his heart.
O God, grant me total separation from other than You and attachment to You brighten the vision of our hearts with the light of looking upon You, so that they may pierce the veils of light and attain the source of magnificence, and our spirits be suspended from the splendor of Your sanctity. It is related that when teaching a class on ethical advancement at Qum in the 1930's, Imam Khomeini (R.A.) would always close his lectures with the following sentence from the Munajat-i Sha'ban, a litany unique in that all the Twelve Imams recited it:
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