Statements in Meeting with Members of the Commemoration of the Late Haj Agha Nourallah Isfahani

In the Name of God, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful

I express my gratitude for the brief and profound remarks of Dr. Najafi; he articulated the matter very well. It becomes evident that, God willing, the commemoration of the late Haj Agha Nourallah Najafi (may God's mercy be upon him) is not merely a ceremonial tribute, but rather has theoretical and historical content, and, God willing, will encompass useful themes for the present and future of society.

The points you mentioned are very good, all of them important and necessary. The very recognition of influential personalities is significant; we must accurately identify the impactful figures in our political, social, scientific, and economic lives. You pointed out that the late Rasa mentioned that the Westerners meticulously document events and do the same regarding their personalities. I see that they have precisely recorded in their histories when a certain individual was born—though one can guess that many of these birth dates are fabricated, as at the time of that individual's birth, they were not a prominent figure, just an ordinary child; yet they have a birth date: on such and such day of July in such and such year!—meaning they strive to extract these personalities from the multitude of known and unknown faces in history and elevate them, to identify them, and to take pride in them. Of course, these actions do have an impact; it is not the case that they do not have an effect; however, we do not do the same. We know our prominent figures, yet we do not even know the dates of death of many of them, let alone their birth dates or the dates of their marriages to certain women, which Westerners typically mention. This indicates that we have not given due attention to recognizing and analyzing the faces of our historical personalities, and this is detrimental to us. For instance, in the matter of the Constitutional Revolution, the late Haj Agha Nourallah is a prominent figure. Or the late Ayatollah Abdol Hossein Lari is also an extraordinarily prominent political-religious figure of this period you refer to; yet among all these, we have only highlighted one teacher, whose name everyone has mentioned, but there is nothing about the others; while within this very family of Najafi, I do not wish to refer to it as the "Shahi Mosque" because that is not a very good association. The term "Najafi" for this great scientific, political, and social family is better—there were many individuals who had scientific and social significance in Isfahan and across the country; yet there is no mention of them in that manner. Of course, some individuals have written brief biographies of certain members of this family, but we do not revive our personalities. Therefore, we should not show indifference to this matter. Ultimately, we have a personality who, at a certain point in time, demonstrated greatness, accomplished significant work, moved in an innovative direction, and achieved great things. We must introduce this personality to the people so that they know they had such a figure.

Another aspect, which I find very important, is that we should introduce the Shia clergy as they truly were. In the matters of the Constitutional Revolution, we took pride in and celebrated the late Akhound; we did the same for the late Mirza Naini; however, the matter almost stopped there; whereas there were prominent figures in the Constitutional Revolution. Look at the history of Kasravi, for example, a certain individual who strapped a belt of bullets around himself in Tabriz and performed acts of bravery, became a personality! Of course, we do not question why; but the name "Thiqatu-l-Islam" with that greatness, which Kasravi actually praised, or those great figures whom my father saw their corpses during his youth—on that Ashura day when the Russians hanged them—are very rarely mentioned. These were very great individuals and very prominent personalities. Why should we allow this injustice to be done to the Shia clergy? Look across the country, who were the ones managing the national associations? It is true that both the clergy and the intellectuals were involved in the formation of the Constitutional Revolution; this cannot be denied, and these were the preliminaries of what later became known as the Constitutional Revolution, initially characterized by demands for justice and law; however, in practice, those who entered the field and truly bore the heavy burdens, such as these national associations—not the burdens of bread and water like representing the parliament from Tehran and ministerial positions—were who? If you look at the places where the associations were active, you will see that at the head of the association, there was one, two, or three clerics. This was the case in Mashhad; as well as in Tabriz, Isfahan, Shiraz, and Lar. Therefore, you see that these were the clerical figures who entered the field. We see another example of this in the committees after the revolution. This work did not provide bread and water; it also had the danger of being killed, assassinated, or accused; but if the clerics had not been there, they would not have managed the committees, they would not have come to the mosques, they would not have gathered armed individuals and weapons, and for several months, they would not have performed all the duties of a government to the best of their ability; who else would have done this? We had no one; neither did the intellectuals have this capacity, nor did they exert this effort, nor did the intellectual community ever demonstrate this level of risk-taking. In any case, the clergy have been wronged. You should emphasize this matter a bit.

In your book, you referred to it as "the government of Haj Agha Nourallah." Very well, let it be called "the government of Haj Agha Nourallah"; however, what exists is the burden borne by Haj Agha Nourallah in the city of Isfahan, amidst all those conflicts and in the legacy of Zol al-Sultan; these are not trivial matters. One cannot grasp the greatness, volume, and importance of these works from afar. Therefore, this is another aspect that should be attended to.

The late Haj Agha Nourallah is, from one perspective, the pinnacle of this family. He was scientifically a student of Mirza and the companions of Samarra, who lived there for several years and returned, and was a student of his father—namely the school of the late Sheikh Mohammad Taqi, the author of the margin—which became prevalent in Isfahan and became a scientific school and also trained great scholars.

From the perspective of political understanding, he was also a very insightful man, ahead of his time; one can observe this in the matter of the Constitutional Revolution, as well as in the case of Reza Shah. The movement he initiated in 1345 and 1346, which established Qom as their base and raised expectations from Reza Shah, was a significant undertaking; however, the tyranny of Reza Khan and the oppression of his regime did not allow this matter to gain momentum; otherwise, if it were not for the pressure of Reza Khan's dictatorship, this matter would have gained traction throughout Iran, and one could have anticipated very important results that would have followed; however, they did not allow it, and it ultimately led to his martyrdom and poisoning. Therefore, from the perspective of political understanding, he has also been very important.

Another point regarding him is his clarity of vision and enlightenment. You see, the struggles against the foreigners and the influence of outsiders in the country carried out by the scholars, one example being Mirza Shirazi, and the two sides of the Constitutional Revolution in Najaf; that is, both Ayatollah Mohammad Kazem and Akhound Mullah Kazem Khorasani, both of whom opposed foreign presence; both those who opposed the Constitutional Revolution feared the presence of foreigners; and those who wanted the Constitutional Revolution, their spirit of freedom-seeking was accompanied by anti-foreign sentiment, and whether it was the late Ayatollah Abdol Hossein Lari, or the late Ayatollah Abdollah Baladi in Bushehr—who also has extensive stories—or the late Khiyabani and others who were present throughout the country during that period, the source of all their opposition to foreigners was this; that is, the essence of the matter was that disbelief was in opposition to Islam; because the foreigner was an infidel; the Westerner was an infidel and did not want disbelief to prevail. The essence of this matter merely indicates a religious war; however, when one delves deeper, one finds that in most of these cases, especially in the case of the late Haj Agha Nourallah, the issue is not merely a religious war; it is not a dispute over whether Christians want to come and dominate; the Christians who lived in Isfahan coexisted with them; the Armenians of Isfahan were always there and lived together without any problems; thus, the dispute was not religious, but rather about what we today understand from the issue of independence; that is, economic domination, cultural domination, political domination, social domination, and the destructive and regime-toppling influence that the West had in the world—this was a period when the West was coming with vigor and vitality and had an aggressive stance—they saw this; they understood this. The late Haj Agha Nourallah, from the company he established, from the statements he made, from the discussions he raised in the book "Traveler and Resident"—unfortunately, I did not have the opportunity to examine that book thoroughly; I only read parts of it—demonstrates that he was a very clear-sighted man, very aware and cognizant of the dimensions of foreign domination. If the British colonialists had brought Islam and intended to do the same things, apparently there would have been no change in his position; there was no difference between whether it was a Christian or a Muslim. It was colonialism and cultural domination and influence in the pillars of civil life in the country that made these great figures sensitive and compelled them to resist.

They also opposed Reza Shah for this reason. It is true that the struggles of the late Haj Agha Nourallah can be divided into two sections: the section of opposition to foreigners; and the section of struggle against despotism. These two sections are distinctly perceptible and separable in his life and struggles; however, when he fights against Reza Khan, it seems completely clear to him that Reza Khan is the advance guard of the same foreigner who has come. This is something that for our present generation is among the obvious matters; however, at that time, this issue was not clear; it was not evident. At that time, even some people were attracted to Reza Shah's slogans and believed his words! I saw in one of these writings—where one hesitates to mention some names, as they were good people—an expression that was a commendatory one regarding Reza Shah! Of course, they did not mention his name, but it was clear that the intention was Reza Shah. These were individuals whom Reza Shah certainly wanted to uproot, and he did; however, such misconceptions and illusions and mistakes existed; but for us today, it is clear. One feels that the late Haj Agha Nourallah understood that the struggle against Reza Shah was not merely a struggle against the compulsory system and the foreign hat; the discussion is that a person has been brought to power and elevated to implement the goals of the British in Iran. He sensed this and wanted to oppose it; however, he found slogans for his opposition; like this slogan of opposing the compulsory system and the things he raised when he came to Qom. Not everyone was like this. For instance, the late Mirza Sadiq Agha—whom you have written as Seyyed Sadiq Agha, which is incorrect; because he was not a Seyyed—whom I know to a considerable extent from his works, was not like this; one does not feel that he viewed matters with this modern and clear-sighted perspective; however, in the late Haj Agha Nourallah, this is completely perceptible that he thought deeply and incisively.

In any case, we hope that the work you are doing will be a continuous good deed and will not stop, and God willing, it will yield results for our contemporary history and the history close to our contemporary period, and the scope of this type of research will, God willing, expand. We thank all of you for the efforts you are making regarding these matters.

Peace be upon you and God's mercy and blessings.