Meeting with the Esteemed Families of Martyrs, Prisoners, Missing Persons, and the Disabled, Officials, and Members of Parliament

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

I reciprocate my sincere devotion and respect to you, the esteemed families of the martyrs, who are truly among the most self-sacrificing people of our country and revolution. I extend my gratitude to all of you, especially the esteemed scholars and Friday prayer leaders who have come from distant places and various parts of the country, granting me this opportunity.

In our time, the value of martyrdom and sacrifice in the path of God is greater than in many periods of Islamic history. Martyrdom is always valuable, and sacrifice in the path of God is always a great and noble act; however, this good and great act is greater, more important, and more valuable in certain conditions and times. For example, in the early days of Islam, sacrifice truly had double value. The reason was that during that period, Islam was like a sapling, and if it were not for the sacrifices, perhaps the enemies of Islam would have uprooted this sapling. In the time of the Master of Martyrs (peace be upon him), that great sacrifice and martyrdom had double value because, in those days, the fruits of the Prophet's (peace be upon him) efforts were being destroyed, and the sacrifice of Hussein ibn Ali (peace be upon him) and his companions prevented such a calamity.

Some periods are such that striving in the path of God and martyrdom in His way have double and multiple value. For example, a refreshing glass of water is valuable in its natural state, but in a hot summer, especially for a person who has been thirsty for a while, particularly if that person is ill and in a place where water is scarce, this refreshing glass of water gains multiple value. Therefore, prices are not the same everywhere; conditions differ.

For a reason, in our time, striving and sacrifice have double value. This time is one of those periods where if someone strives in the path of God and offers martyrs, it is different from many other times. If we want to summarize that reason, we must say that today the enemies of Islam are more equipped than ever in history. The equipment available to the enemies of Islam today has never been available to them throughout history. For example, during a period in early Islam, the oppressive and usurping caliphs wanted to slander the Commander of the Faithful (peace be upon him) and propagate against him, against pure Islam, and against the correct interpretation of the Quran within the Islamic community to lead people to the path they desired. How did they do this? In what time and with what means? They had to send people all over the world. It was difficult for anyone in the Islamic world to find a gathering, deliver a sermon, say something, and convey what the tyrannical rulers wanted to the people and their minds. Of course, they did the difficult work, but naturally, their successes were not many.

Today, in this era and in this recent half-century, when the world's propaganda equipment has advanced astonishingly, if they want to propagate against Islam—which they do and are doing—it is not difficult for the anti-Islamic powers. For them, this task does not have all those difficulties. What they used to do over several years in a limited area, today they do the same work in a few hours.

On a wide scale, they make films against Islam and broadcast them on international televisions. Anyone who watches this film, if unaware of Islam, will become suspicious of Islam. Radios, newsletters, news agencies, and their news constantly work against Islam and Islamic values worldwide. This is an example of the advancement of the enemies of Islam's equipment.

Today, wherever in the world policies want to pressure Muslims, they do so easily. It is easy for the powers to pressure weak, unarmed, and defenseless masses. For example, you see thousands of Muslims in India under pressure. The government there, even if we do not say it helps the enemies of Islam and Muslims—which it might—it at least sits quietly and watches as a majority pressures the Muslim community, even though they are numerous, but in that country, they are a minority, oppressing, insulting, beating, and displacing them. This is one example in Islamic countries.

Muslim groups that rise to defend Islam are easily subjected to pressure, torture, and imprisonment by the leaders of those countries, and global powers support them—that is, the governments. Egypt is like this today. Many other countries in the world are the same. A Muslim nation like the Palestinian nation is expelled from their city, home, and country, and the great global powers help in this, and rather, they themselves carry it out. So, you see that today the equipment, power, and capabilities of the enemies of Islam to pressure Muslims and supporters of Islam have changed significantly from the past.

Now, in these conditions, if a nation rises to defend Islam and to elevate it, strives in the path of Islam, fears no one and nothing, and attains martyrdom in this struggle, this uprising, striving, and martyrdom are more valuable than ever in history. The Iranian nation, especially the families of the martyrs and our martyr elements, have had and have this distinction today that they rose for Islam and gave blood and martyrs while the enemies of this Islam are equipped with various weapons worldwide.

Standing against powerful, dominant, oppressive, arrogant, and audacious enemies is a very great and magnificent task. This is the same task our people did, and the greatness of our nation was due to the martyrdom of your youth and the bravery of your children.

Pay attention to two points I raised during my remarks:

The first point is that today Islam is more than ever the target of the hatred and enmity of the leaders of satanic powers. In the past, they were also hostile to Islam, and the world's arrogant and tyrannical powers never liked Islam and did not have a clear heart towards it; but today, this enmity is multiplied. Today, the satanic powers have tasted the blows that living Islam inflicts on them. Today, the Western satanic powers—America and its agents and followers—have understood what it means when a Muslim nation rises in the name of God. Therefore, they fear Islam more and harbor more hatred and enmity towards it.

The second point is that you, the faithful and resilient Muslims, have been able to stand against this insane hatred and anger of the powers. The value of this steadfastness and being Muslim and remaining Muslim is greater than being Muslim a hundred years or fifty years ago. This being Muslim is like being Muslim in the early days of Islam; both its virtue and its troubles are greater. That Islam, where a person lived in the world for fifty or sixty or seventy years and during all this time never faced the enemies of God, never frowned at the enemies of God, and was never even slightly bothered by the enemies of God, was called Islam. This being Muslim is vastly different from the being Muslim of our young, newly matured youth who are twenty or twenty-five years old and have been in the field of jihad against the enemies of God since they reached the age of maturity and have resisted and strived in the field of war, or have attained martyrdom, or have become disabled and captive.

The being Muslim of our young people today, who resist and strive in the path of God, is like the being Muslim of the youth of Abu Dhar al-Ghifari, Hanzala Ghaseel al-Malaika, and Mus'ab ibn Umair. It is not like the being Muslim of our predecessors who were good Muslims all their lives—whom God Almighty will surely reward—they prayed, worshipped, did business, and pursued their own work; there was no enjoining good and forbidding wrong, no jihad, and no confrontation with the enemies of God. Where is this and where is that? These two states are very different from each other.

The value of being Muslim in the era of jihad must be recognized. Of course, it has some difficulties, but this difficulty is at the beginning of the work. You are aware of the ten-year blessed life of the Holy Prophet (peace be upon him) in Medina among the Muslims and know that from beginning to end, it was war, hardship, and scarcity; but if you look at the geography of the world, you will see that it was those ten years of the Prophet's struggles that fifty years after those wars, the Prophet's government covered more than half of the civilized world of that day. This was the same ten years that, because of those struggles, it became like this.

Of course, later it did not continue as it was during the Prophet's time and as expected, and after a while, the good situation also turned bad; but nevertheless, those efforts, struggles, hardships, and hunger endured by the Holy Prophet (peace be upon him) and his companions for ten years caused that half a century after the Prophet's passing, more than half of the world was in the hands of Muslims.

Many hardships were endured during the Prophet's time. You know the story of the Companions of the Bench. You have heard about lending clothes to each other. They resisted in the battlefield with a single date. The first person would suck the date to gain some energy from its sweetness, then take it out of his mouth and give it to the second person, who would also suck it and gain some energy, and then give the twice-sucked date to the third person to swallow. They lived like this, endured hardships like this, and had shortages like this. At the beginning of the work, the pressure on them was great from all sides. The beginning of the work is not the first five or six months or the first year; five or six months in the life of a journey is considered the beginning, not in the life of a nation and not in the life of a new history. In the life of a nation, ten years and twenty years are considered a few days.

During the Prophet's (peace be upon him) time, people endured hardships; but after the foundation was solidified, those struggles, sacrifices, sincerity, and training caused this movement to continue so rapidly that fifty years after the Prophet's passing, more than half of the world was in the hands of Muslims. It was like this then, and it is the same today.

In our time, striving has double value. The hypocrites and those with disease in their hearts complained during the Prophet's time; they complain today, and they complained during the time of our dear Imam. They exaggerated the hardships, shortages, and difficulties of that time; they exaggerate today as well. We should not pay attention to their words, and thanks be to God, the people do not trust them.

The issue is that today you are facing a world where its powerful leaders have decided to fight Islam because they fear Islam and have been struck by it. You want to honor and revive Islam. It is a very important task. I tell you that ultimately you will advance your work, and in the end, you will be the ones who, to the dismay of those who cannot see, will honor Islam.

The world's powerful and the emperors of wealth and force should not think that they will be able to remove Islam from the scene with the hardships like those imposed on Muslims in Europe, Islamic countries, and other places. The day of Islam's rise has arrived, and Islam is here to stay. The time when they could isolate Islam has passed. For many years, they isolated Islam, and this isolation was such that they no longer feared it because it posed no threat to them. Islam in exile, hidden Islam, Islam whose followers were ashamed to say they were Muslims and were ashamed to say "In the Name of God, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful" at the beginning of their speeches posed no threat to global arrogance.

The representatives of the Islamic Republic, bravely and powerfully, glorified the name of God on all the great platforms of the world and took pride in it. Then others saw that they were left behind, and now some Muslim leaders, when they want to speak somewhere, say "In the Name of God, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful" at the beginning! They were ashamed to say "In the Name of God, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful." They did not mention the name of God at all and were ashamed. Islam was in such a state of estrangement.

Therefore, they did not fear such Islam, just as they do not fear the Islam of the hoarders like the Saudis and the like. America does not fear the Islam of the servile ones like some other governments—that Islam is not frightening—they fear the Islam that is pure, Quranic, the Islam of jihad and struggle, and the Islam of reliance on God; that is, the same Islam that is in the hands of our revolutionary people and in your hands and was in the hands of your youth who went, fought, and were martyred. They fear this Islam.

Each of our young people on the front was considered a threat to global arrogance. Each of our prisoners who is today in the prisons of the Ba'athist government is considered a potential and actual threat to global arrogance. The families of the prisoners should know this and take pride in it. Just as the families of the martyrs took pride in their martyrs, the families of the prisoners should also take pride in these free men and young free men. We know how much manliness and strength of character they have shown, and the enemy has not been able to digest them. Of course, they have also imposed hardships and pressures on our dear prisoners over these years; but they are men and believers and have endured all those hardships and stood firm for Islam.

The same regime that has imposed so much hardship on the prisoners now, for its own interest and to deceive the public opinion of the world's people, says that the issue of prisoners is a humanitarian issue and let us exchange prisoners before withdrawal!! Which prisoners do you want to exchange?! Prisoners who have not been registered? Several thousand of our prisoners are in the prisons and camps of the Ba'athist regime and have not yet been registered, and the Red Cross has not had the courage and impartiality to go and register them. Some of our prisoners have been registered there. They say give us all the Iraqi prisoners in Iran and take some of your prisoners! With this proposal, later we would have to follow Iraq and plead for several years that we have several thousand more prisoners there! This is what they want.

They present the issue of prisoners as a humanitarian issue, while they have refrained from the most basic and primary services that should be provided to prisoners. They did not even allow their names to be put on paper and included in the Red Cross lists to identify them as prisoners. Many of our missing persons are among the prisoners that the Iraqi regime has given no name or sign of.

The global arrogance apparatus—the same ones who constantly supported Iraq during the war—have now raised the issue of prisoners. We are more concerned about the fate of the prisoners than they are. We are more eager for our children and loved ones who are in the camps of Iraq to return. No one cares as much as we do for this task; but we do not want to be deceived by the enemy and become a plaything for the malicious politicians who supported Iraq throughout the eight years of war and now want to help it in this situation as well.

Yes, the issue of prisoners is a humanitarian issue; but the first step to solving this humanitarian issue is for Iraq to honestly say how many Iranian prisoners it holds. The Red Cross, which should be an impartial institution, has not done this so far. Of course, this is also because we are Muslims. We have endured much of this for the sake of God and being Muslim, and we will continue to endure, and ultimately, by the grace of the Lord, with our perseverance, we will bring the enemy to its knees.

Both the families of our dear martyrs and the families of our dear prisoners and our dear disabled and their esteemed families should know their worth and be assured that their actions today have had and will have great value and a significant impact on the greatness of Islam. Of course, all people should know the value of these dear ones, and government agencies and ordinary people should be aware that the martyr and his family, the disabled and his family, and the prisoner and his family are among the most distinguished, noble, and dear people and should be treated accordingly. Of course, the transaction of God and what God will do with you is above all and more valuable and lasting.

We hope that God will reward you and gladden your hearts and bestow His mercy and grace upon you in compensation for this great sacrifice, and God willing, show you the complete victory of Islam and Muslims.

Peace be upon you and God's mercy and blessings