Statements of the Supreme Leader in Meeting with Commanders of Various Ranks of the 'Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps'

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

Welcome, my very dear brothers. You have brought joy, hope, and relief from fatigue to me. Thanks be to God, in the meetings you have held these days, very valuable words have been spoken, and I have been informed of some of them, which were good, useful, and profound. Thus far, thanks be to God, your gathering has been blessed. We hope that it will continue to be so, and with the flow of the effects of this sitting, speaking, deciding, self-reflection, seeking God's help, and renewing the covenant with the Almighty God, God willing, it will be even more blessed.

When I look at your assembly, I see that this group and similar groups—of which we have few—are unparalleled and very distinguished in terms of enjoying spiritual and divine blessings. You have received favors from the Almighty God, each of which is very desirable and aspirational for someone who does not have it. These favors are within you. First, you are young, which is a blessing higher than many others. Secondly, your hearts are on the path of guidance. How many misguided youths are there in this world! Young people who live this life like a blind person, and their eyes will only open when it is too late! "So We have removed your covering, and your sight, this Day, is sharp." After that, what governs them is regret, and they have nothing else. Before reaching that stage, your eyes are open: you know God. You know the path of God, the religion of God, and the friends of God.

Another very important blessing is the blessing of jihad, which you, thanks be to God, have experienced as an exceptional, unparalleled jihad with your skin, flesh, veins, and tendons, and you have seen its hardships.

During the time of oppression and struggle, some who did not accept or understand such struggles—people with little political knowledge who did not understand why one should struggle and engage in jihad—though they were faithful people, would say: "If only a means were provided for us to go to a place where the enemy of God is, to wield the sword. To fight in the fronts and trenches and benefit from the virtue of jihad." Their hearts would soar towards such a state.

Jihad is not available to everyone! Jihad with the enemy and in the field of danger is not available to everyone! You have been in this field for fifteen years. Now, some have only engaged in jihad for eight years. But the jihad of the Guard Corps began before those eight years and continues to this day. This is another distinction, one that the righteous and pious servants of God envy; the distinguished envy it. A saying from Imam Khomeini (may his soul be sanctified) was quoted, and he certainly and undoubtedly said it from the heart: "If only I were also a Guard!" Pay attention to what this sentence means. Who is the Imam? That great, ascetic, mystic jurist who is undoubtedly one of the distinguished in the path of God, and anyone who is in the path of God, of any religion or nation, as long as they are spiritual, perceives the light of Imam Khomeini's existence. He said: "If only I were also a Guard!"

Who is the Guard that brings such longing to the heart of that great man? This is what I mentioned. It means the longing for jihad, the longing to be present in fields of danger and to fight the enemy. You have understood this. It is in your record. It is present today and has not ended.

No one should think that jihad—by which we mean armed jihad, not scientific, financial, economic jihad, or jihad in the field of construction, all of which have their place and virtue—has ended. Of course, the virtue of armed jihad is incomparable to other virtues. The field of this jihad is an open field, which itself is another opportunity. These are divine blessings, and you must take advantage of these opportunities. These opportunities have created a group among you whose members can reach human perfection. Of course, they can reach it, and they can also fail to reach it. Let no one think that "Thanks be to God, our burden is lifted." You have the possibility, the special mountaineering shoes and clothes, and the strong muscles. Now, here is the ball and the field! You can go, and you can not go. Some, with these very possibilities, instead of ascending, turn towards decline, which is a great misfortune. May God protect us from falling into such a situation. So, these are your possibilities.

Dear brothers! Effort, jihad, and struggle are commendable and beautiful from everyone, especially from someone who has the tools for this work and can place this jihad in its best position and benefit from it. What is the intended benefit? That benefit has two parts: one personal part, which is the essence of the matter. (Pay attention to this!) The main part of striving in the path of God is for your own self. "Take care of yourselves; no harm will come to you from those who go astray if you are guided." The essence of the matter is that we must, as a servant of God, fulfill the duty of servitude to God. Either we can, in which case we will be proud and successful; or we cannot, in which case it is misfortune. The effort and jihad we undertake, the construction, self-building, and other-building we pursue, the service we provide to the creation, the establishment of justice we undertake, the government we establish, all are primarily so that we can present ourselves before the Almighty God as a servant and say: "O Lord! We have fulfilled the right of your servitude to the extent we could." It is mentioned in the supplication that "He made those who trust in Him among His servants sufficient to fulfill His right." It is a good supplication. There is a high probability that it is issued from an infallible. (Now, I do not know the exact source of the supplication.) "He made those who trust in Him among His servants sufficient to fulfill His right." So, primarily, effort is intended.

Secondly, other issues are intended, such as saving humanity, establishing a government of justice and truth, and creating a path through which humanity can reach God and guidance. These efforts I mentioned are a prelude so that we can fulfill the right of servitude before the Almighty God. Of course, the right of servitude is not fulfilled except through these actions. If someone goes, closes the door of their room, and only engages in personal worship, they will not fulfill the right of God. That personal duty and goal are realized through sacrifice, effort, caring for God's servants, serving God's creation, and fulfilling social duties. Pay attention that these two matters are not confused.

Now, what is the way to properly fulfill this important duty, which is the fulfillment of the right of servitude? The way has been explained in narrations, supplications, and the like. There are two paths: one is the path of God, and the other is the path of carnal desires. The path of God is opposed to the path of carnal desires. If a person moves on the path of God, they will reach that highest and ultimate goal, which is the fulfillment of the right of servitude. But if they follow carnal desires and want to fulfill their carnal desires, to the extent that they expend their energy on carnal desires and the "material self," they will be hindered from traversing the divine path.

The sacred law of Islam and all divine laws are based on this foundation. Therefore, the duty is clear: to confront carnal desires, to recognize them, and to traverse the path of God and endure its hardships. These are the factors that make a person successful. This is why you see in supplications, lamentations, and the words of the Imams (peace be upon them), the human self and personal desires are so condemned, and this is why in the supplication of the Sahifa Sajjadiya, we read: "This is the position of one who is ashamed of himself before You." That is, O Lord! I am ashamed before You because of the frivolities of my own self. Pay attention that Imam Sajjad (peace be upon him) says this! I do not believe that the Imams (peace be upon them), what they said in supplication, in the middle of the night, in a state of lamentation and tears, was only for us to learn from them; rather, they intended to express and spoke the truth. However, the issue of carnal desires varies in the degrees of human souls. What that great one considers carnal desire might be worship or performing a recommended act in our lives. That, in the life and existential composition of Imam Sajjad, is carnal desire; because his peak is high, his spiritual and spiritual purity and clarity are high.

"This is the position of one who is ashamed of himself before You and is angry with it and is pleased with You." He says, O Lord! I am angry with my own self, but I am pleased with You. The satisfaction of a servant with the Almighty God is the high stage of a great person. We must move in this line. A person is constantly at the point of choice.

I once said: The fact that we say in every prayer "Guide us to the straight path" is one of the wisdoms and secrets of this verse, that a person is at a crossroads at every moment of life—of course, to the extent that the limited intellect and very weak knowledge of people like me can comprehend. Otherwise, the men of God and the people of knowledge and wisdom certainly understand more things—so, one of the wisdoms of this verse is that a person is at a crossroads at every moment of life. Right now, you and I, for saying a word, for making a decision, for judging, for taking a step, for taking and giving something, are at the point of choice and at a crossroads. A person is at the point of choice. Either they choose the path of God or the path of carnal desires. Therefore, the better your divine choice, the better your ascent will be, and you will achieve perfection. The more divine choices increase, the more the purity of the soul increases, the more the strength of will increases, the more the inherent ability increases, the more the ability to accomplish great tasks increases, even the ability to overcome worldly enemies and the ability to govern the country increases.

A phenomenon has occurred in history that if we want to solve it based on ordinary historical equations, its solution is impossible, and that is that a nation that was deprived of the basics of human civilization at one time laid the foundation for the greatest human civilizations, and that is the Islamic movement. Who creates civilization? The civilization of ancient Greece and Rome, which today's Europe at the end of the twentieth century still boasts about and flaunts in its historical and scientific interpretations, every step of it is based on previous steps. Is it possible for a great civilization to just spring from a desert?! Is such a thing possible?! But in the case of Islam, it happened. A group that did not even have the literacy to read; let alone that literacy leading to reading various books and forming a scientific opinion, and then this scientific opinion competing among the scientific opinions of humanity and ranking higher, laid the foundation for a great civilization. Therefore, see how long these paths are!

How is it possible for a nation and society to traverse these paths and after its scientific opinions dominate all the modern scientific opinions of the world, to eliminate other civilizations to its advantage and become the sole civilization?! The Arab nation not only did not have superior scientific opinions, but it had no scientific opinion at all. It had no science or literacy at all. Then, such a population, during the ten years of the blessed life of the Prophet, after the migration and during the government, laid the foundations of a civilization that governed the world for several hundred years and influenced all the civilizations of the world. In those centuries—the third, fourth, and fifth centuries AD—the Western civilization was the superior civilization; the Eastern civilization had become extinct, and the Iranian civilization was practically nothing. But we see that the Islamic civilization eliminated that superior Western civilization. In the sense that the Western civilization was extinguished in the face of this civilization; like a star that has no light with the coming of the sun, or like the moon that is nothing with the coming of the sun and the rising of the day, or like a primitive empirical doctor who, with the arrival of a top specialist with several titles of super-specialty doctorates, it is audacious to say "someone should come to me." When the Islamic civilization came, it was like this.

This is a reality that everything in Europe faded in the face of the Islamic civilization, and this continued until the fourth, fifth, and sixth centuries AH. Of course, after this, the Islamic civilization declined for years until it reached the Renaissance period. After this, the Western civilization began to rise again. However, the Western civilization, during all those years after the dominance of the Islamic civilization, was busy feeding off this civilization. Look at the books and sources of that time! The most prominent scholars were those who could engage with Islamic works and understand something from them and translate them.

Now the main question is how did this Islamic civilization come into being? Some say they took from the works of Iran, and some believe they took from the works of Rome. But these are ignorant and childish words. Now let's assume they translated ten titles of books from somewhere, can a civilization be created with these ten titles of books? Was the Islamic civilization created by translating Greek, Roman, and Indian works? No. The essence of the Islamic civilization was from within itself. Of course, a living civilization also uses others. The question is, how did this prosperous world; this utilization of science; this discovery of first-class truths of the world of existence—this material world—that was created by Muslims; this employment of ideas and thoughts and minds and great scientific activities and creating the great universities of that day on a global scale; creating dozens of wealthy and powerful countries of that era and an unparalleled political power throughout history, come into being? You do not find in history a power other than the political power of Islam that has become a single country from the heart of Europe to the heart of the subcontinent and a lasting power has ruled over it! The Middle Ages of Europe were a time of ignorance and misery for Europe. Europeans call the Middle Ages the "dark and black era." The same Middle Ages that were darkness and blackness in Europe were the era of the radiance of science in Islamic countries, including Iran. Books have been written and research has been done about the fourth century AH, which is the era of the radiance of science. Such political power, such scientific power, such world-building, such statecraft, and such employment of all living and constructive and active human forces, what caused it to come into being? Due to the teachings of Islam. The issue is only this. Islam taught Muslims one lesson, and that lesson, whenever it is among Muslims, its result is brilliance and radiance and spiritual and material elevation. That lesson is the lesson of sincere and devoted struggle. Wherever there is sincere and devoted struggle, its result will be brilliance and radiance. However, sincere and devoted struggle may be done for God, or it may be done for something other than God. If it is done for God, it is eternal, lasting, and indestructible; but if it is done for something other than God, it is not lasting. Someone may be in love with someone; sincerely and devotedly perform an action for them. Or be in love with their homeland; sincerely and devotedly perform an action for their homeland. These are not lasting, and they last only as long as this excitement and feeling are in them. As soon as their feeling cools down a little, they open their eyes and say to themselves, should I go and die so that so-and-so can eat and get fat?! But if it is for God, it is not like this. The more a person's rational precision increases, the more their struggle will increase. Because they know "What is with you will perish, but what is with God will remain"; what we gave for God remains.

A goat was brought to the Prophet. He slaughtered it and said: "Whoever wants meat, come." The poor of Medina set out for the Prophet's house. The Prophet gave each one a piece. After everyone left, only one shoulder remained. One of the Prophet's wives said: "O Messenger of God! Such a big goat is gone; only this shoulder remains!?" The Prophet said: "All of it remains; only this shoulder is going." That is, we eat, it disappears and ends; but what we gave remains. This is the account of two plus two equals four. When the work is for God, the more a person's intellect is greater and sharper, the more their sacrifice will be; because they know that all this life spent, striving in the world, sweating, thinking, running, earning money, and enjoying and reveling, will disappear. The more pleasure there is, the more disappointment there will be. This is why:

The atonement for unaccountable drunkenness is to sit sober among the drunk

The more a person enjoys, when the pleasure is taken away from them, their regret is greater. But that moment when you temporarily gave up your life; because your battalion might have been surrounded, you got up, gave up half the night's sleep, ran, reached the headquarters, delivered the news—because there was no radio—with your voice, and the force came and a battalion was saved, that half hour of yours remained, it became lasting and will never end. How much is that half hour worth! Centuries will pass, but from that half hour of yours, like a diamond, nothing will be diminished. Now if you have a hundred of these half hours, see how much it is worth! This is work for God. No factor can destroy the work you did for God. Only one factor can, and that is yourself.

The Almighty God has not given little power and strength to humans. He has also given humans the power to ruin all their good deeds. But apart from yourself, no one can destroy the good work and moment you spent in the path of God. See how much work for God is worth!

This is what Islam taught Muslims. Now you think a scholar who has such a belief, will they stop working for a moment and, under the pretext of not having a salary and a house and other facilities, will they slack off? All the famous Western scientists who have been able to do great things in the last four hundred years have been able to achieve these scientific advances with such a spirit; that is, with the spirit of love for the work they want to do.

If a person finds the path of God and learns how to do work for God, then you see how much this love for work will make the work easier. The Islamic civilization was created in this way: when its architect wants to design a building, it is like this. When its laborer places the bricks on top of each other, it is like this. When its commander sits in the main headquarters, it is like this. When its soldier moves on the front line, it is like this. Its trench builder without a trench is like this. Its guard and street patrolman who keeps watch is like this. Its religious scholar in the lesson is like this. Its political ruler, in the place where they sit and want to make a political decision, is like this. In short, everyone works for God. Will such a nation and country fall behind in terms of life?! Will such a nation and country see a little humiliation and insult in the world?! Will anyone dare to bully such a nation?!

The world and the hereafter of such a nation and country will be secured. Yes; if this very nation has corrupt leaders who are heedless of God and attached to the world, like the caliphs of the Umayyads and Abbasids, they will weaken the foundation. The caliphs of the Umayyads and Abbasids, with their hammers and chisels and saws, were able to destroy the several hundred-year-old structure that the Prophet laid in ten years. These are very noteworthy words. Someone like Yazid, with all that corruption and destruction, is enough to completely ruin a civilization. Someone like Mutawakkil, with all that oppression, is enough to destroy a country. All these oppressive rulers; all these corrupt rulers and all these drunk and senseless ones who came to power over three or four hundred years, with their hammers and chisels and saws, were able to destroy the structure that the Prophet laid in ten years.

My dear ones! The Prophet worked with faithful people; people who were built and sincere. If you preserve this sincerity, which thanks be to God, its foundation is in you; this struggle in the path of God and this purity and not being attached to the world—I am not saying not wanting the world and throwing it away and having aversion to it—and our faithful youth also preserve it, in the midst of all these storms of corruption and these opposing winds that are in the world, such a foundation will be laid that it will take centuries for the corrupt to be able to remove a corner of it. You can lay this foundation; just as the Imam laid it; just as sincere struggles in one day were able to bring about this revolution. Was this revolution a joke!? In a country that was so coveted by all powers, was the revolution a joke!? You see what America does for a Haiti! What it does for a Panama! What it did for a Kuwait! They were losing Kuwait; you saw what they did! Then Iran, with such greatness, with this oil and natural resources, with this large land and with this strategic position and important geographical location, should be lost?! Should the puppet, obedient, loyal, devoted government they had placed be removed before their eyes?! Was this possible?! This was like a legend; but it happened. If they swore a hundred times, the most optimistic people would say: "It is not possible." The late Ayatollah Taleghani, who was both a cleric and had knowledge and scientific positions and was also a political and militant person and had been imprisoned and was not afraid of struggle at all, told me "The day the Imam said that the Shah and the monarchical government must go, I criticized and said what is he talking about! Is it possible?!" When the Imam explicitly said this, how many years before the victory of the revolution was it? That is, until the very end, even a man like the late Taleghani, the great, faithful, militant, imprisoned, whipped, tortured, said "It is impossible!" Then he told me—the essence of his words was—that "This man is connected to somewhere else and speaks from somewhere else!"

The Imam was a faithful, sincere, godly man who was able to lead a group behind him and accomplish something that was truly like a legend; that is, it was not believable or possible. In a world where everything was against Islam, someone comes to a place where all the motivations of the world are that that place should remain away from Islam and faith and the Quran, and establishes an Islamic government?! Was such a thing possible?! But the Imam did it, and then you faithful, sincere, Basiji, Guard, Army youth, and ordinary people, in various places, did it and it happened.

Thanks be to God, the foundation is very strong. You must follow the work and strive for God so that this foundation is completed. God willing, it is impossible for the passage of time to shake such a foundation; and the harm of wind and rain and the passage of centuries will not affect it.

I heard the call to prayer. It is now noon. We will not continue further.

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