He considered man’s worth and credibility in his seeing...

He considered man’s worth and credibility in his seeing another but God and interpreted man’s liberty to mean that he is tied to the beloved’s tress and ringlet and see nothing nor be mindful of anything save the One and Only Divinity. I am nothing, nothing, for being is all in naught. Nothing else but nothing, for You gaze upon the naught. During the course of his blessed life, Imam Khomeini presented to humanity, by his pen and tongue, all he had received from the divine source of grace.

He wrote books, delivered sermons, wrote messages and, in his everlasting will and testament, he penned the final chapter of his guiding life. In all these the Imam has tried to speak in the language of the folks or his audience as called for by his station of guardianship and leadership. Had he spoken in his own tongue revealing the concealed secrets, none could understand.

Imam Ja‘far as-Sadiq[^2] (‘ a ) has said that the Prophet ( s ) never in his life time addressed the people in his own tongue. In like manner, in his divine mystic, peripatetic journeys Imam Khomeini had gained access to secrets that were concealed from others. Some of those secrets found manifestation in the glorious guardianship of this noble personality, while others are reflected in the ardent, impassionate and stirring odes and lyric poetry of His Eminence.

Imam Knomeini’s poetry are indeed the hidden secrets between him and that Unique Friend—the friend for whose love only the Imam lived, who was all that he could see and acknowledge and to whose command alone he would bow. I will be a moth, burning, burning all my life in her candle. I will be drunk with wine, marveling at her beautiful face.

If he tolerated derisions by the ignorant; if he took poison and traded his pride,[^3] it was for Islam and Allah and if he waged jihad , that too, was to please the Lord. In his ode known as the ‘Alawiyyah Elegy, Ibn Abi’l-Hadid[^4] has said: For love’s sake the veil of chastity I’ll tear. Infamy, should the friend’s path entail is the loveliest thing to bear. That is how one should be in incurring the pleasure of the friend.

As a noble tradition implies, a believer does not fear the blame of the reproachers. From a single view, the poetry of Imam Khomeini is a compendium of all the qualities and aspects of his personality. For, his turbulent spirit has visited all corners and horizons, and the lights of his personality have radiated in all stations.