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Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books The Wine of Love, Mystical Poetry of Imam Khomeini Translator’s Introduction In the name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful I went to Tehran to study Islamic Philosophy, and to teach Contemporary Western Philosophy of Religion at the Islamic Academy of Philosophy of Iran in the fall of 1990, but I was also interested in the poetry of Imam Khomeini, may he rest in peace.

Though there had been rumors, it did not become generally known that Imam had written poetry until after he had passed away. Less than three weeks after Imam’s death on June 4, 1989, his son, Hujjat al-Islam Sayyid Ahmad, offered one of his father’s poems to the Iranian public through its publication in a Tehran newspaper, Kayhan .

In the September 4, 1989 edition of the New Republic magazine, an English rendition of the poem first published in Kayhan appeared by the great scholar and translator, William Chittick. I visited Prof. Chittick in his office at the University of New York at Stony Brook and asked him about Imam’s poetry, but he told me that he had only translated that one poem. The mystical nature of the poem caught many, even among Imam’s most ardent devotees, by surprise.

In one couplet, Imam wrote, “Open the door of the tavern and let us go there day and night, For I am sick and tired of the mosque and seminary.” The surprise is generated by the contradiction between the literal and symbolic uses of the images. Imam Khomeini was a great supporter of the religious institutions of the mosque and seminary, but in the poetic genre of which his poem is an instance, the mosque and the seminary are symbols for insincerity and pretentiousness.

Before going to Iran, when I visited the Ambassador of Iran to the United Nations, Dr. Kamal Kharrazi,[^1] he had taken a framed and beautifully decorated piece of calligraphy from the wall and revealed to me that this was a poem composed by Imam, and explained some of what it meant. It seemed to be some sort of love poem in which highly stylized romantic imagery was used to express a mystical devotion to God. After I settled in Tehran, I started asking people about Imam’s poetry.

They seemed surprised that I should be interested. I went to a bookstore right outside the gate of the University of Tehran and told a salesman there that I wanted to read the poetry of Imam Khomeini. He smiled and gave me a slender green volume, and asked where I was from. “America,” I said.