It has been twenty years since your heart and your tongue have ceased their relentless struggle. Twenty years since the Walls of Hosseni-yeh and those of the Iranian prisons reverberated with your orations. Twenty years since you passed to the realm of eternity.
You spoke what was to be said but noone listened, You
wrote what was to be written but noone read. The Islam of liturgy (mafatih)
and petty rituals still prevail over the Islam of the Koran and Nahjol
Balagheh. The corrupt (Safavi) Shiism still dominates the pure (Alavi)
Shiism. Religion is still pitted against religion. The truth is still sacrificed
on the altar of deceit. The true religiosity is still at the mercy of false
modernity. The consumers of ceremony still outnumber the students of the
Koran. Hope in saintly intercession still stands as the pretender gatekeeper
to the layman's heaven. The archetypal trinity: the duplicitous, the traitorous,
and the idolatrous still enjoy a briskmarket; they prevail by force, or
else by cunning, through pinning Korans on spearheads.
O Ali
Twenty years later the youths whom you loved so much read
and know you less than ever. Today reading and writing is deemed a vestige
of stagnation, while idealism is a hallmark of naivete. It is under such
circumstances that the responsibility of the intellectuals looms larger
than ever.
O Ali
I will teach my children how to live, how to be the beating heart of history. I will tell them who Salman the Pure was and what Abuzar the brave did. I will instruct them how to live in "Kavir" (desert) and who to soar after the fall. I will tell them that "Fatima is Fatima" and that "Ali stands alone".
In the mirror of the future and of today, one should act as an "osveh" (model) for "those who left us emulated Hossein and those who stayed behind should emulate Zeynab, or else..."
Twenty years passed since you last set pen on paper. But the essence of your life and the urgency of your message has animated and motivated many a life and mind.
Peace be upon you.