Order Robert Spencer’s new book, Holy Hell: Islam’s Abuse of Women and the Infidels Who Enable It: HERE.
The Ayatollah Khomeini worked hard to ensure that the Islamic Republic of Iran would be Islamic and nothing but. He declared, “What the nation wants is an Islamic Republic. Not just a Republic, not a democratic Republic, not a democratic Islamic Republic. Do not use the word ‘democratic’ to describe it. That is the Western style.”
Indeed, there was nothing democratic about his regime. Khomeini embarked on a reign of terror, executing his political foes in large numbers and shutting down opposition newspapers and magazines. He told secularists, “The ‘clog-wearer and the turbaned’ have given you a chance. After each revolution several thousand of these corrupt elements are executed in public and burnt and the story is over. They are not allowed to publish newspapers.…We will close all parties except the one, or a few which act in a proper manner.…We all made mistakes. We thought we were dealing with human beings. It is evident we are not. We are dealing with wild animals. We will not tolerate them any more.”
As The Complete Infidel’s Guide to Iran explains, the sharia state that Khomeini constructed gave Iranians neither democracy nor equality of rights under the law. In 1985, Sa’id Raja’i-Khorassani, the Permanent Delegate to the United Nations from the Islamic Republic of Iran, declared that “the very concept of human rights was ‘a Judeo-Christian invention’ and inadmissible in Islam….According to Ayatollah Khomeini, one of the Shah’s ‘most despicable sins’ was the fact that Iran was among the original group of nations that drafted and approved the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.”
Akbar Ganji, a young Iranian who originally supported the Islamic Revolution and at one point even joined its intelligence service, recounted: “Around 1984 or 1985 I was becoming disillusioned. I saw a fascism and political tyranny emerging in Iran. Anyone who asked questions was branded ‘antirevolutionary’ and ‘against Islam.’… A certain faction in Iran has turned religion into ideology, faith into fascism. It promised us heaven, but it created a hell on earth.”
Many other Iranians became disillusioned with the Islamic Republic, but the costly war that Iran and Iraq fought between 1980 and 1988, ending essentially in a stalemate and bringing military and economic catastrophe to both sides, only strengthened Khomeini’s hold on power. Tensions between Iraq and Iran had been increasing for years, until finally, on September 22, 1980, Saddam Hussein’s Iraq invaded the Islamic Republic.
Saddam was alarmed by Khomeini’s talk of exporting the Islamic Revolution to other countries. particularly because he himself was a Sunni at the head of a secular regime in a country that had a Shi’ite majority—and bordered the Islamic Republic. He hoped that his invasion would cause the Iranian people to turn against the mullahs and topple their fledgling regime; instead, it ended up strengthening their regime, particularly since the hated U.S. was aiding Saddam with weaponry and large amounts of cash.
The Iranian regime generally framed the conflict in Sunni-Shi’ite terms. A 1981 offensive was dubbed Operation Eighth Imam; in 1986 the Iranians named another Operation Karbala-4, harking back to the Battle of Karbala in 680, which marked the formal beginning of the Sunni-Shi’ite schism. Khomeini insisted that the war was a struggle for the very soul of Islam.
Khomeini, explaining the stakes in the Iran-Iraq War, stated: “It is our belief that Saddam wishes to return Islam to blasphemy and polytheism….if America becomes victorious…and grants victory to Saddam, Islam will receive such a blow that it will not be able to raise its head for a long time….The issue is one of Islam versus blasphemy, and not of Iran versus Iraq.”
Sunni states neighboring Iraq knew that when Khomeini said that the war was one of “Islam versus blasphemy,” he meant “Shi’ite versus Sunni,” and took heed: the Saudis sent billions to Saddam to finance the Iraqi war effort. Like Stalin suddenly finding the Orthodox church useful during World War II, Saddam himself began to be photographed at prayer, hoping to counterbalance the Iranians’ appeal to Islam.
Even though Israel was not involved in the Iran-Iraq War, it was always on the Iranians’ minds: one of their operations was called Operation Tariq al-Qods (Operation Jerusalem Way); another, Operation Beit ol-Moqaddas (Operation Jerusalem).
As the war dragged on, the Islamic Republic became an increasingly poor, dangerous, tightly controlled totalitarian state. Yet the regime didn’t blink. Khomeini had thundered that fighting was an Islamic duty: “Jihad or Holy War, which is for the conquest of [other] countries and kingdoms, becomes incumbent after the formation of the Islamic State in the presence of the Imam or in accordance with his command. Then Islam makes it incumbent on all adult males, provided they are not disabled or incapacitated, to prepare themselves for the conquest of countries so that the writ of Islam is obeyed in every country in the world….Islam’s Holy War is a struggle against idolatry, sexual deviation, plunder, repression and cruelty….But those who study Islamic Holy War will understand why Islam wants to conquer the whole world.” The goal of this conquest would be to establish the hegemony of Islamic law.
Khomeini had no patience for those who insisted that Islam was a religion of peace:
Those who know nothing of Islam pretend that Islam counsels against war. Those [who say this] are witless. Islam says: Kill all the unbelievers just as they would kill you all! Does this mean that Muslims should sit back until they are devoured by [the unbelievers]? Islam says: Kill them [the non-Muslims], put them to the sword and scatter [their armies]. Does this mean sitting back until [non-Muslims] overcome us? Islam says: Kill in the service of Allah those who may want to kill you! Does this mean that we should surrender [to the enemy]? Islam says: Whatever good there is exists thanks to the sword and in the shadow of the sword! People cannot be made obedient except with the sword! The sword is the key to Paradise, which can be opened only for the Holy Warriors! There are hundreds of other [Qur’anic] psalms and Hadiths [sayings of the Prophet] urging Muslims to value war and to fight. Does all this mean that Islam is a religion that prevents men from waging war? I spit upon those foolish souls who make such a claim.
As Iranians became increasingly war-weary, even the days of Mohammed Reza Pahlavi began to look good in retrospect: a joke circulated in Iran in which a man who was about to become an Islamic martyr and enter Paradise pressed Khomeini for details of what Paradise was like. “Well,” replied the Ayatollah, “there’s always wonderful weather in paradise. There are lots of trees and the water is very pure.” Asked for more, he added, “All the foods, including the finest meat and lots of fruit, are available. People have only one job and there are many ways to engage in pleasure.” And? “There’s no tension with anyone and everybody’s happy.” Pressed for still more about what Paradise is like, the joke has Khomeini saying, “Well, it’s very much like the time of the Shah.”
Under the Islamic Republic, Iran had become a totalitarian sharia backwater, the embodiment of a notorious statement of Khomeini: “Allah did not create man so that he could have fun. The aim of creation was for mankind to be put to the test through hardship and prayer. An Islamic regime must be serious in every field. There are no jokes in Islam. There is no humor in Islam. There is no fun in Islam. There can be no fun and joy in whatever is serious. Islam does not allow swimming in the sea and is opposed to radio and television serials. Islam, however, allows marksmanship, horseback riding and competition.”
There was no fun in Islam, or in Iran either.
