Book: Manifestation of Monotheism: Hajj from Imam Khomeini’s Viewpoint

Imam Khomeini was always attentive to the issue of hajj as one of the most important concerns of Muslims and the world of Islam.

He had significant standpoints about this divine task and the role it could play in Muslims’ lives. Imam’s views and standpoints, as important as they are, have not been adequately analyzed and scrutinized by researchers and experts. Analyzing these views and re-compiling them could considerably help us to correctly understand Imam’s standpoint about hajj.

Since in the recent century, Imam Khomeini was the most important and influential personality in the lives of Muslims, if not the whole world, then paying close attention to his words and compiling and analyzing them is very important. The Issue of hajj was one of Imam’s main concerns and he was very interested in it, so he talked a lot and issued numerous statements about it. Therefore, studying hajj through Imam’s eyes is a very important matter. Since Imam Khomeini’s personality contained different dimensions and geniuses, he approached this subject from various angles. This will encourage one to analyze this subject from different aspects.

But then, Imam Khomeini was a faqeeh (jurist), so he naturally had to see hajj from the jurisprudence angle. Since jurisprudence approaches matters from the point of view of deduction and explaining the commands (ahkam), and less often gets involved in extraction, reasoning and philosophy of the matter, Imam too has seen hajj through the same angle in his religious books. Besides, Imam was a philosopher and an orator, so it was obvious for him to look at this subject from the aspects of reasoning and the philosophy of ahkam. At the same time, Imam had a revolutionary and revolutionizing character so had to support the role of hajj in making changes in human’s history and destiny, and pay attention to the influences this devotional task could have on Muslims’ future and present. Imam was also a master in ethics and education and looked at hajj from the angle of its influence on training and educating people and creating role models. He was an adroit and great politician of the time and it was obvious for him to regard hajj as a political matter and take advantage of it as a tool to make political changes in Muslims’ lives. All these debates and characteristics will encourage us to concentrate on his words, speeches, statements, notes and works from these angles.

Imam’s works and writings have roots in Quran; therefore, unless we do a research and analysis on hajj and procure the way Quran looks at hajj and the position it holds for it, we cannot acquire and explain imam’s view on hajj. So, at the start of the argument, the position of hajj in Quran must be made clear. On the other hand, in many of his views regarding hajj, Imam concentrated on Muslims’ historical applications of hajj and notified people of them. Thus, the only way to discover Imam’s view on hajj is to look at hajj through its historical path. Above all, Imam was a theosophist and famous member Sadra School, a school with specific view toward hajj, just like any other theosophical school and theosophist. So, Imam’s view toward hajj cannot be correctly portrayed unless the stance and position of hajj is viewed through the eyes of theosophy and theosophists, and especially the school of Molla Sadra. Later on, we will allocate a section specifically to this subject.

Bibliographic Information

Title: Manifestation of Monotheism: Hajj from Imam Khomeini’s Viewpoint

Author(s): Imam Khomeini (ra)

Translator(s): Said Madeh Khaksar

Publisher: International Affairs Department, The Institute for Compilation and Publication of Imam Khomeini’s Works

Language: English

Length: 130 pages

ISBN: 978-964-212-457-2

Pub. Date: 2016

Manifestation of Monotheism Hajj from Imam Khomeini’s Viewpoint