The following is the full text of the speech delivered on July 16, 2012 by Ayatollah Khamenei, the Leader of the Islamic Revolution, in a meeting with officials of the Ayatollah Sayyid Ali Qazi commemoration congress.
In the Name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful
Well, commemorating this personality is a very appropriate task. Commemorating the late Hajj Mirza Ali Agha Qazi is a very valuable and great task. The late Agha Qazi - Mirza Ali Agha Qazi - is one of the blessings of the contemporary era. He was really an outstanding - if not peerless - scientific and pragmatic personality. In fact, there are few personalities who are like him.
As well as his spiritual and mystic role, he built many students. This is very valuable. He built great students some of whom we have met. His students were the late Mr. Tabatabai, the late Sayyid Mohammad Hassan Elahi - who was his brother - and the late Mirza Ibrahim Sharifi. Mr. Sharifi was his son-in-law. He lived in Zabol and he was among the outstanding students of Mr. Qazi. His other students were the late Hajj Sheikh Abbas Quchani and the late Mr. Bahjat who passed away recently. There were other great personalities as well such as the late Hajj Sheikh Mohammad Taghi Amoli, the late Hajj Sheikh Ali Mohammad Borujerdi and many other personalities.
The most important issue in this regard is that we enjoy a framework and special orientation in our fiqh and hikmat in Islamic seminaries which can be a model for everyone. It can be a model for both ulama of all levels and for all the people and youth. This framework can really be a model.
These personalities were not satisfied with extrinsic aspects of religion. They made great efforts on the path of understanding, mysticism and monotheism and they reached lofty positions. What is important is that they did not reach high levels of mysticism by following fake and imaginary paths, such as a number of fake mystic schools. Rather, they reached these high levels by following the holy Islamic sharia and they acquired great expertise in it.
All the members of Qazi family - that is to say, the family of outstanding personalities beginning from the late Hajj Sayyid Ali Shushtari - were excellent mujtahids. The late Sayyid Ali Shustari was a student of Sheikh [Sheikh Ansari] in fiqh and usul, but he was his teacher in mysticism and ethics. Sheikh used to benefit from his knowledge in such areas. After the demise of Sheikh, Mr. Shustari - who also passed away shortly after - started to pick up Sheikh's lessons where he had left off. The students who took part in Hajj Sayyid Ali Shushtari's classes said that they did not find any difference between Sheikh and Mr. Shushtari. He had reached such a level of excellence in fiqh.
The outstanding student of Sayyid Ai Shushtari was the late Akhund Mulla Hossein-Qoli Hamedani who was really the best in mystic and spiritual arenas. The greatness of the late Akhund Hossein-Qoli Hamedani cannot be described. He was one of the outstanding students of Sheikh in fiqh and usul. However, he was drawn towards mysticism because he was interested in this path.
His students - the future teachers of Mr. Qazi - were the late Hajj Sayyid Ahmad Karbalai, the late Hajj Sheikh Mohammad Bahari and other such personalities. All of them were people who had reached high levels of fiqh. The late Hajj Sayyid Ahmad Karbalai was such a great personality that the late Mirza Mohammad Taghi Shirazi used to go to him for ihtiyati issues. Without a doubt, Sayyid Ahmad was a point of reference in the area of fiqh, but he himself refused to play such a role. He said, "Why do you come to me for ihtiyati issues?" He preferred to live in a world of spirituality.
The late Sayyid Hashem Najaf Abadi, my grandfather, had met with Sayyid Ahmad. Once he said, "Whenever we were going to or coming back from Sahleh Mosque at dawn or at night, we could hear the voice of Sayyid who was crying inside his house". These personalities had such characteristics.
Well, Mr. Qazi was the student of such personalities. He was both the student of his father, the late Sayyid Hossein, and the student of Sayyid Ahmad when he moved to Najaf. Mr. Qazi was also the student of the late Sayyid Morteza Kashmiri for 10, 12 years. Of course, the late son of Mr. Qazi, Sayyid Mohammad Hassan, says in a book that his father was not a student of Sayyid Morteza Kashmiri. Mohammad Hassan says that his father was only his friend. But I saw in that book or in the writings of the late Sayyid Mohammad Hossein Tehrani - I do not remember where I saw it - that Mr. Qazi said, "I leant how to say prayers from Sayyid Morteza Kashmiri". Notice how deep these words are. We too say prayers and we think that we do it well. After this great mystic, who had been educated by his father in Tabriz for many years, went to Najaf and stayed with Mr. Kashmiri for 10 years, he said, "I learnt how to say prayers from Mr. Kashmiri".
The students of Hajj Mirza Ali Agha Qazi say that despite all his problems - he had many problems in his life because he was poor and he had a large family to support - he forgot about everything when he engaged in saying prayers. That is to say, he was so absorbed in dhikr and supplication during praying that he used to forget about everything else. Well, this is an excellent and special framework. It is special for us because we can realize that such things exist. We can realize that such positions, movements, sincerity and purity in the way of God exist.
These personalities never showed off their mystical powers. Well, many things have been narrated about them. There are many reliable narrations about the extraordinary life of Mr. Qazi. Of course, these things are only extraordinary for us. There were many such cases and they are reliable. We can be sure about their reliability. However, these things were not at all important and they did not play a significant role in the lives of these great personalities. Mr. Qazi himself used to say to his students, "If you have a feeling of mukashefe [mystical vision], you should ignore it and continue to do your work. Engage in dhikr and preserve your humility". These outstanding personalities had such positions.
Anyway, it is very important to revive and introduce these personalities. But you should benefit from experts in introducing these people. Those who can tell us about their positions in all areas should carry out this responsibility so that we can learn something. Speaking about scholarly and fiqhi positions - in which they had great expertise - is not enough for introducing personalities like the late Hajj Mirza Ali Agha Qazi.
Well, thankfully, Mr. Qazi lived a long life. He made many achievements and built many students. As for spiritual, mystic and other such areas - as I said - he is one of the personalities who had few equals, to say the least. His personality was really outstanding.
In the book which his son - the late Sayyid Mohammad Hassan - wrote and which I came across a few years ago and read many times, there are a few letters. But this book has been annotated in a way that one cannot understand which part is the main text and which part is the annotated part. In my opinion, if you can find the text of these letters and if you can publish them separately, it will be a very good. The relatives of these outstanding personalities certainly have the main text of these letters. There are four, five letters. One was most likely addressed to Mr. Tabatabai. Of course, it does not have a title, but we can guess from the main text that it was addressed to Mr. Tabatabai. One was most likely addressed to the late Sayyid Mohammad Hassan Elahi. One, two letters were addressed to the late Sheikh Ibrahim Sharifi Zaboli, who was his son-in-law. One was addressed to his students on the occasion of the arrival of the month of Rajab or Dhul-Qada. In this letter, he speaks about the arrival of the month of haraam and about the significance of the months of haraam. And the other letters were probably addressed to other personalities.
Anyway, I thank the gentlemen in this meeting and I hope that, by Allah's favor, this task will be carried out in the best way possible.
Greetings be upon you and Allah's mercy and blessings