Imam Khomeini’s manner towards the liberals, communists, and western trends
Another standard in the path of the Imam was the Imam's power to attract and repel... Islam was the factor behind the Imam's power to attract and repel people - just as Imam Sajjad (a.s.) prays to God in Sahifa al-Sajjadiyya... In dua 44 of Sahifa al-Sajjadiyya - the prayer that is said on the eve of the month of Ramadan - Imam Sajjad (a.s.) prays to Allah the Exalted for certain things in the month of Ramadan. One of the things that Imam Sajjad prays for is peace with his enemies. But then he says, "Except for the enemies that I have made for the sake of You because they are the enemies with whom we will never make peace."
That was the way the Imam behaved. He had no personal grudges against anyone. Even when there was personal resentment, he would ignore it. But enmity that was rooted in religious principles was very important to the Imam. At the beginning of the revolutionary movement in the year 1341, the Imam used to accept different people with various intellectual tendencies and from various ethnic and religious backgrounds, but he drove certain people away after the victory of the Islamic Revolution. He explicitly rejected the communists. At that time what he did was strange for many of us who had been involved in revolutionary activities since the beginning of the Revolution. During the early days of the Revolution the Imam adopted an explicit position against the communists and drove them away. He adopted a determined stance against the liberal-types and those who were bedazzled by western systems and culture. He distanced himself from those people. He never stood on ceremony with them. He drove the reactionary people away - the people who were not prepared to accept divine realities and the Quranic spirit of Islamic teachings, the people who were not prepared to accept that great transformation. He repeatedly rejected the reactionary people in strongly-worded statements. He did not hesitate to reject the people who were not within the same intellectual and Islamic framework as he was. But at the same time he did not hold any personal grudges against them.
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