Ayatollah Khomeini's Mysticism

When a poem by Ayatollah Khomeini was published by his youngest son, Ahmad, in the Iranian newspaper Keyhân several days after his father's death in 1989, it came as a great surprise both inside and outside Iran. Several years later, in 1993, Ayatollah Khomeini's complete collection of poetry (Divân) was published in Iran.1 Many people were surprised that such poems, filled with mystical concepts, had been composed by Ayatollah Khomeini. Some immediately rejected their authenticity, arguing that they had been falsely attributed to him to polish up his image. Others, of a mystical disposition, embraced them. The orthodox clergy, on the whole, strongly condemned the mystical character of the poems, struggling with some of the topics which Ayatollah Khomeini had adopted such as erotic love and wine. Many Iranians living abroad also reacted with surprise, and often negatively, to the publication. Famous Iranian poets in Europe and America such as Hadi Khorsandi and Nader Naderpour wrote parodies or other poems and articles condemning Ayatollah Khomeini's poems.

I have translated and analysed a considerable number of Ayatollah Khomeini's poems, focusing on three poetic forms. I will begin with his robâʿis, or quatrains, written during the 1980s, in chapter three. Chapter four will focus on his ghazals (lyrical poems) which were written both before 1936, from 1979 till March 1984 and from April 1985 till his death in 1989.