When Imam Khomeini arrived (in exile) in the holy city of Najaf, we friends together requested the Imam to begin teaching for the first time at the Najaf Theological School, but he did not accept.
The destructive policy of the Shah’s secret service ‘SAVAK’ organization was to transfer the Imam from one place of exile to another.
The monarchy regime wanted to transfer the Imam from Turkey to the holy city of Najaf because in Najaf there were professors of Islamic jurisprudence available so that the Imam’s proficiency in Islamic jurisprudence and his scholarly brilliance and erudition would be alienated and eclipsed (by other local professors) by them perhaps causing the Muslim nation of Iran to leave him alone.
This was an evil plot which ‘SAVAK’ had prepared under this false impression as a conspiracy against the Imam and which intended to carry out. However, when the Imam arrived in Najaf, and by taking into consideration this point, he introduced himself as an ordinary seminary student.
I remember that many friends at the time were overcome with emotion and with a strange feeling of heartbreak. How come a personality of this magnitude who with his speeches had managed to jolt a nation and had weakened a tyrannical regime that was supported by both the East and the West now arrives in Najaf and claims to be an ordinary theological student.
When we called on the Imam for the first time to request him to begin lecturing his discussions and even told him to continue his lessons on economics which he had primarily taught in Iran at the Qum Theological Seminary and could not finish them (because of his forced exile), the Imam stated: “In Najaf I am a seminary student and my duty in Najaf is other than the duty I had in Iran.”
Narrated by: Ayatollah Abbas Ali Amid Zanjani
Taken from: Payam-e-Enqelab journal, no. 161