The Spirit of Allah

a musical about Ruhollah Khomeini and the Iranian Revolution

Posted by Jew from Jersey
15 July 2003

Scene19. “Regency of the jurisprudent”

Ayatollahs Ruhollah Khomeini and Mohammed-Kazem Shariatmadari, Hojjat ol-Islams Sadeq “Judge Blood” Khalkhali, Ali-Akbar “The Cat” Hashemi-Rafsanjani, and Ali Khamene’i, Lower-ranking mullahs, peasants, townspeople

• Crowd: Imam, you know we love you, but we’re getting tired and bored
• We’re tired of assassination and we’re tired of inflation
• Tell us what the future has in store

• ARK: It just so happens I have an answer to the question you pose
• An answer that can salvage our countries from its woes
• It’s something I was working on in Iraq and Turkey
• A little something I call: velayat e-faqih!

• Crowd: What’d you say?

• ARK: Velayat e-faqih!

• Crowd: Velayat e-faqih? What’s a velayat e-faqih?

• ARK: Velayat e-faqih? It’s simple you see...
• Velayat is a state, you might say a regency
• And a faqih is someone prudent in the Islamic judiciary
• Yet at the same time suave and savvy politically

• Here is an end to bickering endlessly
• And to voting and polling and chicanery
• An end to the noises of chair and committee
• And pointless discussions on what it means to be free

• It’s widely known what is wanted by all
• An Islamic Republic from wall to wall
• This republic demands that the clerics oversee
• But it seems that the clerics can never agree

• And so the solution comes to those all
• Who choose to listen to my humble proposal
• Into this morass strolls the faqih,
• And our troubles disappear, magically!

• HR: It’s brilliant

• SK: Just what we need

• AK: Sounds reasonable to me

• AMS: All my life has been devoted to the glory of Islam
• To God and to the prophets and the martyrs and Imams
• And in all the pages I have read of the Qoran and the Hadith
• Not a word is mentioned about an Islamic Republic or faqih.