IRP articulated Ayatollah Khomeini’s political vision about the characteristics of an Islamic government and it used Khomeini’s endorsement of the party to recruit members.199
Moreover Ayatollah Khomeini’s appointment of provincial Friday Imams leaning toward IRP had given the IRP a major advantage in networking and popular support. Khomeini of course was not always satisfied about the idea of a party representing his views.
According to Hashemi Rafsanjani, Ayatollah Khomeini was not happy with the idea of partisanship at the beginning. However, when the success of Islamic Revolution became observable, Khomeini realised the advantages of a loyalist political party was far more than its possible costs and threats. Therefore, he changed his initial position and decided to go along with the idea of party building. Hashemi recalls that critical juncture in the revolution’s history.200 According to the dialogue between Khomeini and Rafsanjani, Ayatollah Khomeini’s initial disapproval of party politics had two main reasons. First, he regarded the “natural organisation of the Shia clergy” as the optimum form of an institution capable of encompassing any political endeavour within the framework of the Islamic government, thus making any other form of organisation unnecessary. Second, if clergy was to be involved in party making and party politics, he thought, the image that ordinary people had in mind from the clergy, was going to be tainted. The image of fatherhood, benevolence and impartiality was the clergy’s biggest political capital and the essence of their social status, losing it was making them vulnerable in the face of the secular forces’ criticism and would eventually cast them out from Iranian politics.
However, in his memoirs202, Hashemi makes it clear that Khomeini, who was not in favour of party at the beginning, had changed his mind once he was confronted with the tough realities on the ground. All other competing groups such as LMI, Tudeh Party and People’s Mujahedin of Iran (MKO) were organised in the form of political parties. Even Khomeini’s competitor Ayatollah, Ayatollah Mohammad Kazem Shariatmadari, who did not believe in the doctrine of velayate faghih and wanted clergy out of the government, had linkage with the Muslim People’s Republican Party (Hezb-e Jomhuri-ye Khalq-e Mosalman). It was only Khomeini and his most loyal cleric friends who did not have a political party. Moreover, the usual network of clergy and mosques, although capable of mobilising the masses, could not by itself maintain people’s dedication and loyalty to
199 Mohsen Milani, The Making of Iran’s Islamic Revolution from Monarchy to Islamic Republic, Colorado,
Westview, 1988, p. 244.
200 Appendix 1. 202 ibid
the Khomeinists and their ideology (Maktab). Furthermore it could build the appropriate cadres for exercising governmental responsibilities.
In an interview published a short time after his assassination, the IRP’s first general director and founder Ayatollah Behesthi was asked about the financing of the party. He replied:
The party’s budget is granted by enthusiasts and you may know that the founders of the Party were five familiar cleric faces who for years have worked side by side with the benevolent people in building mosques, bridges, schools, public baths, publishing books, building libraries and doing missionary work. As a consequence they [the founders] enjoyed a considerable acceptability by the people for collecting the religiously motivated funding. The party is Islamic and endorses Islamic activities, so it has ejaze [authorisation] to spend from vojouhat shar’ieh [the Shia almsgivings] for these purposes. Part of the budget has been utilised by these methods and some of it was borrowed, a segment of which is repaid until now, but basically the party is funded by the membership fees and as you know we have already started this and I must add that currently our student headquarters are charging 100 Toomans per month for membership. 203
The almsgivings that Beheshti mentions were mostly provided by Khomeini himself or by his permit. In an interview conducted in July 1999, Hashemi recalls that in one instance Ayatollah Khomeini provided a suitcase full of cash to the party.
I mentioned to Imam that we have started our work but there are setbacks; we have financial difficulties. There was a suitcase containing cash in His Eminence’s possession. He said: for the party. When I arrived at the party headquarters in the theology department of the University, the centeral council members were in a meeting, we counted the cash, was more than five million Toomans. It was precious for us from two perspectives. First, the Imam had invested his trust in the party in such a short period of time and gave us from his Vojouhat . Second that our problems were resolved. A point to mention is that Imam has permitted us to use the Sahme Imam for the informative and cultural interaction of the party. Most of our expenditure was for cultural and informative activities so we could spend from Sahme Imam.204
After the ousting of president Banisdr and the assassination of Ayatollah Beheshti, Khomeini had noticeably increased his endorsement of IRP and in a meeting with the party’s Central Council he refuses the assumption that party monopoly is necessarily a bad thing, adding that; “…as a matter of fact if declaring there must be Islam and nothing but Islam a monopoly, we all are monopolists and Islam itself likewise. The Messenger of Islam’s ‘no god but god’ meant that among all other monopolies we choose this one and nothing else”.205
203 Jomhourie eslami, special issue, Bahman 29/ February 18, 1982 204
Abdolmajid Moadikhah (ed), Ahzabe siasi dar iran [Political Parties in Iran], Qom, History of the Islamic Revolution of Iran Foundation, 1999,p. 282.