Question:

What is the opinion of Mansoor Hashemi Khorasani about his Excellency Imam Khomeini?

Answer:

His Excellency Allamah Mansoor Hashemi Khorasani may God protect him has respect for all Muslim scholars and praises their scholarly services to the Muslims. However, he does not consider any of them as perfect and impeccable and infallible, and believes that they have had some flaws and mistakes along with their services which are necessary to be considered beside their useful services and it is not a disrespect to them to do so. However, considering their flaws and mistakes in the book “Return to Islam” does not mean to ignore their services, but it means to consider something which has been neglected by Muslims and has made them deviate from the line of pure and complete Islam. For example, one of these flaws and mistakes is promoting imitation culture instead of ijtihad culture, which has led to a decrease in religious knowledge in Muslims and an increase in ignorance, worldliness, prejudice and superstitionism in them; although the culture of ijtihad has not been properly described by them either and is an upgraded form of the culture of imitation. Another one of these flaws and mistakes is insistence on absolute guardianship of jurisprudent which has no basis in Islam and is impossible on the basis of rational and religious reasons; considering that intellect and religion do not allow complete and unconditional obedience to a fallible, even though he is a great and gracious scholar, and do not invite to his sovereignty with any reason, but only invite to sovereignty of a person whom God has purified from any impurity with His will and has made his sovereignty possible at any time. Yes, the impossibility of sovereignty of such a person which is the foundation of legitimacy of other sovereignties is an illusion; since it is solely due to fault of the Muslims in preparing grounds for it and can be easily remedied by eliminating this fault. Of course, eliminating this fault through other sovereigns is not possible; because it requires vain loophole and contradiction; given that other sovereignties themselves are affected by this fault and with this description, cannot be a reason for its elimination. Furthermore, Mahdi’s sovereignty, since it is sovereignty, is not different than other sovereignties, and hence, if creating and maintaining of other sovereignties is possible, then creating and maintaining sovereignty of Mahdi is also possible and if creating and maintaining sovereignty of Mahdi is not possible, then creating and maintaining other sovereignties is not possible either. This means “the impasse of legitimacy” for other sovereignties, and the only way out of this impasse is to accept the invitation of Mansoor Hashemi Khorasani to gradually withdraw from power to the benefit of Mahdi and begin the process of transferring the power to his Excellency which can certainly be a preparer of grounds for his Excellency’s appearance and fulfillment of his sovereignty;...