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 the intellect and religion do not allow complete and unconditional obedience to a non-infallible person, even though he is a great and gracious scholar, and does not invite, in any way, to his ruling sovereignty, but only invites to ruling sovereignty of whom God has cleansed him with His will from all impurities and has made his ruling sovereignty possible at all time. Once again, the impossibility of ruling sovereignty of such a person whose ruling sovereignty is considered the foundation of legitimacy of other ruling sovereignties is purely an illusion; because it is only caused due to the failure of Muslims in preparing the grounds for it and can be simply resolved by eliminating this failure. However, it is not possible to eliminate this failure through other ruling sovereignties; because it introduces a loophole and a contradiction; given that other ruling sovereignties themselves are the effect of this very cause and in this respect, they cannot be the cause for its elimination. Moreover, Mahdi’s ruling sovereignty, from the perspective that itself is considered a ruling sovereignty, is not different from other ruling sovereignties and therefore, if establishing and maintaining other ruling sovereignties is possible, then establishing and maintaining Mahdi’s ruling sovereignty is also possible, and if establishing and maintaining Mahdi’s ruling sovereignty is not possible, then establishing and maintaining other ruling sovereignties is not possible either. This means an “impasse in legitimacy” for other ruling sovereignties and their only resolution to overcome this impasse is to respond to invitation of Mansoor Hashemi Khorasani and gradually withdraw from power in favor of Mahdi and start the process for transferring the power to his excellency which certainly can be the preparation for his advent and realization of his ruling sovereignty...