Hawzah News Agency- the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Seyyed Mojtaba Hosseini Khamenei, in a message while sincerely appreciating the tens of millions of Iranian and Iraqi people for their presence at the funeral of "Iran's Martyr," addressed the martyred Imam of the Ummah, emphasizing: "We pledge to avenge the pure blood of you and all the martyrs of these two wars from the criminal and disgraced murderers. This revenge is the demand of our nation and must definitely be carried out. These criminals, whose list from top to bottom is available, will take the wish of a peaceful death in bed to their graves."
To elucidate and analyze the subject of avenging the martyrdom of the Imam of the Ummah, Grand Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Hosseini Khamenei (RA), we sat down for a conversation with Hojatoleslam Seyyed Abolghasem Faqihi, Head of the Presidential Office and Official at the Secretariat of Iran’s Assembly of Experts.
How should the revenge for the martyred leader be exacted? Is avenging the blood of the martyred leader a religious duty, a rational and national necessity?
We honor the immortal memory and name of the martyred and exalted leader, Grand Ayatollah Imam Khamenei, and extend our deep gratitude for the tireless efforts of the esteemed Hawzah News Agency in the arena of enlightenment and the jihad of clarification.
The grief over the loss of that wise sage will weigh on our hearts forever and will not be forgotten or cooled by the passage of time. We also offer our salutations and renew our allegiance to the blessed presence of the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Imam Seyyed Mojtaba Hosseini Khamenei. We ask God Almighty for health, success, and a long, dignified life for him as he has taken the helm of guiding the ship of the Islamic Revolution in these turbulent and critical conditions.
To answer this question, we must utilize a precise conceptual framework derived from religious teachings. In Shia culture, mourning and seeking blood-revenge are never limited to emotional weeping and cathartic release; rather, it is a purposeful movement defined at three complementary levels: Retribution (Qisas), Revenge (Intiqam), and Blood-Vengeance (Thar). These three levels are well-depicted in narrations and pilgrimage texts and have taken on a new manifestation today in light of the martyrdom of the leader.
The first layer is Retribution (Qisas), which is outlined with clear criteria in the Holy Quran, and its goal is the protection of social life and the prevention of chaos. God Almighty states in verse 178 of Surah Al-Baqarah: "O you who have believed, prescribed for you is legal retribution for those murdered..." and subsequently explains its philosophy: "And there is for you in legal retribution [saving of] life, O you [people] of understanding, that you may become righteous." Based on this, Qisas ensures social life and is a right for the heirs of the slain, leading, within the legal framework, to the punishment of the direct murderer. At the same time, Qisas is a personal matter, limited and bound by jurisprudential rules, which the heir can pursue, pardon, or commute to blood money (diyah). This level, by itself, cannot cover all dimensions of a crime against a figure of the magnitude of the martyred leader.
The second layer is Divine Revenge (Intiqam). The Holy Quran attributes revenge to God in several verses, including verse 41 of Surah Az-Zukhruf: "And whether We take you away [in death], indeed, We will take retribution upon them." Also, in verse 47 of Surah Ibrahim, it states: "Indeed, Allah is Exalted in Might and Owner of Retribution." This type of revenge, unlike Qisas—which is personal, legal, and aimed at social life—concerns confronting a continuous stream of oppression, corruption, and enmity against the system of Truth and has a broader scope than the punishment of a single individual or a specific group.
The third layer is Thar Allah (Blood belonging to God) , which is the deepest and most authentic level. In Ziyarat Ashura, we recite: "Peace be upon you, O blood of Allah and the son of His blood, the one who was left alone and murdered." Thar means blood-vengeance or a blood-price whose heir is God Himself. Despite Ibn Muljam's retribution carried out by Imam Hasan al-Mujtaba (AS), the Commander of the Faithful (AS) is still called Tharallah; and the blood-vengeance for Imam Hussein (AS) did not end with the uprising of Mukhtar. Rather, according to explicit narrations, it continues until the uprising of Imam al-Mahdi (may Allah hasten his reappearance): "He is Hussein ibn Ali, peace be upon them both, who was killed unjustly, and we are his guardians. The Qa'im from among us, when he rises, will seek vengeance for the blood of Hussein, peace be upon him."
Here, I must emphasize a fundamental jurisprudential point that requires attention: the blood-vengeance for the Wali al-Amr (the Guardian of the Affairs of Muslims) is never defined within the framework of a private legal dispute that ends with the pardon of the blood heirs or the receipt of blood money. The Commander of the Faithful, Imam Ali (AS), states in Sermon 105 of Nahj al-Balagha: "Indeed, for every spilled blood, there is an avenger, and for every right, there is a claimant." Furthermore, the firm jurisprudential rule "The blood of a Muslim person shall not be wasted," which is based on numerous narrations, clearly states that no Muslim's blood should be spilled in vain. However, the matter goes far beyond this general rule; because attacking the Wali al-Amr is not an attack on an ordinary person, but an assault on the station of Wilayah (Guardianship), the entity of the Ummah, and the Islamic system. Therefore, the actual context for this issue in jurisprudence is combat against a hostile belligerent state, not a personal judicial case that can be closed with a pardon or blood money.
To put it more clearly for public opinion, we are dealing here not with a personal feud, but with an insolent aggressor and an organized terrorist network that has targeted the very entity of the Islamic Ummah. Hence, confronting it constitutes the legitimate, comprehensive, and entity-based defense of a nation and a system. This point completely transforms our approach in determining the manner of the revenge.
This crucial matter has been affirmed in the highest possible terms in the official message of the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Imam Seyyed Mojtaba Hosseini Khamenei, on the occasion of the funeral and burial of Iran's Martyr: "Our nation is the avenger of Hussein's blood. For years, this great nation sacrificed its children in the path of Hussein and in the war against the enemies of Hussein and the Husseini cause. And now, they are the avengers of his blood and the Husseinis of the time."
He further stated with clarity and decisiveness: "We pledge to avenge the pure blood of you and all the martyrs of these two wars from the criminal and disgraced murderers. This revenge is the demand of our nation and must definitely be carried out."
The esteemed Leader of the Islamic Revolution continued: "This matter is not contingent upon the existence of my person or other officials, and individuals from among the free-spirited people around the world will each carry out a part of this divine mission." This phrasing precisely confirms that same jurisprudential point: the blood-vengeance for the Wali al-Amr is an institutionalized and trans-personal mission, not dependent on the survival of any one individual.
This affirmation demonstrates that blood-vengeance against state terrorism, beyond geographic and ideological borders, has become a shared human ideal that unites all awakened consciences and free people of the world in a single front. In addition to the religious framework, two complementary dimensions must also be considered: one being the rational and social dimension, and the other the national and strategic dimension.
The martyrdom of the martyred leader was the objectification of his own prescient and wise statement, where he had explicitly said: "If an incident befalls the country, God Almighty will resurrect these people to confront the incidents, and it is the people who will finish the job." The concrete realization of this divine resurrection of the people following his martyrdom has created an unparalleled capacity for the reproduction of symbolic capital and cohesion for national authority. Within this framework, clear rational logic dictates that any passivity, hesitation, or conservatism will erode this trust and this resurrected social capital and embolden the enemy for future transgressions. Therefore, spearheading a decisive and regret-inducing blood-vengeance is the very essence of rationality and the manifestation of national authority; for this blood-vengeance is the manifestation of that historical mission of the resurrected people to finish the enemy's work and exact vengeance for the blood of their martyred leader.
In the national and strategic dimension, blood-vengeance itself serves as an authentic media outlet and the most resonant tool for proclaiming the oppression and authority of a nation that does not possess the world's media empire. At the highest strategic level, decisive action for blood-vengeance is the direct equivalent of altering the enemy's regional calculations and creating genuine deterrence to guarantee national security against future aggressions.
Therefore, in response to whether avenging the blood of the martyred leader is a religious duty, a rational and national necessity, it must be said: Revenge for the blood of the martyred leader is a religious obligation (based on the verses of Qisas, divine revenge, and Tharallah), a rational necessity (to remedy the imbalance created by the spilling of such noble blood and to safeguard the symbolic capital this blood brought to the Ummah), and a national necessity which, as affirmed by the Supreme Leader, is the demand of the nation and a matter that must definitely be carried out.
How should the revenge for the martyred leader be exacted?
The answer to this question can be outlined in three complementary facets; neglecting any one of them renders the mission incomplete.
The first facet is the decisive retribution (Qisas) of the direct perpetrators and commanders. This level is the most immediate dimension of the revenge. The Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution (may his blessings endure), by confirming that the list of these criminals from top to bottom is available and that they will take the wish of a peaceful death in bed to their graves, declared his decisive resolve for this stage. However, as discussed regarding Tharallah, this level is only the first step, just as the Qisas of Ibn Muljam was not the end of the Commander of the Faithful (AS) being Tharallah.
Naturally, the full realization of this facet also requires the simultaneous pursuit of an active legal and diplomatic war at the international level. This is so that, alongside field action, the legal hegemony and alleged legitimacy of the enemy collapses in world public opinion, the possibility of the commanders and perpetrators escaping accountability is eliminated, and by legal pursuit in international forums and Islamic organizations, the registration of this crime as a live case of state terrorism, and the activation of legal diplomacy, the criminals are continuously pressured in legal, political, and international arenas.
The second facet is safeguarding the capital of martyrdom against soft and cultural war. Purposeful blood-vengeance requires vigilance against two fronts of threat: the external enemy, which magnifies costs and instills despair, and internal passivity-oriented currents that, by reducing the blood of the martyred Imam to a personal, pardonable case, fuel the erosion of this symbolic capital. In Shia pilgrimage supplications, we read that believers pray for one another: "May He make us and you among those who seek his blood-vengeance with the guardian, Imam al-Mahdi, peace be upon him." This means that grief and epic are two sides of the same coin; mourning without movement and insight loses its function.
Part of the revenge is enlightenment, the continuation of commemoration rites, and preventing the distortion of the narrative (the swapping of the positions of the murderer and the victim in the media space). In this arena, the war of narratives and the jihad of clarification play a vital role. Following the physical assassination, the enemy seeks the assassination of character and the distortion of the cause of martyrdom. Cognitive defense, preemptive media narration, and especially the role of the Islamic seminaries in explaining the dimensions of the martyred leader's personality, constitute the first trench in safeguarding this symbolic capital.
The third facet is the strategic and civilizational continuation until the fulfillment of the divine promise. The highest level of revenge is what the Supreme Leader referred to in his message: the continuation of the path and school of the martyred leader (may God be pleased with him). "The martyred Imam (may God's mercy be upon him), before being an individual, thought in a Husseini manner, moved in a Husseini manner, and conducted jihad and resistance in a Husseini manner." Thus, the true revenge is the continuation of that very path: resistance, independence, social justice, and the struggle against arrogance.
In the current era, this strategic continuation requires novel dimensions such as achieving full authority in the cyber domain and emerging technologies and the actual realization of economic independence; because striking the infrastructure and arteries supporting global arrogance is an inseparable part of the hard and civilizational revenge.
Blood-vengeance, unlike Qisas which ends with the punishment of the murderer, persists until the goal for which the blood was shed is realized. Precisely the meaning found in Ziyarat Ashura: "And grant me the opportunity to seek vengeance for my blood with a victorious Imam from the household of Muhammad." This level, within the framework of the system's interests and at the discretion of the guardians of the affairs, continues to the ultimate horizon of "until He makes it prevail over all religion."
On this path, the mission of the Islamic seminaries is much weightier. One of the critical missions of the Islamic seminaries is to formulate and elucidate the literature of defense jurisprudence, international responsibility, and the deepening of the Tharallah theory as a strategy of the Ummah. They must explain the jurisprudential, legal, and civilizational foundations of this revenge to the elites of the Islamic world and the free people of the world, providing the necessary theoretical and discursive backing for the continuation of this path.
In conclusion, it must be noted that the revenge for the blood of the martyred leader (may God be pleased with him) is a combined and time-bound project that simultaneously encompasses Qisas, cultural safeguarding, and strategic continuation—neither an emotional reaction nor a passivity that reduces it to a personal case. The Iranian nation, as stated in the message of the Supreme Leader, has pledged not to rest until this divine promise is fully realized.
In summary, the revenge for the blood of the martyred leader is not a temporary, emotional act, but a civilization-building, intelligent, and multi-dimensional process that begins with the retribution of the direct commanders and will culminate in the annihilation of the arrogant front and the fulfillment of the divine promise.
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