Red Shi'ism – Black Shi'ism

In the dress of a simple darvish, he goes to Sabzevar as a lonely stranger, takes up abode in the great mosque of the town, and begins preaching there. [This marks the beginning of the Sarbedaran liberation movement]. He is a preacher who is in revolt against all that teaches people to bow to ignorance and oppression, a revolt backed by a faith, a school of thought and a red history: Shi'ism.

Disgusted by all these robes of piety, and satisfied that they are all the weavers of the clothes of piety to be worn over a body of oppression, with a heart filled with hatred towards the cruel Mongol rulers, reeling under the pain of the evil destiny of the Muslim masses, as a Muslim responsible for the people and knowing the times, and a protestor against the existing system, having lost all faith in the sellers of religion, Sheikh Khalifah choose the Islam of Ali, the school of protest and martyrdom.

It is under these circumstances that a religious preacher starts out in search of the truth in the manner of Salman. He approaches all those with claims to religious faith. First he approaches the pious Bahlul to seek the path of salvation in his school of piety and freedom. There, he sees piety remaining silent against tyranny. What a shame.

What heartlessness and selfishness that a man should be surrounded by the screams of prisoners, the shouts of executioners, the poverty of the hungry, the whips of the cruel over the bodies of the helpless, and, instead of volunteering to defend them, should simply seek his own redemption and try to gain paradise for himself!

He flees from him in hatred, and goes to the Sheikh ul-Islam, Imam Ghiasuddin Habibollah Hamavi in Bahrabad, to gain knowledge of the religious laws and the theology of the true Sunni sects from him and to find his way to the original spring of truth. Here, he sees a theology that discusses and discovers a thousand problems in bathroom etiquette, but a sheer lack of any awareness of the evil destiny facing the nation.

does not in anyway tarnish the peace of his soul and the tenderness of his heart?

He flees from this man in disgust and goes to Semnan to see Rukneddin Emad-od-Dowleh, whose piety and leadership in Sufi practices is well-known. He finds Sufi practices also, like piety, a way of escape from realities and responsibilities, a turning away from the fate of the masses, and an ignoring of cruelty and tyranny. He finds him to be of a delicate heart, tender feelings and a sublime soul. But, how is it that rivers of blood shed by the Mongols in this country, that the decline threatening Islam and the masses of the people,

The religious body of the Sunni sect, which had from the beginning become 'the government's Islam,' becomes a conglomeration of the most debased and prejudiced beliefs and harsh rules. It turns into a tool for the justification of the anti-human ways of rulers. It compromises with the autocratic regimes of the Ghaznavid and Seljuk Turks and the Mongols. It becomes an opiate for the masses, and an instrument for murder to be used against any thought or action that jeopardizes the interest of the strong and harms the landlords and feudal chiefs.

Like a revolutionary party, Shi'ism had a well-organized, informed, deep and well-defined ideology, with clear-cut and definite slogans and a disciplined and well-groomed organization. It led the deprived and oppressed masses in their movements for freedom and for the seeking of justice.

Shi'ites turn their backs on the opulent mosques and magnificent palaces of the caliphs of Islam and turn to the lonely, mud house of Fatimah.

Remember A'shura to humiliate the ruling group who call them selves the inheritors of the traditions of the Prophet, for the remembrance of it will prove that they are the inheritors of the killers and murderers of the Prophet's family