Here is Iran — but not just a land…
Here is the round courtyard of the shrine of Imam Reza.
A homeland whose master is the guarantor of hearts.
This place does not merely have soil, it has divine grace.
It casts no shadow — it holds the sun; a sun descended from the lineage of Musa ibn Ja‘far.**
Martyr Bahman Arouji, one of the sea unit boys, longed for Mashhad.
Several buses were set to depart from the base for the shrine.
His name was crossed off at the last moment.
His commander had told him: You have a reconnaissance mission.
When they told him, he didn’t choke with tears… he embraced them, and then cried —
he cried so much the bus attendant couldn’t recover for an hour.
Bahman didn’t go to Mashhad… but Mashhad came to Bahman.
A few days later, the news arrived: in that same reconnaissance mission, he was martyred.
They said he was from Maragheh — send his body there.
The boys went for the funeral.
But Maragheh knew nothing — not the Basij, not his family…
They asked around, only to hear: It was a mistake — we read “Mashhad” instead of “Maragheh”!
His body was in the shrine.
“We’ll give him a circumambulation around the golden dome, then send him on.”
Who said it was a mistake?
The true master — Imam Reza — does not abandon broken hearts.
He is the commander even in reconnaissance, even in battle, even in war.
Bahman Arouji departed — not into the deserts,
but into the embrace of Reza.
Just like Martyr Ali Seifi-Nasab, who in a dream was asked: Who is your commander? —
they answered: Ali ibn Musa al-Reza.
Not from whim, but from certainty.
And like so many martyrs who believed that Imam Reza is not only in the shrine,
but in the trench as well…
That is why we say — your hearts should be assured.
That is why we do not fear turmoil.
That is why in the heart of the storm, our hearts do not tremble.
Because this soil is no ordinary soil.
Iran is the courtyard of Imam Reza.
And to draw near to this land’s soil
is to play with the lion’s mane.
To oppose the family of Ali is to uproot oneself —
and what root?
A root that is not its own, that floats in haze, in illusion, in usurpation…
But this soil belongs to God.
Our homeland is God’s homeland.
It is the courtyard of Imam Reza.
And its banner is the very one that the Master of Martyrs lifted on the night of Ashura,
now fluttering atop Iran’s dome…
Martyr Javad Fakouri — when the Revolution came, he returned to Iran and kissed its soil with tears.
He told his wife:
This is the Iran I had longed for…
The same Fakouri who, while in America, once said:
If the Imam orders it now, I will crash the plane into the Shah’s palace.
He was a trinity — lover of Iran, lover of the Imam, lover of the Qur’an.
Until the very last moment of his life, the Qur’an never left his hands.
When they told him to enter the cockpit and see what problem the aircraft had,
he said:
It’s done… trust in God.
Then he returned to his seat, took out his pocket Qur’an, and until the moment of takeoff,
soared in its verses…
He did not panic, he did not lament — he recited, like so many martyrs…
Because the martyrs were the living exegesis of the Qur’an —
walking verses, guides of the divine words, teachers of tranquility…
And this is what sets us apart from our enemy.
They die from their rootlessness.
We live from our rootedness.
