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Imam Khomeini through his theological works stressed that one who seeks to purify a society will not be able to achieve one's goal if one's self is not purged and purified.
Imam Khomeini on various occasions in this regard said as following:
If a person is full of knowledge, even if one has a good command of Islamic teachings and even if one understands monotheism, but one is not purged and purified, still one will cause harm to oneself, one's country, one's nation and to Islam. No benefit will be achieved. (February 29, 1981)
One who seeks to purify a society will not be able to achieve one's goal if one's self is not purged and purified. A group of people who strive to purge and Islamicize a center will not be able to do so if they have not prepared themselves for it. They cannot correct others if they themselves are not corrected. (September 20, 1979)
The country and the nation are in need of construction, and spiritual construction has priority over all others. The jihad (spiritual and physical struggle for the cause of God) should begin from the ‘self’; to fight against the internal Satan. This jihad will be the basis of other jihads and struggles.
Man cannot construct others unless he himself is constructed and the country cannot be constructed if others themselves are not constructed. The greatest jihad is the jihad against selfish desires and egoism, because all jihads will become victorious if in jihad against the 'self' we come out victorious.
The human being's passions are not limited to one, two, three, ten or even one hundred. The human being's greed is also unlimited by taking one country, two countries or ten. The Prophets were assigned to limit them, to bring them under control, to control this unleashed animal who believes in no limits. If this creature is left alone and free to itself and if one is not trained, one becomes so unleashed that one wants everything for one's own sake and seeks to sacrifice everybody for one's self. The Prophets were assigned to bring them under control and to give them some criteria. After one is leashed, then one will be shown the path in order to achieve those perfections which will cause one happiness and prosperity. The world and this nature are not the only things taken into account, rather, the world for the Prophets is a path and a means to achieve an exalted goal which we do not know, but they know. The Prophets knew where one will end up if one is unleashed. They also knew where one will end up if one is leashed and if one uses one of the ways to achieve the exalted grades of humanity.
The whole world is not the ultimate goal before the Prophets. Rather, it is a path to be followed to reach the destinations which is the high grade of humanity. If a creature reached that high human grade, one will achieve a happiness which is not limited just to this world. The ultimate goal is the world behind this one.
The 'selves' of mankind in this world varies according to creation but they undergo a lot of differences due to the various training of different environments. In one place, the training is antihuman and immoral while in another, the training is human, Imam Khomeini further explained.
If our spiritualities and our tendencies towards the Quran are preserved, we will be victorious in the end, whether we embrace martyrdom which is a great success or we become victorious.
