Through the political agents they have placed in power over the people, the imperialists have also imposed on us an unjust economic order, and thereb… - Ruhollah Khomeini

O nation, wake up! O government, wake up! Everybody wake up! You are all in the Presence of God. Tomorrow (in the next world), you will be called to account. Do not ignore the blood of our martyrs, and do not quarrel over position or status.

Islam is the religion of militant individuals who are committed to truth and justice. It is the religion of those who desire freedom and independence. It is the school of those who struggle against imperialism. But the servants of imperialism have presented Islam in a totally different light. They have created in men’s minds a false notion of Islam. The defective version of Islam, which they have presented in the religious teaching institution, is intended to deprive Islam of its vital, revolutionary aspect and to prevent Muslims from arousing themselves in order to gain their freedom, fulfill the ordinances of Islam, and create a government that will secure their happiness and allow them to live lives worthy of human beings.

The agents of imperialism sometimes write ... that the legal provisions of Islam are too harsh ... because they originated with the Arabs, so that the “harshness” of the Arabs is reflected in the “harshness” of Islamic law! I am amazed at the way these people think. They kill people for possessing ten grams of heroin and say, “That is the law”. Inhuman laws like this are concocted in the name of a campaign against corruption, and they are not to be regarded as harsh. (I am not saying it is permissible to sell heroin, but this is not the appropriate punishment. The sale of heroin must indeed be prohibited, but the punishment must be in proportion to the crime.) When Islam, however, stipulates that the drinker of alcohol should receive eighty lashes, they consider it “too harsh.”... Many forms of corruption that have appeared in society derive from alcohol. The collisions that take place on our roads, and the murders is said to derive from addiction to alcohol. But still, some say, it is quite unobjectionable for someone to drink alcohol (after all, they do it in the West); so let alcohol be bought and sold freely. But when Islam wishes to prevent the consumption of alcohol— one of the major evils— stipulating that the drinker should receive eighty lashes, or sexual vice, decreeing that the fornicator be given one hundred lashes (and the married man or woman be stoned), then they start wailing and lamenting: “What a harsh law that is, reflecting the harshness of the Arabs!” They are not aware that these penal provisions of Islam are intended to keep great nations from being destroyed by corruption.