An interesting response of the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran to a question: Your Eminence, did you ever think that you would become the Leader?

According to the politics service of Saed News analytical news base, quoting Khabaronline: Many times when we were in his presence, we were surprised that he had read books that had been published only a few months earlier very thoroughly. Sometimes we ourselves had not read them and it was embarrassing for us. That’s how it is! We saw many books that he had read… About my own books, I really don’t like to talk because I don’t consider it appropriate… But I think we can talk about other things that are sweeter.

Once we took this book of Mr. Ezzat-Shahi to His Eminence – the book which I think is about 700–800 pages. We had weekly meetings. The next week when we went to see him, we realized that he had read the book during that week. He had invited Mr. Ezzat-Shahi, Mr. Kazemi the author, and the one who narrated the memoirs, and had praised and thanked them.

Thanks be to God, His Eminence reads with patience and with a very good order. If you allow, I will end our session with one of the times when he narrated memories, which I think is most suitable, now that we are talking about this matter.

Once we were in the presence of His Eminence and we were allowed to ask questions. Among us, someone asked a question that we ourselves were too shy to ask or found it difficult.
He asked: “Your Eminence! Did you ever think that you would become the Leader?! For example, when you were 12–13 years old and studying in a seminary in Mashhad, could you ever imagine that one day you would become the Leader?!”

Then we said: let’s see how he answers!

He thought a little and said: “If you allow me, I will give you an answer which I once gave years ago to a friend of mine—this friend has since passed away… I was studying at the Suleiman Khan School in Mashhad—if I’m not mistaken. During the day we attended lessons, and at night we had to review the previous lesson and prepare for the next day.

There was one point in the lesson that I had not understood, and no matter how much I tried, I could not grasp it. In my room, I kept walking left and right, east and west, reading and trying to understand, but I couldn’t.

My roommate that night was responsible for dinner. He suddenly got angry and said: ‘Asad Ali Agha, sit down already! This omelette has gone cold. You keep walking here and there! What are you trying to do?! You couldn’t understand one point, I couldn’t either, no one in the class did. Sit down, the food has gone cold.’

Then His Eminence said: I gave the same answer to that friend of mine—he had asked me: ‘Why are you studying this so much? In this Suleiman Khan school, how many of us will even become turbaned clerics? Of those, how many will remain in this path? After the events of Reza Shah, such thoughts existed… How many of us, if we stay, will become imams of a mosque in a neighborhood? If we become imams of a mosque, will people even come and ask us questions? Which of us will become a mujtahid? And if one of us becomes a mujtahid, which of us will become a marja, so that it would even be necessary for us to know? Nobody will care about us! Why don’t you sit and eat dinner?’

His Eminence said: I will give you the answer I gave him. We said: Please do!

He said: I told him—at that time I had just reached puberty—that I had started praying before puberty, and in the qunut of my prayer every day I used to recite a supplication, and I will tell you that supplication.
We said: Please do!

He said: My supplication in the qunut of my prayer was this:
اللهم اجعلنی مجدد دینک و محیی شریعتک
(O God, make me a renewer of Your religion and a reviver of Your Sharia)

He said this and pointed to us, saying: we unfortunately did not reach that point. We very much wanted to reach places that we did not.

And this was very sweet for us—that someone before puberty had a wish, and when one day, after a thousand strange events in the world, after a thousand astonishing happenings, he eventually became the Leader of the country, he would still say: we did not reach that wish!

God willing, may God make our wishes great!