Iqbal Latif

All revolutions devour their children but Iran is an exception! The dirty tentacles of Iranian revolution had no place for pluralistic or charitable ideas. Bazargan, Qutubzadeh and Bani Sadar all were considered too liberals for the taste of the clergy. Any revolution devours its own children this one did with extraordinary ferociousness.

Half an hour after Ayatollah Khomeini's revolutionary charter flight from Paris took off for Tehran 20 years ago, one of his officials stood up and addressed:"We have just received information that this aircraft will be shot down by the Shah's air force when we cross the Iranian border." There must have been 150 people on Ayatollah Khomeini's flight to Tehran in 1979, most of them young and enthusiastic revolutionaries. It wasn't the case.

Instead, the plane circled continually over Tehran, inspecting the record crowd in human history gathered below us. Once on the ground, the Ayatollah put together an astonishing alliance of traditional clerics, secular left-wingers and sensible reformers, all of them believing unreservedly in him. The Shah's last shreds of support melted away. Some, including the man who made the announcement about the plane being shot down on board, were later executed. Lahouti, Ghotbzade, Sazegara....

Now the dirty face of Iranian revolution. The picture now circulated by Iranian Press Agency is the one on the right, Stalinised Iran has erased the young revolutionaries and the leftists who accompanied Khomeini to Iran. All revolutions devour their children but the Iranian revolution had a fiercer appetite than most. Others, like the future President Bani-Sadr, were driven into exile. Many were killed in the war with Iraq, or assassinated by extremists. Less than half are possibly still alive today.

Karma is a bitch, what goes around comes around. The revolution after death of Khomeini devoured Khomeini's own son. The one carrying Khomeini's hand in the picture above was his son Ahmad Khomeini born 1945, Qom - died March 17, 1995, Tehran, he was the younger son of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Khomeini Jr. allegedly died of a heart attack in 1995 at the age of 49. Ahmad Khomeini was close to his father, the leader of the Iranian revolution of 1979. He helped organize affairs during and after the Islamic Revolution, in Imam Khomeini's office in Paris and following Ayatollah's return to Iran in February 1979.He failed to accomplish anything after his father as the country's leader in a power struggle with Hashemi Rafsanjani, he became the overseer of the Mausoleum of Khomeini and was later named to the Supreme National Security Council.

The roots of this hatred and devouring of its own children lies in the deadly schism of Islam. The rupture that takes the toll every day in the broad expanse of Islamic countries from Bahrain to Saudi. I will refer to the history; the roots of all these killings lie in the ‘pardons of Fateh-e- Mecca’ and death of Prophet. It all started the day Prophet of Islam died. Alas, little did Imam knew that he is cursed and haunted by the historical schism of 'devouring its own.' A curse set as the destiny of children of Islam! Devouring suicide bombing killing of its own kin is a continuation of a bitter war of blood and venom between Banu Hashim and Banu Umayyads; that curse has continually taken its toll on children of Islam for 1470 years.

Muhammad made peace with Abu Sufiyan his arch enemy but banu Hashim lost out to Umayyads. Muawiyah I was the father of Yazid, who beheaded Hussein grandson of Mushamad in Kerbela. AbuSufiyan never really made peace with Banu Hashim’s, ahle byat were eradicated by the Umayyads. Without these Umayyads Prophet of Islam could not garner support of Meccans to expand the empire but with the Umayyads on board he knew well he has to sacrifice his entire family. May be Imam Khomeini knew too what his hungry cohorts will do to his own son.

However, there have long been rumours that his death was not due to natural causes, and that its occurrence one month after a blunt speech criticizing the regime was not a twist of fate. Ahmad Khomeini is entombed next to his father in a grand shrine south of Tehran, where his son, Hassan Khomeini, is the superintendent. A month after his death rioters accused Rafsanjani of being behind Khomeini's death, and rumours spread that he died of cyanide poisoning.

According to one-time Ansar-e Hezbollah member Amir Farshad Ebrahimi, intelligence operative Saeed Emami confessed that Ahmad Khomeini was eliminated by a group of highly-placed officials who decided that Khomeini's enmity towards one-time ally Ali Khamenei put him past any compassion. These men included former Intelligence Ministers Gholamhosein Mohseni-Ejeh'i (2005-2009) and Ali Fallahian (1989-1997), Ayatollah Mohammad Taghi Mesbah Yazdi, and Asadollah Badamchian.