Beheshti, As Viewed By His Son

Beheshti, As Viewed By His Son

Mohammad Reza Hosseini Beheshti -the son of Ayatollah Beheshti- speaks about Martyr Beheshti, the innocent martyr.

Ayatollah Beheshti would insist on doing a task even if it cost losing his life if he recognized that task as a divine and humanitarian duty.

In the Name of God

When I take a short look at Martyr Beheshti life what I find in my mind is the fact that he was a real believer. I found it out during over twenty years that I was in continuous contact with him. The more you focused on his heart, thought, behavior and act, the more you felt the warmth and lightness of his faith in God. I could feel his enthusiastic love to God and serving people which could be understood from the depth of his thought, words and behaviors. It all attracted me unconsciously to his characteristics.

Ayatollah Beheshti was wholly mysticism, but a silent one which had deeply affected his behavior and the way he faced with problems and it could be easily observed. He was so faithful in the deep of his heart that he was always strong against different events. He was-at least for me- justification the symbol of God's saying in Quran which contains a large amount of meanings. And that word of Quran is "Nafs Motmaenneh" which means a self-assured and confident person. Yes. Martyr Beheshti owned that self-assured and confident characteristics which belongs to God's servants. Such people have made themselves ready for self sacrifice and even losing their lives. I never saw him doubtful and disappointed. Whenever we were worried and tired of different events and referred to him, we would find him stable, strong and conscious. He made us to move and ahead and cleared our hearts of the clouds of worry and cheerlessness. We gained so much energy after speaking with him that we could solve any problems and remove any small or large obstacle for a while after that. He made us face bravely with problems.

I remember I asked him a question several years ago. I asked him what kind of people should be followed. He answered: "Follow those people that the more you get close to their personal lives, the more you find out the appearance of faith in their lives".

And he was himself truly like what he described.

When he was less busy with everyday works and job pressures he came home. He was a close friend for his children. And he was an exemplary teacher of morality and good behavior for us. He became angry so late such that I can count the number of times he became angry during the time he was alive. He was right in such cases. The anger did not rout in his pride or anything else. He had completely controlled anger inside himself. He was such a great man that attracted everyone who met him even just once with his morality and good behavior.

Despite having very wide and deep knowledge and being connoisseur in many issues, he never imposed his personal opinions to others. When meeting people, he always shook hands with every individual, children in particular. He caressed children and behaved kindly with them. He had unique training methods for children. He mostly trained us by his behavior rather than merely words or even putting pressures on us. He had behaved so kindly with us that we respected him a lot. Relying on the respect he made inside us and also considering the knowledge and information he always gave to us, we would be led to the appropriate way of living and taking steps towards prudence.

My father was never biased toward his children either boys or girls. He provided equal facilities for all of us. He kept the secrets of each member of the family. It was while we didn't tell our secrets to anyone else except father. He spent a particular time for the family, before revolution in particular. And those times were the best and unforgettable times I remember.

We always consulted with him when making an important decision. But he never forced us to accept his opinion and the final decision was made by ourselves. As for other characteristics of Ayatollah Beheshti, I can refer to the fact that he accepted any criticism. He also consulted with others too. Sometimes he let us discuss and criticize him or his particular decisions and actions. He was not afraid of being criticized and finding out the weak points of his decisions and works.

He was very decisive and strict when he made the final decision. He insisted on fulfilling the job that he considered as his divine and humanitarian duty. He was ready to pay the price for that decision even if he had to lose his life. It is interesting to know that despite being strict and decisive, he was ready to compensate at any moment he had found out that he had made a mistake. The combination of these characteristics had made a special personality which may be rarely found in one person.

He had different characteristics such as dignity and calmness as well as mysticism at the same time. Considering the order in his thought and action, he always evaluated the problems and then solved them. He never told lie or gossip. I don't remember him telling even one lie or gossiping other people. He was very so hard working. He never became tired when doing jobs. He was successful in majority of his activities. And it goes back to his vast knowledge, long experience, good social management and an accurate and sometimes surprisingly knowledge about people.

He was very busy during recent three or four years. He worked day and night for establishment of the bases of the Islamic Republic system. He worked till late night while others had been sleeping in their beds calmly. His body was tired but his soul was full of hope for future. He came home at late night while he was satisfied with the daily effort and what he had done. In the mornings he left home sooner than every one. He was present at his work sooner than others in order to be exemplary for them with his action rather than words and directives. He had completely forgotten himself in his way such that he almost ate nothing during the 24 hours of the day. The family was worried about his health since a long time ago. We were worried that he becomes sick under this much pressure.

He was very careful about his health before Islamic Revolution. He believed that people should care about their health in order to be able to serve better and more effective. To balance physical and mental activities he walked out of house for at least half an hour every morning. But due to being busy during recent years, he had quit walking in the mornings.

He was always ready for martyrdom. He was shy to die in bed. I remember one of the officials of "The Army of the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution" had taken a trip with my father to attend the"War and Jihad" seminar in Khouzestan. The official told us that Ayatollah Beheshti had asked him about the number of martyrs of "The Army of the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution" during the imposed war by that time. When that official had announced the number of martyrs by that time, Ayatollah Beheshti had remained silent for a moment. Then father had told him that he was shy to die in tranquility.

And God responded to the pray of this believer man and he became martyr.

He was a believer in action and he acted to what he believed. I remember he quoted Dr Shariati and liked that saying: "human should have the belief to resist and battle, not belief to prevent".

It is not that hard to prevent actions which may cause people to accuse you. But it is an art to be in the society and be brave enough to fulfill the duties with no deviation and sin. And it is really hard.

Sometimes when he was alone with family members, he read this poem of Hafiz:

The dark night and the fear from waves and eddy 

How can they feel the excitement of us?

We are light-winged on beaches

May his soul rest in joy- he lived such that all friends and enemies cried when he was martyred. He broke the cage of his body and his soul flew. He was satisfied with what God wanted. I hope God is satisfied with him too.