TEHRAN – Few knew that martyred Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei was also a poet and nurtured a lifelong passion for literature that spanned Persian classics and Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables.
Ayatollah Khamenei, who was martyred in a joint U.S.-Israeli terrorist strike on February 28, began writing poetry in his youth while studying at religious seminaries in Najaf and Qom. He published his poems under the pseudonym “Amin”, meaning “trustworthy”, and regularly attended literary gatherings in his hometown of Mashhad.
“I used to go to literary gatherings and would analyze and critique poetry. They valued me highly,” Ayatollah Khamenei later recalled in his biography.
Ayatollah Khamenei’s love for literature remained undiminished. He frequently used literary quotations in his speeches and expressed particular admiration for Russian literature and Western novels.
In a 2004 television interview, he declared Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables to be “the best novel ever written in history”. He also recommended John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath to Iranian writers and artists.
He read literary works of “Socialist Realism” with special interest and believed that literature was not
merely a medium for entertainment but that every novel delivers specific messages regarding the formation of society.
The late Leader also maintained close ties with Iran’s poetic community throughout his decades in power. He held annual meetings with Iranian poets on the eve of the birthday of Imam Hassan (AS), the second Shia Imam, where he would listen to their works and offer guidance.
At one such gathering, he called Persian poetry a “great national wealth” and urged poets to preserve its “piety and purity”.
He also called for the development of committed and revolutionary poetry, emphasizing that the contemporary style of Persian poetry was “unparalleled and a result of the Revolutionary era”.
He praised the growth of poetry in the country and considered poetry to be an influential and lasting medium. He told poets that their art form was “a strong means to help boost moralities and hope in society”.
His own poetic compositions, while less known, touched on themes of resistance, spirituality and moral guidance. In 2018, he published a ghazal titled “Pure Wine and Deadly Poison” at a Tehran poetry gathering, exploring themes of faith and temptation.
In 2024, a new ghazal titled “Sharh-e Hal” was published in a book called “Amin She’r-e Enghelab”.
In a poem, Ayatollah Khamenei addressed his followers in the form of a rajaz, a ballad of bravura:
Dear Heart! From the battle of toil and travel do not escape
Turn onto yourself like a whirlwind and like the morning breeze don’t escape
The staff of Moses is in your hand, throw it in
fear not the snakes of sorcerers do not escape
You are the wave of courage and determination, don’t fear the sea
ignore the roaring of the storm, from your abode do not escape
In Pakistan, poets and writers gathered at a ceremony in Peshawar to honor Ayatollah Khamenei’s intellectual and religious legacy, launching two books examining his life and ideology through poetry and prose: “Rahbar-e-Shaheed” (“The Martyred Leader”) and the travelogue “Hisar-e-Ishq”.
For Ayatollah Khamenei, poetry was never mere ornament. As he once told Iranian poets, the art form was “a strong means to help boost moralities and hope in society”.