When Imam Khomeini arrived in Najaf, a number of people thought that he was an individual who had studied only under Iranian professors, and thus ought not to be very ‘Molla’ or knowledgeable. However, when the Imam began his lectures, they noticed that the Imam’s arguments and principles were indeed very powerful. Thus, they began to seek frantically to employ the fundamentals of the late Ayatollah Naeini and late Ayatollah Esfahani (both Iranian) in order to defend the fundamentals of professors of the city of Najaf against the Imam’s fundamentals.
Narrated by: Hujjat al-Islam wal Muslimeen Sayyid Jafar Karimi
Taken from: Impressions from Imam Khomeini’s Memoirs, vol. 5, chap. 7, p. 67