The Day the Robes Came Off

How the Iraqi invasion of 1980 transformed Ayatollah Khamenei from cleric to soldier

On September 22, 1980, the last day of summer, the skies over Iran darkened. Beginning at 10 AM with reports from the border city of Gilan-e Gharb, a cascade of bombings swept across the country. Within hours, city after city — Ilam, Ahvaz, Kermanshah, Boushehr, Dezful — reported devastating airstrikes by Saddam Hussein’s olive-coloured MiGs. By early afternoon, the attacks had reached Tehran itself, with black smoke rising from Mehrabad Airport.

At that very moment, Ayatollah Sayyed Ali Khamenei was waiting to address factory workers at the General Factory near the airport. As a massive explosion shook the building, he faced a choice: cancel and retreat, or stay and steady the nerves of those around him. He chose the latter. “I thought to myself that if I cancel the speech, that would have a bad effect on the workers,” he later recalled. He stepped behind the podium and spoke for 10 to 15 minutes, urging calm and resolve.

But the day demanded more than words. Ayatollah Khamenei, who had worn clerical robes since his teenage years, realised he could not go to the front lines dressed as he was. After consulting with Mostafa Chamran — who enthusiastically approved — he traded his turban and robe for a soldier’s uniform. It was a symbolic transformation that would come to define the era: a cleric stepping onto the battlefield, rallying a nation under siege with the words,

“Here is the battlefield of love and faith, here is the battlefield of men made of steel.”