Memoirs of Akbar Hashemi – April 2, 1999

Before noon, I studied at home for the Friday Prayer sermon. At noon, Effat and Mohsen went to a farm on the Saveh Road; Yasser and Mohsen also have a share in its pistachio orchard. Faezeh, Yasser, and their children were our guests. I spoke with Faezeh about the trip to New York and convinced her that it was not advisable.

I went to the University of Tehran to lead the Friday Prayer. Before the sermon began, I spoke with Mr. [Ali Akbar] Nateq-Nouri, [Speaker of Parliament], who had come for the prayer, about the new Parliament building. He asked me to go and visit it and said that it would be completed by the end of this term, with the move there taking place during the next parliamentary term.

In the afternoon, I began studying moral sciences, for a new chapter in the Friday sermons. In today’s sermon, I said that the chapter on the scientific miracles of the Qur’an would be concluded with this sermon, which dealt with the “principle of pairing” among living beings in the Qur’an.

In the international news, the announcement of the trial of three American servicemen in Yugoslavia has become a major story. The Yugoslav government says they were detained in Serbia, while the United States says they had been in Macedonia. The broadcasting of a meeting between Ibrahim Rugova, the leader of the Kosovo Liberation Army, and [Slobodan] Milošević, President of Yugoslavia, on Yugoslav television, in the presence of UN forces, has also raised doubts; Westerners say that the footage is old. The dispatch of Russian warships to the Mediterranean has also caused concern, and the British report of a Yugoslav coup in Montenegro is likewise receiving attention.

Last night, I dreamed that we were on a mountain road and a counterrevolutionary terrorist approached my car to make an assassination attempt. I kicked him and threw him down the mountain. An aircraft overhead was also threatening me, but it too was unable to do anything. There may probably be an incident ahead.