The Narrator’s Final Journey
Vignettes from the Days Leading up to the Martyrdom of Seyyed Morteza AviniSelected by Mahya Hafezy
Translated by Kianoush Borzouei
2026-04-15
April 9th marks the anniversary of the martyrdom of Seyyed Morteza Avini—the renowned documentarian and chronicler of the war—who ultimately joined the ranks of the martyrs in the sands of Fakkeh. The book Martyr of Culture: Seyyed Morteza Avini in the Mirror of Memories collects numerous and varied recollections from different stages of his life and work. Nevertheless, on the occasion of his anniversary we have chosen here to present only those accounts that evoke the mood of his final days, his restlessness, and the moment of his martyrdom. What follows are candid, intimate, and direct recollections from his spouse, friends, and comrades that accompany us through the last days of this artist’s life.
The last days, when he went to Fakkeh and the work remained unfinished and he returned, he said that he should go back to Fakkeh in two or three days. During those days I saw him deeply saddened. I kept asking why he was so withdrawn and distressed, but nothing in my mind connected to the possibility that something had happened and that he was going back. Now, looking back at those days, I am completely certain he knew.
Our final exchanges in that last day or two were about an arrangement for the days ahead. I said this could be done after you return, God willing. Suddenly he turned his head and no more was said between us.
Now when I view those moments, I see without doubt that he was aware of his own martyrdom. Toward the end, when I proposed an idea, he said, “This activity is not prudent. They have made things so difficult for me that a man with his back to the mountain could not endure it. I have leaned upon another support that keeps me standing.”
— The martyr’s wife
The last time he went to Fakkeh I told him, “Morteza, I’ll join you on the next trip and we’ll film the whole journey with the steadycam.” Morteza replied “What a superb idea.” My plan had been that on the next trip we wouldn’t film Fakkeh itself but would film Avini.
Later I produced works in that vein. Previously we had gone to Bosnia together, from which I made a three-part documentary about him and Mr. Nasiri called Growth in fire... Before the final trip—after Saeed Ghasemi had located the precise killing ground of the martyrs of the preliminary Valfajr operation in Fakkeh—we were meant to go together and film, but fate did not permit it.”
— Nader Talebzadeh
During that holiday when everyone else was enjoying time with family, he came to the front. He came to his post. It was about 10 p.m. when someone knocked; I saw it was Seyyed. He said, “Seyyed, I’ve come to see you, to lift my spirits…" He had come with the brothers from the Ravayat-e-Fath team. He said, ‘Seyyed, we want to go to Fakkeh. I said “But man, on holidays?!”
— Seyyed Saleh Mousavi
Every morning until dusk we would go to Fakkeh and conduct interviews. At night we returned to Barghazeh to sleep and rest. The men told extraordinary, beautiful stories and it was obvious that Haji was deeply moved and hopeful. He also composed the text The Explosion of Information there.
On the last day we took several souvenir photographs, including that well-known portrait of Haji that was widely reproduced. Shabani took several group shots and then said to Haji, “Mr. Morteza! Let me take an individual photograph of you.” We knew Haji’s temperament—either he would not permit a solo portrait or he would affect a pose that ruined it—but that day he stood up. He straightened and smoothed his clothes, smiled and said, ‘Shabani! Take a shot useful for death flyers.” Morteza took two pictures—one vertical, one horizontal. Those became the photos used for his martyrdom tableau.”
— Ramazani, photographer and cameraman for the Ravayat-e-Fath group
They say that the night before his martyrdom, Mr. Morteza had gone to Fakkeh and they were obliged to spend the night in one of the remaining wartime bunkers. A soldier in that bunker later recounted to his commander, “Who was that bespectacled man who did not sleep from night until morning, who prayed and cried incessantly, who recited the Quran and wept?’
Mr. Morteza kept repeating “We are going to the place where the boys were martyred... we are going to the place where they fell…"
— Alireza Qazveh, poet and writer
“They chastise me, asking why I took Seyyed to Fakkeh. By God, I did not take him; he insisted. I said, ‘Morteza, let’s go somewhere else—Bazi Deraz, Kani Manka, other places. Mehran.—’ He replied: ‘You callous ones, what else should have these people done? They have crossed thirteen kilometers of dunes.” He said, “Come, let us show these places to people, to tell them how our boys stood against arrogance.” He knew that there would come days when the geography of the war would be falsified and the history of the war distorted; he knew he had to pick up the camera and record these realities. He insisted, and we went—and what happened then transpired.
— Commander Saeed Ghasemi
Asghar came to his side—this scene I will never forget—and said “Seyyed! Don’t be afraid; nothing’s happened.” Yet blood was flowing; a mine fragment had done its work. It was finished. God is my witness, he smiled and said “Asghar, my friend! We came for such words as these.”
Mr. Saeed Yazdanparast was likewise; he had a fragment near his eye. When I went to remove it, he said “Leave it.” He too was not taken by surprise. I showed a Lebanese man photographs taken at the moment of his martyrdom. He said, “What a remarkable man—until the last moment he was thinking, still reflecting.”
— Commander Saeed Ghasemi
On the stretcher that Qasem Dehghan had made, as we were carrying him back, Seyyed begged, he said “Dont’ take me; let me stay here.” He invoked “‘O Fatimah! O Fatimah!” Three times in succession he prayed, ‘O God, make my death a martyrdom in Your path” and for a moment he lifted his head and said “O God! Forgive all my sins and make me a martyr.”
— Commander Saeed Ghasemi
At 6:30 a.m. on Saturday they informed me of Avini’s wounding, but my heart testified that he had been martyred. Nevertheless, for a moment I let reason speak to me, “He can still think and write; he can still, with that voice which had grown hoarse in recent months, read the Ravayat-e-Fath narrative, so it is not grave.” I pondered, “Why despite all treatment, did the hoarseness of his voice not abate, even though the doctor promised that the larynx that serves Islam would be treated swiftly?” Only when I heard the news of his martyrdom did I perceive how Imam Khomeini had—through verse—the night before intimated this news to me and I had not understood; what parable is this that the Imam was heralding his journey to the abode of the God? Habits are bonds that bind us to the earth, and even when signs of this magnitude descend upon us, we remain shrouded and heedless.
— The martyr’s wife
After hearing the news of Seyyed Morteza’s martyrdom, I wanted to be the one to tell the children, so at noon on my return from school I said to them “Father is present; he is always present; it is only that we lack the capacity to see him, and that may not be all that important.” The true human being dies that he may be vivified and bestow life upon others; it is ordained that the outward life of such a one remains unseen except to a few of the elect—his solitude and estrangement until the very end attested to this truth.
On the day of the funeral, seeing that multitude of grieving souls made me tremble. How could he, in his solitude, have had so many lovers? Many said and I heard that he deserved martyrdom. Martyrdom was his right. The gate of martyrdom is open to the worthy. How can I reconcile this belief?
This era is not an era of martyrdom. He perpetually sought immortality. He did not fear death and he believed that this body is not a place to nurture worms but a cocoon for the butterfly to burst forth and circle the candle of Wilayah until it itself becomes candle and, in praise of love—Karbala—answers the cry “Is there any helper to help me?” as the clarion of the truth-seeking of all ages. He found Karbala in Fakkeh and from there joined the companions of Imam Husayn.
— The martyr’s wife
At Behesht-e Zahra (graveyard of Tehran) they had gathered around his father; he was serene and assured—exactly like Seyyed Morteza himself—when I saw him through the glass of the mortuary with that severed leg. A woman came whose eyes were reddened from weeping; she seemed to be the mother of a martyr. She said, “For years I have wept to that voice and I never knew it belonged to your son. He is the child of all of us; you are blessed.”
— Alireza Qazveh, poet and writer
Source: Yasser Asgari, Martyr of Culture: Seyyed Morteza Avini in the Mirror of Memories, Maaref publication, 2013, pp. 154–165.
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