Sources and Translation Standard

Sources

Every document comes from a primary record: a U.S. federal court exhibit, a U.S. government translation released under the Freedom of Information Act, the issuing body's own publication, or an official legal database. Each page lists the issuing body, the date, the original language, where the original is published and an archive.org copy where one exists.

• Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran: Guardianship of the Jurist Articles: Tehran Municipality legal portal, Constitution (official text as amended)
• Statute of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps: Lamtakam legal database, Majlis record 90595
• Open Letter Addressed by Hezbollah to the Downtrodden in Lebanon and the World: CIA FOIA Electronic Reading Room, document 0000361273
• Covenant of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas): Government Exhibit 021-0061, scan as filed (Investigative Project on Terrorism case-document archive)
• An Explanatory Memorandum on the General Strategic Goal for the Group in North America: Government Exhibit 003-0085, scan as filed (Investigative Project on Terrorism case-document archive)
• The Political Document of Hezbollah: al-Ahed (Hezbollah), full Arabic text
• A Document of General Principles and Policies: Al-Watan full-text reproduction, May 1, 2017
• Statement on the "Second Phase of the Revolution": farsi.khamenei.ir, official text

Coverage

The set holds founding charters, political programs, constitutional articles, statutes and leadership statements of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah and the Muslim Brotherhood, dated 1979 to 2019: 8 documents as of October 13, 2026.

Definitions

• U.S. government translation: an English translation made by a U.S. government body (the Foreign Broadcast Information Service, or a translation admitted as a government trial exhibit). Works of the U.S. government are in the public domain.
• MEF translation: a translation made by the Middle East Forum translation desk directly from the original-language text, then checked paragraph by paragraph by an independent second review pass for omissions, additions and changes of tone; flagged paragraphs were corrected and re-checked.
• Exhibit scan: page images of the court exhibit as filed. Where the original-language text is shown beside the English, it was transcribed from those scans; the scans are the record.
• Key passages: short factual summaries of what a passage says, with the document's own article or section reference. Designation dates link to the U.S. Department of State list.

Update Cadence

Source and archive links are rechecked when documents are added; each page shows the date links were last checked. Texts and translations are fixed once published; corrections are made on report.

Corrections

Report a translation error to info@meforum.org.

Citation

Middle East Forum. MEF Translations: Primary Documents. Accessed October 13, 2026. https://translations.meforum.org/documents/.