A specific feature which had made Imam Khomeini a prominent scholar for protégés and students was that he would recommend them to use their heads and not be content simply with reading the text books or skimming through notes they would take down during lectures.
The Imam always maintained that:
“After you have learnt something from the professor, go and think over it. For instance, every night switch off the lights (to your study room) and instead of reading books, sit down and contemplate until you have worked out the subject fully in your mind; then, absorb all aspects of it through thinking and reflection.
Narrated by: Hujjat al-Islam wal Muslimeen Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani
Taken from: Neda Periodical, No. 1