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{{Short description|Supreme Leader of Iran from 1979 to 1989}}{{other people|Khomeini|Khomeini (name)}}{{hatnote group|{{Redirect-distinguish-text|Khomeini|his successor, Ali Khamenei}}}}{{Use dmy dates|date=February 2024}}{{Pp-vandalism|small=yes}}

factoids

| name = Ruhollah Khomeini }}| image = Portrait of Ruhollah Khomeini.jpg| caption = Official portrait, 1981| order = 1st| office = Supreme Leader of Iran| term_start = 3 December 1979| term_end = 3 June 1989

• Abolhassan Banisadr
• Mohammad-Ali Rajai
• Ali Khamenei{edih}

• Mehdi Bazargan
• Mohammad-Ali Rajai
• Mohammad-Javad Bahonar
• Mohammad-Reza Mahdavi Kani
• Mir-Hossein Mousavi{edih}

Hussein-Ali Montazeri {{nowrap>(1985–1989)}}| predecessor = Position established (Mohammad Reza Pahlavi as Shah of Iran)| successor = Ali Khamenei| birth_name = Ruhollah Mostafavi Musavi190017190224name=dob|Childhood}}.}}| birth_place = Khomeyn, Sublime State of Persia1989031902240619001706|03}})| death_place = Tehran, Iran| resting_place = Mausoleum of Ruhollah KhomeiniKhadijeh Saqafi|1929}}| relations = Khomeini familyMostafa Khomeini>Mostafa, Zahra Mostafavi Khomeini, Farideh Mostafavi Khomeini>Farideh, and Ahmad| education = Qom Seminary| signature = Ruhollah Khomeini signature.svgimam-khomeini.ir}}| module =

factoids

MALISE RUTHVENYEAR= 2004ISBN=978-0-19-151738-9EDITION=REPRINT, JEBNOUN>EDITOR1-FIRST=NOUREDDINEEDITOR2-FIRST=MEHRDADEDITOR3-FIRST=MIMIYEAR=2013ISBN=978-1-135-00731-7, 168, | creed = UsuliKhomeinism#Governance>New advance of Guardianship’’Forty Hadith of Ruhullah Khomeini>Kashf al-Asrar’’Tahrir al-Wasilah>Islamic Government}}| teacher = Seyyed Hossein Borujerdi}}pos=centerfilename=Ruhollah Khomeini speech of 24 November 1981, divided of main file (1254 -1327).oggtype=speech|description=Khomeini speaking on theimportance of spiritualityRecorded 24 November 1981}}}}

factoids

| spoken = Imam Khomeini| religious = Ayatullah al-Uzma Ruhollah Khomeini| posthumous = | alternative = |image=File:Emblem of Iran.svg|image_size=100px}}Ayatollah Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini{{Efn|{{multiref|{{IPAc-en|UK|x|É’|ˈ|m|eɪ|n|i}} {{respell|khom|AY|nee}}, {{IPAc-en|US|x|oÊŠ|-}} {{respell|khohm|-}}|, {{IPA-fa|ɾuːholˈlɒːhe xomejˈniː|pron|Fa-ir-khomeini (1).ogg}}}}}} (17 May 1900 or 24 September 1902{{efn|name=dob}}{{Snd}}3 June 1989) was an Iranian Islamic revolutionary, politician, and religious leader who served as the first supreme leader of Iran from 1979 until his death in 1989. He was the founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran and the main leader of the Iranian Revolution, which overthrew Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and ended the Iranian monarchy.Born in Khomeyn, in what is now Iran’s Markazi province, his father was murdered in 1903 when Khomeini was two years old. He began studying the Quran and Arabic from a young age and was assisted in his religious studies by his relatives, including his mother’s cousin and older brother. Khomeini was a high ranking cleric in Twelver Shi’ism, an ayatollah, a marja’ (“source of emulation“), a Mujtahid or faqÄ«h (an expert in sharia), and author of more than 40 books. His opposition to the White Revolution resulted in his state-sponsored expulsion to Bursa in 1964. Nearly a year later, he moved to Najaf, where speeches he gave outlining his religiopolitical theory of Guardianship of the Jurist were compiled into Islamic Government.He was Time magazine’s Man of the Year in 1979 for his international influence, and Khomeini has been described as the “virtual face of Shia Islam in Western popular culture”, where he was known for his support of the hostage takers during the Iran hostage crisis, his fatwa calling for the murder of British Indian novelist Salman Rushdie, and for referring to the United States as the “Great Satan” and the Soviet Union as the “Lesser Satan”. Following the revolution, Khomeini became the country’s first supreme leader, a position created in the constitution of the Islamic Republic as the highest-ranking political and religious authority of the nation, which he held until his death. Most of his period in power was taken up by the Iran–Iraq War of 1980–1988. He was succeeded by Ali Khamenei on 4 June 1989.The subject of a pervasive cult of personality, Khomeini is officially known as Imam Khomeini inside Iran and by his supporters internationally. His funeral was attended by up to 10 million people, or 1/6 of Iran’s population, the largest funeral at the time and one of the largest human gatherings in history. In Iran, his gold-domed tomb in Tehran’s Behesht-e Zahrāʾ cemetery has become a shrine for his adherents, and he is legally considered “inviolable”, with Iranians regularly punished for insulting him. His supporters view him as a champion of Islamic revival, anti-racism and anti-imperialism. Critics accuse him of human rights violations (including his ordering of attacks against demonstrators, execution of thousands of political prisoners, war criminals and prisoners of the Iran–Iraq War), as well as for using child soldiers extensively during the Iran-Iraq war for human wave attacks, estimates are as high as 100,000 for the number of children killed.

Early years

Background

File:Ruhollah Khomeini birthplace 5.jpg|thumb|Ruhollah Khomeini’s birthplace at KhomeynKhomeynRuhollah Khomeini came from a lineage of small land owners, clerics, and merchants.BOOK, Ervand, Abrahamian, Radical Islam: The Iranian Mojahedin, I.B. Tauris, 1989, 1-85043-077-2, 20, His ancestors migrated towards the end of the 18th century from their original home in Nishapur, Khorasan province in northeastern Iran for a short stay to the Kingdom of Awadh, a region in the modern state of Uttar Pradesh, India, whose rulers were Twelver Shia Muslims of Persian origin.BOOK, Algar, Hamid, Hamid Algar, Koya, Abdar Rahman, Imam Khomeini: Life, Thought and Legacy, 2010, Islamic Book Trust, 978-9675062254, 19, A short biography, Sacred space and holy war: the politics, culture and history of Shi’ite Islam by Juan Ricardo ColeArt and culture: endeavours in interpretation by Ahsan Jan Qaisar, Som Prakash Verma, Mohammad Habib During their rule they extensively invited, and received, a steady stream of Persian scholars, poets, jurists, architects, and painters.Encyclopædia Iranica, “Avadh” {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170517012521www.iranicaonline.org/articles/avadh-english-also-audh-or-oudh-an-ancient-cultural-and-administrative-region-lying-between-the-himalayas-and-the-ganges-i |date=17 May 2017 }}, E. Yarshater The family eventually settled in the small town of Kintoor, near Lucknow, the capital of Awadh.Ruhollah Khomeini’s brief biography by Hamid AlgarFrom Khomein, A biography of the Ayatollah, 14 June 1999, The IranianThe Columbia world dictionary of Islamism by Olivier Roy, Antoine SfeirKhomeini: life of the Ayatollah, Volume 1999 by Baqer Moin Ayatollah Khomeini’s paternal grandfather, Seyyed Ahmad Musavi Hindi, was born in Kintoor. He left Lucknow in 1830, on a pilgrimage to the tomb of Ali in Najaf, Ottoman Iraq (now Iraq) and never returned. According to Moin, this migration was to escape from the spread of British power in India.{{harvnb|Moin|2000|p=18}} In 1834 Seyyed Ahmad Musavi Hindi visited Persia, and in 1839 he settled in Khomein. Although he stayed and settled in Iran, he continued to be known as Hindi, indicating his stay in India, and Ruhollah Khomeini even used Hindi as a pen name in some of his ghazals. Khomeini’s grandfather, Mirza Ahmad Mojtahed-e Khonsari was the cleric issuing a fatwa to forbid usage of tobacco during the Tobacco Protest.WEB, Staff writer, Imam Khomeini’s Biography,english.khamenei.ir/news/2116/Imam-Khomeini-s-Biography, 21 February 2015, 17 April 2019,english.khamenei.ir/news/2116/Imam-Khomeini-s-Biography," title="web.archive.org/web/20190403160844english.khamenei.ir/news/2116/Imam-Khomeini-s-Biography,">web.archive.org/web/20190403160844english.khamenei.ir/news/2116/Imam-Khomeini-s-Biography, 3 April 2019, dead, BOOK, Moin, Baqer, Khomeini: Life of the Ayatollah, I.B. Tauris, 978-1-84511-790-0,books.google.com/books?id=b2OL9IEXaAgC, 1999, 2009,

Childhood

According to his birth certificate, Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini, whose first name means “spirit of Allah”, was born on 17 May 1900 in Khomeyn, Markazi Province although his brother Mortaza (later known as Ayatollah Pasandideh) gives his birth date of 24 September 1902, the birth anniversary of Muhammad’s daughter, Fatima.WEB, Researcher’s Note: Ruhollah Khomeini’s birth date,www.britannica.com/biography/Ruhollah-Khomeini/additional-info#Researchers-Note, Britannica.com,web.archive.org/web/20230412021509/https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ruhollah-Khomeini/additional-info#Researchers-Note, 12 April 2023, live, WEB, Ayatollah Khomeini (1900–1989),www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/khomeini_ayatollah.shtml, 20 June 2013, BBC History, He was raised by his mother, Agha Khanum, and his aunt, Sahebeth, following the murder of his father, Mustafa Musawi, over two years after his birth in 1903.{{Harvnb|Reich|1990|p=310}}Ruhollah began to study the Qur’an and elementary Persian at the age of six.{{harvnb|Reich|1990|p=311}} The following year, he began to attend a local school, where he learned religion, noheh khani (lamentation recital), and other traditional subjects. Throughout his childhood, he continued his religious education with the assistance of his relatives, including his mother’s cousin, Ja’far, and his elder brother, Morteza Pasandideh.{{harvnb|Milani|1994|p=85}}

Education and lecturing

(File:خمینی Ùˆ همدرسان.JPG|thumb|left|Khomeini as a student with his friends (second from right))After the First World War, arrangements were made for him to study at the Islamic seminary in Isfahan, but he was attracted instead to the seminary in Arak. He was placed under the leadership of Ayatollah Abdolkarim Haeri Yazdi.{{harvnb|Moin|2000|p=22}} In 1920, Khomeini moved to Arak and commenced his studies.{{harvnb|Brumberg|2001|p=45}}. “By 1920, the year Khomeini moved to Arak...” The following year, Ayatollah Haeri Yazdi transferred to the Islamic seminary in the holy city of Qom, southwest of Tehran, and invited his students to follow. Khomeini accepted the invitation, moved, and took up residence at the Dar al-Shafa school in Qom.{{harvnb|Moin|2000|p=28}}. “Khomeini’s madraseh in Qom was known as the Dar al-Shafa...” Khomeini’s studies included Islamic law (sharia) and jurisprudence (fiqh), but by that time, Khomeini had also acquired an interest in poetry and philosophy (irfan). So, upon arriving in Qom, Khomeini sought the guidance of Mirza Ali Akbar Yazdi, a scholar of philosophy and mysticism. Yazdi died in 1924, but Khomeini continued to pursue his interest in philosophy with two other teachers, Javad Aqa Maleki Tabrizi and Rafi’i Qazvini.{{harvnb|Moin|2000|p=42}}{{harvnb|Brumberg|2001|p=46}} However, perhaps Khomeini’s biggest influences were another teacher, Mirza Muhammad ‘Ali Shahabadi,{{harvnb|Rāhnamā|1994|pp=70–1}} and a variety of historic Sufi mystics, including Mulla Sadra and Ibn Arabi.Khomeini studied ancient Greek philosophy and was influenced by both the philosophy of Aristotle, whom he regarded as the founder of logic,WEB, Philosophy as Viewed by Ruhollah Khomeini,www.imamreza.net/eng/imamreza.php?print=4250, dead,www.imamreza.net/eng/imamreza.php?print=4250," title="web.archive.org/web/20110614032732www.imamreza.net/eng/imamreza.php?print=4250,">web.archive.org/web/20110614032732www.imamreza.net/eng/imamreza.php?print=4250, 14 June 2011, 19 March 2010, www.imamreza.net, and Plato, whose views “in the field of divinity” he regarded as “grave and solid”.Kashful-Asrar, p. 33 by Ruhollah Khomeini. Among Islamic philosophers, Khomeini was mainly influenced by Avicenna and Mulla Sadra.(File:Ayatollah Khomeini young.jpg|thumb|left|upright|Khomeini in 1938)Apart from philosophy, Khomeini was interested in literature and poetry. His poetry collection was released after his death. Beginning in his adolescent years, Khomeini composed mystic, political and social poetry. His poetry works were published in three collections: The Confidant, The Decanter of Love and Turning Point, and Divan.WEB,www.irib.ir/Ouriran/imam/writing/html/en/page9.htm, Page9, 29 June 2007, 15 October 2007,www.irib.ir/Ouriran/imam/writing/html/en/page9.htm," title="web.archive.org/web/20071015112221www.irib.ir/Ouriran/imam/writing/html/en/page9.htm,">web.archive.org/web/20071015112221www.irib.ir/Ouriran/imam/writing/html/en/page9.htm, bot: unknown, . His knowledge of poetry is further attested by the modern poet Nader Naderpour (1929–2000), who “had spent many hours exchanging poems with Khomeini in the early 1960s”. Naderpour remembered: “For four hours we recited poetry. Every single line I recited from any poet, he recited the next.“Farhang Rajaee, Islamism and Modernism: The Changing Discourse in Iran, University of Texas Press (2010), p. 116.Ruhollah Khomeini was a lecturer at Najaf and Qom seminaries for decades before he was known on the political scene. He soon became a leading scholar of Shia Islam.WEB,www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/khomeini_ayatollah.shtml, BBC – History – Ayatollah Khomeini (1900–1989), BBC, 4 June 1989, 19 March 2010, He taught political philosophy,WEB,www.irib.ir/Occasions/hejrate%20imam-Kuwait/imam.en.HTM, Imam Khomeini to Kuwait, 29 June 2007, 27 March 2008,www.irib.ir/Occasions/hejrate%20imam-Kuwait/imam.en.HTM," title="web.archive.org/web/20080327052418www.irib.ir/Occasions/hejrate%20imam-Kuwait/imam.en.HTM,">web.archive.org/web/20080327052418www.irib.ir/Occasions/hejrate%20imam-Kuwait/imam.en.HTM, bot: unknown, . Islamic history and ethics. Several of his students – for example, Morteza Motahhari – later became leading Islamic philosophers and also marja’. As a scholar and teacher, Khomeini produced numerous writings on Islamic philosophy, law, and ethics.ENCYCLOPEDIA, Encyclopædia Britannica,www.britannica.com/eb/article-9045329/Ruhollah-Khomeini, Ruhollah Khomeini – Britannica Online Encyclopedia, Britannica.com, 19 March 2010, He showed an exceptional interest in subjects like philosophy and mysticism that not only were usually absent from the curriculum of seminaries but were often an object of hostility and suspicion.WEB,www.irib.ir/Occasions/imam%20khomeini/ImamKhomeini-en.HTM, پایگاه اطلاع رسانی روابط عمومی سازمان صدا Ùˆ سیما, 29 June 2007, 15 October 2007,www.irib.ir/Occasions/imam%20khomeini/ImamKhomeini-en.HTM," title="web.archive.org/web/20071015112215www.irib.ir/Occasions/imam%20khomeini/ImamKhomeini-en.HTM,">web.archive.org/web/20071015112215www.irib.ir/Occasions/imam%20khomeini/ImamKhomeini-en.HTM, bot: unknown, .Inaugurating his teaching career at the age of 27 by giving private lessons on irfan and Mulla Sadra to a private circle, around the same time, in 1928, he also released his first publication, Sharh Du’a al-Sahar (Commentary on the Du’a al-Baha), “a detailed commentary, in Arabic, on the prayer recited before dawn during Ramadan by Imam Ja’far al-Sadiq”, followed, some years later, by Sirr al-Salat (Secret of the Prayer), where “the symbolic dimensions and inner meaning of every part of the prayer, from the ablution that precedes it to the salam that concludes it, are expounded in a rich, complex, and eloquent language that owes much to the concepts and terminology of Ibn ‘Arabi. As Sayyid Fihri, the editor and translator of Sirr al-Salat, has remarked, the work is addressed only to the foremost among the spiritual elite (akhass-i khavass) and establishes its author as one of their number.“Ervand Abrahamian, Islam, Politics, and Social Movements, University of California Press (1988), p. 269. The second book has been translated by Sayyid Amjad Hussain Shah Naqavi and released by Brill in 2015, under the title “The Mystery of Prayer: The Ascension of the Wayfarers and the Prayer of the Gnostics {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170706103106www.brill.com/products/book/mystery-prayer-0 |date=6 July 2017 }}”.

Political aspects

His seminary teaching often focused on the importance of religion to practical social and political issues of the day, and he worked against secularism in the 1940s. His first political book, Kashf al-Asrar (Uncovering of Secrets)WEB,gemsofislamism.tripod.com/khomeini_works.html#answer_kashf_al-asrar, Kashf al-Asrar, Gemsofislamism.tripod.com, 19 March 2010, Moin, Baqer, Khomeini: Life of the Ayatollah (2001), p. 60) published in 1942, was a point-by-point refutation of Asrar-e Hezar Sale (Secrets of a Thousand Years), a tract written by a disciple of Iran’s leading anti-clerical historian, Ahmad Kasravi,BOOK,www.bookrags.com/biography/ruhollah-musavi-khomeini-ayatollah/, Encyclopedia of World Biography on Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini, Ayatullah, Bookrags.com, 19 March 2010, as well as a condemnation of innovations such as international time zones,{{efn|In “A Warning to the Nation” published in 1941, Khomeini wrote, “We have nothing to say to those ... [who] have forfeited them faculties so completely to the foreigners that they even imitate them in matters of time; what is left for us to say to them? As you all know, noon is now officially reckoned in Tehran twenty minutes before the sun has reached the meridian, in imitation of Europe. So far no one has stood up to ask, “what nightmare is this into which we are being plunged?“Prior to the International Time Zone system, every locality had its own time with 12 noon set to match the moment in that city when the sun was at its highest point in the sky. This was natural for an era when travel was relatively slow and infrequent but would have played havoc with railway timetables and general modern long-distance communications. In the decades after 1880 governments around the world replaced local time with 24 international time zones, each covering 15 degrees of the earth’s longitude (with some exceptions for political boundaries).BOOK, Khomeini, Ruhollah, Islam and Revolution: Writing and Declarations of Imam Khomeini,archive.org/details/islamrevolutionw00khom, registration, Translated and Annotated by Hamid Algar, Mizan Press, Berkeley, CA, 1981, 172, {{Primary source inline|date=June 2021}}}}{{Primary source inline|date=June 2021}} and the banning of hijab by Reza Shah. In addition, he went from Qom to Tehran to listen to Ayatullah Hasan Mudarris, the leader of the opposition majority in Iran’s parliament during the 1920s. Khomeini became a marja’ in 1963, following the death of Grand Ayatollah Seyyed Husayn Borujerdi.Khomeini also valued the ideals of Islamists such as Sheikh Fazlollah Noori and Abol-Ghasem Kashani. Khomeini saw Fazlollah Nuri as a “heroic figure”, and his own objections to constitutionalism and a secular government derived from Nuri’s objections to the 1907 constitution.BOOK,books.google.com/books?id=AJ6i2-s7hoQC&q=khomeini+pepsi+roast+in+the+fires+of+hell&pg=PT107, Khomeini’s Ghost: Iran since 1979, Con Coughlin, 2009, Pan MacMillan, 978-0-230-74310-6, BOOK,books.google.com/books?id=TteJzQyDS5kC&q=khomeini+Shaikh+Fazlollah&pg=PA45, Globalisation, Religion & Development, 2011, International Journal of Politics & Economics, 45, 978-0-9568256-0-5, BOOK,books.google.com/books?id=OeqHjo6JkUsC&q=khomeini+Shaikh+Fazlollah&pg=PA159, A Social History of Iranian Cinema, Volume 3: The Islamicate Period, 1978–1984, Hamid Naficy, 2011, Duke University Press Books, 159, 978-0-8223-4877-1,

Early political activity

Background

File:Ruhollah Khomeini speaking to his followers against capitulation day 1964.jpg|thumb|Khomeini’s speech against the Shah in QomQomIn the late 19th century, the clergy had shown themselves to be a powerful political force in Iran initiating the Tobacco Protest against a concession to a foreign (British) interest.Fischer, Michael M.J., Iran, From Religious Dispute to Revolution, Michael M.J. Fischer, Harvard University Press, 1980 p. 31At the age of 61, Khomeini found the arena of leadership open following the deaths of Ayatollah Sayyed Husayn Borujerdi (1961), the leading, although quiescent, Shi’ah religious leader; and Ayatollah Abol-Ghasem Kashani (1962), an activist cleric. The clerical class had been on the defensive ever since the 1920s when the secular, anti-clerical modernizer Reza Shah Pahlavi rose to power. Reza’s son Mohammad Reza Shah instituted the White Revolution, which was a further challenge to the Ulama.BOOK,www.bookrags.com/biography/ruhollah-musavi-khomeini-ayatollah/, Encyclopedia of World Biography on Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini, Ayatollah, Bookrags.com, 19 March 2010,

Opposition to the White Revolution

In January 1963, the Shah announced the White Revolution, a six-point programme of reform calling for land reform, nationalization of the forests, the sale of state-owned enterprises to private interests, electoral changes to enfranchise women and allow non-Muslims to hold office, profit-sharing in industry, and a literacy campaign in the nation’s schools. Some of these initiatives were regarded as dangerous, especially by the powerful and privileged Shi’a ulama (religious scholars), and as Westernizing trends by traditionalists. Khomeini viewed them as “an attack on Islam”.weblink {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071224172550www.nmhschool.org/tthornton/mehistorydatabase/arabisraeliwars.htm#white%20revolution|date=24 December 2007}} Ayatollah Khomeini summoned a meeting of the other senior marjas of Qom and persuaded them to decree a boycott of the referendum on the White Revolution. On 22 January 1963, Khomeini issued a strongly worded declaration denouncing both the Shah and his reform plan. Two days later, the Shah took an armored column to Qom, and delivered a speech harshly attacking the ulama as a class.Khomeini continued his denunciation of the Shah’s programmes, issuing a manifesto that bore the signatures of eight other senior Shia religious scholars. Khomeini’s manifesto argued that the Shah had violated the constitution in various ways, he condemned the spread of moral corruption in the country, and accused the Shah of submission to the United States and Israel. He also decreed that the Nowruz celebrations for the Iranian year 1342 (which fell on 21 March 1963) be canceled as a sign of protest against government policies.File:June 3, 1963 speech by Ruhollah Khomeini- Feyziyeh School, Qom (5).jpg|thumb|Khomeini denouncing the Shah on ’Ashura’AshuraOn the afternoon of ‘Ashura (3 June 1963), Khomeini delivered a speech at the Feyziyeh madrasah drawing parallels between the Caliph Yazid, who is perceived as a ‘tyrant’ by Shias, and the Shah, denouncing the Shah as a “wretched, miserable man,” and warning him that if he did not change his ways the day would come when the people would offer up thanks for his departure from the country.On 5 June 1963 (15 of Khordad) at 3:00 am, two days after this public denunciation of the Shah, Khomeini was detained in Qom and transferred to Tehran.JOURNAL, Vakili Zad, Cyrus, Organization, Leadership and Revolution: Religiously-Oriented Opposition in the Iranian Revolution of 1978–1979, Conflict Quarterly, Spring 1990, 5–25,journals.hil.unb.ca/index.php/JCS/article/viewFile/14889/15958, 13 February 2013, Following this action, there were three days of major riots throughout Iran and the deaths of some 400 people. That event is now referred to as the Movement of 15 Khordad.Moin, Khomeini, (2000), p. 112. Khomeini remained under house arrest until August.“A History of Iran” by Michael AxworthyBOOK, Hiro, Dilip, Iran Under the Ayatollahs, 2013, Routledge, 978-0-415-66969-6, 48,

Opposition to capitulation

File:خمینی در نماز.JPG|thumb|upright|left|Khomeini in prayerprayerOn 26 October 1964, Khomeini denounced both the Shah and the United States. This time it was in response to the “capitulations” or diplomatic immunity granted by the Shah to American military personnel in Iran.Khomeini’s speech against capitalism, IRIB World Service.Shirley, Know Thine Enemy (1997), p. 207. What Khomeini labeled a capitulation law, was in fact a “status-of-forces agreement”, stipulating that U.S. servicemen facing criminal charges stemming from a deployment in Iran, were to be tried before a U.S. court martial, not an Iranian court. Khomeini was arrested in November 1964 and held for half a year. Upon his release, Khomeini was brought before Prime Minister Hassan Ali Mansur, who tried to convince him to apologize for his harsh rhetoric and going forward, cease his opposition to the Shah and his government. When Khomeini refused, Mansur slapped him in the face in a fit of rage. Two months later, Mansur was assassinated on his way to parliament. Four members of the Fadayan-e Islam, a Shia militia sympathetic to Khomeini, were later executed for the murder.MAGAZINE,content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,920508-1,00.html, IRAN: The Unknown Ayatullah Khomeini, 16 July 1979, Time, 16 December 2019, en-US, 0040-781X, {{clear}}

Life in exile

{{Further|Iranian Revolution#1970s: Pre-revolutionary conditions and events inside Iran|Ruhollah Khomeini’s life in exile}}File:خمینی در ترکیه.JPG|thumb|Khomeini in exile at BursaBursaKhomeini spent more than 14 years in exile, mostly in the holy Iraqi city of Najaf. Initially, he was sent to Turkey on 4 November 1964 where he stayed in Bursa in the home of Colonel Ali Cetiner of the Turkish Military Intelligence.NEWS, Sciolino, Elaine,query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E06E0D9153EF934A1575BC0A9669C8B63&sec=&pagewanted=all, nyt.com The People’s Shah, The New York Times, 27 August 2000, 19 March 2010, In October 1965, after less than a year, he was allowed to move to Najaf, Iraq, where he stayed until 1978, when he was expelledBOOK, Fisk, Robert, The great war for civilisation: the conquest of the Middle East, 2005, Vintage Books, New York, 1-4000-7517-3, 162, by then-Vice President Saddam Hussein. By this time discontent with the Shah was becoming intense and Khomeini visited Neauphle-le-Château, a suburb of Paris, France, on a tourist visa on 6 October 1978.According to Alexandre de Marenches, chief of External Documentation and Counter-Espionage Service (now known as the DGSE), the Shah did not ask France to expel Khomeini for fear that the cleric should move to Syria or Libya. (source: Christine Ockrent et Alexandre de Marenches, Dans le secret des princes, Stock, 1986, {{ISBN|2-234-01879-X}}, p. 254) [Donate book to Archive.org]Some sources report that president Valéry Giscard d’Estaing sent Michel Poniatowski to Tehran to propose to the Shah the elimination of Khomeini. (source: Christine Ockrent et Alexandre de Marenches, Dans le secret des princes, Stock, 1986, {{ISBN|2-234-01879-X}}, p. 156, Ms Ockrent to Mr de Marenches: “[...] for instance, the mission of Mr Poniatowski to Tehran to propose to the Shah to eliminate Khomeini, then a refugee in France”.) [Donate book to Archive.org]File:Khomeini’s House in Iraq-Najaf Ashraf by Samenp.jpg|thumb|150px|The Entrance of Khomeini’s House in Najaf, IraqIraqBy the late 1960s, Khomeini was a marja-e taqlid (model for imitation) for “hundreds of thousands” of Shia, one of six or so models in the Shia world.Mottahedeh, Roy, The Mantle of the Prophet: Religion and Politics in Iran, One World, Oxford, 1985, 2000, p.246 While in the 1940s Khomeini accepted the idea of a limited monarchy under the Persian Constitution of 1906 – as evidenced by his book Kashf al-Asrar – by the 1970s he had rejected the idea. In early 1970, Khomeini gave a series of lectures in Najaf on Islamic government, later published as a book titled variously Islamic Government or (Islamic Government: Governance of the Jurist) (Hokumat-e Islami: Velayat-e faqih). This principle, though not known to the wider public before the revolution,Abrahamian, Iran, (1982) p. 478–9Hamid Algar, “Development of the Concept of velayat-i faqih since the Islamic Revolution in Iran”, paper presented at London Conference on vilayat al-faqih, in June 1988, quoted in “The Rule of the Religious Jurist in Iran” by Abdulaziz Sachedina, p. 133 in Iran at the Crossroads, edited by John Esposito and R. K. Ramazani was appended to the new Iranian constitution after the revolution.WEB, NYU Law: A Guide to the Legal System of the Islamic Republic of Iran,www.nyulawglobal.org/globalex/iran.htm, dead,www.nyulawglobal.org/globalex/Iran.htm," title="web.archive.org/web/20120107082546www.nyulawglobal.org/globalex/Iran.htm,">web.archive.org/web/20120107082546www.nyulawglobal.org/globalex/Iran.htm, 7 January 2012, 16 December 2011, Nyulawglobal.org, Moin, Khomeini (2000), p. 218

Velayat-e faqih

This was his best known and most influential work, and laid out his ideas on governance (at that time):

• That the laws of society should be made up only of the laws of God (Sharia), which are sufficient because they cover “all human affairs” and “provide instruction and establish norms” for every “topic” in “human life.”Islam and Revolution (1981), pp. 29–30.
• Since Shariah, or Islamic law, is the proper law, those holding government posts should have knowledge of Sharia. Since Islamic jurists or faqih have studied and are the most knowledgeable in Sharia, the country’s ruler should be a faqih who “surpasses all others in knowledge” of Islamic law and justice,Islam and Revolution (1981), p. 59. (known as a marja’), as well as having intelligence and administrative ability. Rule by monarchs and/or assemblies of “those claiming to be representatives of the majority of the people” (i.e. elected parliaments and legislatures) has been proclaimed “wrong” by Islam.Islam and Revolution, (1981), pp. 31, 56.
• This system of clerical rule is necessary to prevent injustice, corruption, oppression by the powerful over the poor and weak, innovation and deviation of Islam and Sharia law; and also to destroy anti-Islamic influence and conspiracies by non-Muslim foreign powers.Islam and Revolution (1981), p. 54.

(File:Roollah-khomeini.jpg|thumb|Khomeini in the 1970s)

Pre-revolutionary political activity

A modified form of this wilayat al-faqih system was adopted after Khomeini and his followers took power, and Khomeini was the Islamic Republic’s first “Guardian” or “Supreme Leader”. In the meantime, however, Khomeini talked only about “Islamic Government”, never spelling out what exactly that meant. His network may have been learning about the necessity of rule by Jurists, but “in his interview, speeches, messages and fatvas during this period, there is not a single reference to velayat-e faqih.“JOURNAL,www.academia.edu/7644699, The Constitution of Iran, Schirazi, Asghar, Digest of Middle East Studies, Tauris, 1997, 24, Khomenei was careful not to publicize his ideas for clerical rule outside of his Islamic network of opposition to the Shah and so not frighten away the secular middle class from his movement.Kepel, Jihad, 2092, p.111 His movement emphasized populism, talking about fighting for the mustazafin, a Quranic term for the oppressed or deprived, that in this context came to mean “just about everyone in Iran except the shah and the imperial court”.In Iran, a number of missteps by the Shah including his repression of opponents began to build opposition to his regime.File:Imam in Paris.jpg|thumb|right|Ayatollah Khomeini in front of his house at Neauphle-le-ChateauNeauphle-le-ChateauCassette copies of his lectures fiercely denouncing the Shah as (for example) “the Jewish agent, the American serpent whose head must be smashed with a stone”,Khomeini on a cassette tape [source: Gozideh Payam-ha Imam Khomeini (Selections of Imam Khomeini’s Messages), Tehran, 1979, (Taheri, The Spirit of Allah, (1985), p.193) became common items in the markets of Iran,Parviz Sabeti, head of SAVAK’s ‘anti-subversion unit’, believed the number of cassettes “exceeded 100,000.” (Taheri, The Spirit of Allah, (1985), p.193) helping to demythologize the power and dignity of the Shah and his reign. As Iran became more polarized and opposition more radical, Khomeini “was able to mobilize the entire network of mosques in Iran”, along with their pious faithful, regular gatherings, hitherto skeptical Mullah leaders, and supported by “over 20,000 properties and buildings throughout Iran“—a political resource the secular middle class and Shiite socialists could not hope to compete with. Aware of the importance of broadening his base, Khomeini reached out to Islamic reformist and secular enemies of the Shah, groups that were suppressed after he took and consolidated power.(File:عکسی از خمینی.JPG|thumb|Khomeini in 1978)After the 1977 death of Ali Shariati (an Islamic reformist and political revolutionary author/academic/philosopher who greatly assisted the Islamic revival among young educated Iranians), Khomeini became the most influential leader of the opposition to the Shah. Adding to his mystique was the circulation among Iranians in the 1970s of an old Shia saying attributed to the Imam Musa al-Kadhem. Prior to his death in 799, al-Kadhem was said to have prophesied that “A man will come out from Qom and he will summon people to the right path”.Mackay, Iranians (1996), p. 277; source: Quoted in Fouad Ajami, The Vanished Imam: Musa al Sadr and the Shia of Lebanon (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1986), p. 25 In late 1978, a rumour swept the country that Khomeini’s face could be seen in the full moon. Millions of people were said to have seen it and the event was celebrated in thousands of mosques.Taheri, The Spirit of Allah, p. 238see also Gölz, “Khomeini’s Face is in the Moon: Limitations of Sacredness and the Origins of Sovereignty.”, In Sakralität und Heldentum. Edited by Felix Heinzer, Jörn Leonhard and von den Hoff, Ralf, 229–44. Helden – Heroisierungen – Heroismen 6. Würzburg: Ergon, 2017, p. 229-244. The phenomenon was thought to demonstrate that by late 1978 he was increasingly regarded as a messianic figure in Iran, and perceived by many as the spiritual as well as political leader of the revolt.Gölz, “Khomeini’s Face is in the Moon: Limitations of Sacredness and the Origins of Sovereignty.”, In Sakralität und Heldentum. Edited by Felix Heinzer, Jörn Leonhard and von den Hoff, Ralf, 229–44. Helden – Heroisierungen – Heroismen 6. Würzburg: Ergon, 2017, p. 229.As protests grew, so did his profile and importance. Although several thousand kilometers away from Iran in Paris, Khomeini set the course of the revolution, urging Iranians not to compromise and ordering work stoppages against the regime.Harney, The Priest (1998), p.? During the last few months of his exile, Khomeini received a constant stream of reporters, supporters, and notables, eager to hear the spiritual leader of the revolution.Moin, Khomeini, (2000), p. 203While in exile, Khomeini developed what historian Ervand Abrahamian described as a “populist clerical version of Shii Islam”. Khomeini modified previous Shii interpretations of Islam in a number of ways that included aggressive approaches to espousing the general interests of the mostazafin, forcefully arguing that the clergy’s sacred duty was to take over the state so that it could implement shari’a, and exhorting followers to protest.BOOK, Ervand, Abrahamian, Radical Islam: The Iranian Mojahedin, I.B. Tauris, 1989, 1-85043-077-2, 22, Despite their ideological differences, Khomeini also allied with the People’s Mujahedin of Iran during the early 1970s and started funding their armed operations against the Shah.BOOK, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard: The Threat That Grows While America Sleeps, 27–28, Potomac Books, Inc, 2012, Steven O’Hern, 978-1-59797-701-2,

Khomeini’s contact with the US

{{Further|Jimmy Carter’s engagement with Ruhollah Khomeini}}According to the BBC, Khomeini’s contact with the US “is part of a trove of newly declassified US government documents—diplomatic cables, policy memos, meeting records”. The documents suggest that the Carter administration helped Khomeini return to Iran by preventing the Iranian army from launching a military coup, and that Khomeini told an American in France to convey a message to Washington that “There should be no fear about oil. It is not true that we wouldn’t sell to the US.“NEWS, Two Weeks in January: America’s secret engagement with Khomeini,www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-36431160, BBC News, 3 June 2016, Fattahi, Kambiz, The Guardian wrote that it “did not have access to the newly declassified documents and was not able to independently verify them,” however it did confirm Khomeini’s contact with the Kennedy administration and claims of support for US interest in Iran particularly oil through a CIA analysis report titled “Islam in Iran”.NEWS,www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jun/10/ayatollah-khomeini-jimmy-carter-administration-iran-revolution, US had extensive contact with Ayatollah Khomeini before Iran revolution, The Guardian, According to a 1980 CIA study, “in November 1963 Ayatollah Khomeini sent a message to the United States Government through [Tehran University professor] Haj Mirza Khalil Kamarei”, where he expressed “that he was not opposed to American interests in Iran”, “on the contrary, he thought the American presence was necessary as a counterbalance to Soviet and possibly British influence”.According to the BBC, “these document show that in his long quest for power, he [Khomeini] was tactically flexible; he played the moderate even pro-American card to take control but once change had come he put in place an anti-America legacy that would last for decades.“NEWS,www.bbc.com/news/av/world-us-canada-36438556/khomeini-s-secret-dialogue-with-the-great-satan, Khomeini’s secret dialogue with ‘The Great Satan’, BBC, Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei denied the report, and described the documents as “fabricated”. Other Iranian politicians including Ebrahim Yazdi (Khomeini’s spokesman and adviser at the time of the revolution) have denounced the documents and the BBC’s report.

Supreme Leader of Iran

Return to Iran

File:Imam Khomeini in Mehrabad.jpg|thumb|upright|Arrival of Khomeini on 1 February 1979 escorted by an Air FranceAir FranceKhomeini was not allowed to return to Iran during the Shah’s reign (as he had been in exile). On 16 January 1979, the Shah left the country for medical treatment (ostensibly “on vacation“), never to return.NEWS, On This Day, 1 February. 1979: Exiled Ayatollah Khomeini returns to Iran, BBC News,news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/february/1/newsid_2521000/2521003.stm, Two weeks later, on Thursday, 1 February 1979, Khomeini returned in triumph to Iran, welcomed by a joyous crowd estimated (by the BBC) to be of up to five million people. On his chartered Air France flight back to Tehran, he was accompanied by 120 journalists,My century BBCJOURNAL, Jerome, Carole, Back to the Veil, New Internationalist, 1 September 1980, 91,newint.org/features/1980/09/01/women/, 3 August 2013, including three women. One of the journalists, Peter Jennings, asked: “Ayatollah, would you be so kind as to tell us how you feel about being back in Iran?” Khomeini answered via his aide Sadegh Ghotbzadeh: ”Hichi” (Nothing).WEB, 12 Bahman: Khomeini Returns,www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/tehranbureau/2009/02/12-bahman-khomeini-returns.html, Frontline, PBS, 4 August 2013, 1 February 2009, This statement—much discussed at the timeBOOK,books.google.com/books?id=KCvlLAJtVUgC&q=peter+jennings+khomeini+return+from+exile&pg=PA55, Unpaved Road: An Iranian Girl’s Real Life Story of Struggle, Deception and Breaking the Rules, Niki Baraha, iUniverse, 2011, 978-1-4502-9182-8, and since—was considered by some reflective of his mystical beliefs and non-attachment to ego.BOOK, Axworthy, Michael, Iran: Empire of the Mind: A History from Zoroaster to the Present Day, 2007, Penguin, London, 978-0-14-103629-8, 265–6, Others considered it a warning to Iranians who hoped he would be a “mainstream nationalist leader” that they were in for disappointment.Moin, Khomeini, (2001), p. 199 To others, it was a reflection of Khomeini’s disinterest in the desires, beliefs, or the needs of the Iranian populace.BOOK, Elaine, Sciolino, Persian Mirrors: The Elusive Face of Iran,books.google.com/books?id=T7QYk48OPqYC&pg=PA55, 30 July 2013, 2001, Simon and Schuster, 978-0-7432-1779-8, 55, He was Time magazine’s Man of the Year in 1979 for his international influence.NEWS, 7 January 1980, TIME Person of the Year 1979: Ayatullah Khomeini, Time (magazine), Time,www.time.com/time/subscriber/personoftheyear/archive/stories/1979.html, dead, 22 November 2008,www.time.com/time/subscriber/personoftheyear/archive/stories/1979.html," title="web.archive.org/web/20061208010554www.time.com/time/subscriber/personoftheyear/archive/stories/1979.html,">web.archive.org/web/20061208010554www.time.com/time/subscriber/personoftheyear/archive/stories/1979.html, 8 December 2006, File:Mehdi Bazargan Ayatollah Khomeini.jpg|thumb|left|Khomeini and the interim prime minister, Mehdi BazarganMehdi Bazargan

Revolution

Khomeini adamantly opposed the provisional government of Shapour Bakhtiar, promising “I shall kick their teeth in. I appoint the government.“Taheri, The Spirit of Allah, (1985), p. 241WEB,www.aviny.com/News/82/11/12/03.aspx,www.aviny.com/News/82/11/12/03.aspx," title="web.archive.org/web/20060218015731www.aviny.com/News/82/11/12/03.aspx,">web.archive.org/web/20060218015731www.aviny.com/News/82/11/12/03.aspx, dead, 18 February 2006, امروز در آینه تاریخ, Aviny, 19 March 2010, On 11 February (Bahman 22), Khomeini appointed his own competing interim prime minister, Mehdi Bazargan, demanding, “since I have appointed him, he must be obeyed.” It was “God’s government,” he warned, disobedience against him or Bazargan was considered a “revolt against God,“Moin Khomeini, (2000), p. 204 and “revolt against God is Blasphemy”.BOOK,books.google.com/books?id=aGKnAgAAQBAJ&dq=%E2%80%98This+will+be+a+government+based+on+the+Sharia.&pg=PA9, Khomeini’s Ghost: Iran since 1979, Con Coughlin, 2009, Pan MacMillan, 978-0-230-74310-6, “With Khomeini’s return, both Iran’s liberal intelligentsia and the public at large looked forward to a new era where freedom of expression was enshrined in law, and the nation’s vast oil wealth was used for the benefit of the entire nation, not only an unelected elite. Khomeini himself had promised as much when, writing from exile, he had vowed to set the people free from the cruel despotism that blighted their lives”, “Khomeini had developed his unorthodox personal philosophy during his time as a student and teacher at the ancient holy cities of Qom and Najaf, where he was drawn to an obscure interpretation of Shia Islam, which held that all power should ultimately derive from the will of a divinely appointed religious leader.”, “Now that he was safely back in Tehran as the undisputed figurehead of the Iranian revolution, Khomeini was determined to implement the radical agenda he had championed for more than twenty years. It was of no concern to him that his programme bore little relation to the wishes of the majority of the Iranian people, and was firmly at odds with the desire of most Iranians for the establishment of a constitutional democracy to replace the Sha’s highly dictatorial system of government.” “He worried that the brave new world of Islamic rule that he intended for Iran might become compromised by the participation of Leftists, Nationalists and the various other anti-Shah groups who, for the moment at least, blindly supported Khomeini’s leadership without fully comprehending what he stood for. The enthusiasm among the Iranian masses for opposing the Shah and his supporters was so infectious that few people bothered to consider the implications of Khomeini’s controversial agenda, which the ayatollah, it should be said, had taken great care to conceal from the ordinary populace.“”’This is not going to be an ordinary government,’ Khomeini told Revolutionary Council members. ‘This will be a government based on the Sharia. Opposing this government means opposing the Sharia of Islam … Revolt against God’s government is a revolt against God, and revolt against God is Blasphemy’. The formation of the Revolutionary Guards would mark the start of one of the bloodiest periods in the recent history of the Middle East as Islamic zealots launched a bloody purge to rid the country of its middle-class professionals who, whilst welcoming the overthrow of the monarchy, had little enthusiasm for religious bigotry.”, As Khomeini’s movement gained momentum, soldiers began to defect to his side and Khomeini declared ill fortune on troops who did not surrender.Moin, Khomeini, (2000), pp. 205–206 On 11 February, as revolt spread and armories were taken over, the military declared neutrality and the Bakhtiar regime collapsed.Moin, Khomeini, (2000), p. 206 On 30 and 31 March 1979, a referendum to replace the monarchy with an Islamic Republic—with the question: “should the monarchy be abolished in favour of an Islamic Government?“—passed with 98% voting in favour of the replacement.Encyclopædia Britannica.

Beginning of the consolidation of power

While in Paris, Khomeini had “promised a democratic political system” for Iran, but once in power, he advocated for the creation of theocracyNEWS,news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/269799.stm, World: Middle East Analysis: The forces for change, BBC News, 2 February 1999, 19 March 2010, based on the Velayat-e faqih. Thus began the process of suppression of groups inside his broad coalition but outside his network, that had placed their hopes in Khomeini but whose support was no longer needed.BOOK, Jihad : the Trail of Political Islam, Gilles Kepel, Belknap Harvard University Press, 2002, 111–118, This led to the purge or replacement of many secular politicians in Iran, with Khomeini and his close associates taking the following steps: Establishing Islamic Revolutionary courts; replacing the previous military and police force; placing Iran’s top theologians and Islamic intellectuals in charge of writing a theocratic constitutions, with a central role for Velayat-e faqih; creating the Islamic Republic Party (IRP) through Khomeini’s Motjaheds with the aim of establishing a theocratic government and tearing down any secular opposition; replacing all secular laws with Islamic laws; neutralising or punishing top theologians (“Khomeini’s competitors in the religious hierarchy“), whose ideas conflicted with Khomeini’s, including Mohammad Kazem Shariatmadari, Hassan Tabatabaei Qomi, and Hossein Ali Montazeri.BOOK, Understanding Angry Groups: Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Their Motivations and Effects on Society, 342–353, Praeger, 2017, Susan C. Cloninger., 978-1-4408-3350-2, Some newspapers were closed, and those protesting the closings were attacked.Moin Khomeini, (2000), p.219 Opposition groups such as the National Democratic Front and Muslim People’s Republican Party were attacked and finally banned.Bakhash, Shaul, The Reign of the Ayatollahs, p.68–69

Islamic constitution

As part of the pivot from guide of a broad political movement to strict clerical ruler, Khomeini’s first expressed approval of the provisional constitution for the Islamic Republic that had no post of supreme Islamic clerical ruler.Schirazi, Asghar, The Constitution of Iran, (Tauris, 1997) pp. 22–23. But after his supporters gained an overwhelming majority of the seats in the body making final changes in the draft (the Assembly of Experts),Schirazi, Constitution of Iran Tauris, 1997 p.22–23 they rewrote the proposed constitution to include an Islamic jurist Supreme Leader of the country, and a more powerful Council of Guardians to veto un-Islamic legislation and screen candidates for office, disqualifying those found un-Islamic.The Supreme Leader followed closely but not completely Khomeini ideas in his 1970 book (Islamic Government: Governance of the Jurist|Hokumat-e Islami: Velayat-e faqih) (Islamic Government: Governance of the Jurist) (mentioned above), that had been distributed to his supporters and kept from the public. (File:خمینی Ùˆ مردم.JPG|thumb|right|Khomeini with people)

Becoming Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic

In November 1979, the new constitution of the Islamic Republic was adopted by national referendum.WEB,www.nyulawglobal.org/globalex/iran.htm, Omar Sial: A Guide to the Legal System of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Nyulawglobal.org, 19 March 2010,www.nyulawglobal.org/globalex/Iran.htm," title="web.archive.org/web/20120107082546www.nyulawglobal.org/globalex/Iran.htm,">web.archive.org/web/20120107082546www.nyulawglobal.org/globalex/Iran.htm, 7 January 2012, dead, WEB,www.worldpolicy.org/blog/2010/10/12/detailed-analysis-iran%E2%80%99s-constitution, A Detailed Analysis of Iran’s Constitution, by Richard Horowitz, World Policy Institute Blog, 12 October 2010, World Policy, 12 October 2010,www.worldpolicy.org/blog/2010/10/12/detailed-analysis-iran%E2%80%99s-constitution," title="web.archive.org/web/20101230172025www.worldpolicy.org/blog/2010/10/12/detailed-analysis-iran%E2%80%99s-constitution,">web.archive.org/web/20101230172025www.worldpolicy.org/blog/2010/10/12/detailed-analysis-iran%E2%80%99s-constitution, 30 December 2010, dead, Khomeini himself became instituted as the Supreme Leader (Guardian Jurist), and officially became known as the “Leader of the Revolution.” On 4 February 1980, Abolhassan Banisadr was elected as the first president of Iran. Critics complain that Khomeini had gone back on his wordWEB, Swenson Elmer,gemsofislamism.tripod.com/khomeini_promises_kept.html, Khomeini’s Reversals of Promises (although not an academic research, this article contains a handful of reliable references), tripod.com, to advise, rather than rule the country.WEB,www.iranian.com/Opinion/2003/August/Khomeini/, The Iranian: Khomeini before & after revolution, iranian.com, 16 October 2008,

Hostage crisis

Before the constitution was approved, on 22 October 1979, the United States admitted the exiled and ailing Shah into the country for cancer treatment. In Iran, there was an immediate outcry, with both Khomeini and leftist groups demanding the Shah’s return to Iran for trial and execution.On 4 November, a group of Iranian college students calling themselves the Muslim Student Followers of the Imam’s Line, took control of the American Embassy in Tehran, holding 52 embassy staff hostage for 444 days – an event known as the Iran hostage crisis.NEWS, 7 January 1980, The Mystic Who Lit The Fires of Hatred. 7 January 1980, Time (magazine), Time,www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,923854,00.html, dead, 19 March 2010,www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,923854,00.html," title="web.archive.org/web/20071023031644www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,923854,00.html,">web.archive.org/web/20071023031644www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,923854,00.html, 23 October 2007, In the United States, the hostage-taking was seen as a flagrant violation of international law and aroused intense anger and anti-Iranian sentiment.WEB,www.newstatesman.com/asia/2008/09/iran-ahmadinejad-government, “Inside Iran”, Maziar Bahari, Published 11 September 2008, Newstatesman.com, 19 March 2010, Bowden, Mark, Guests of the Ayatollah, Atlantic Monthly Press, (2006)In Iran, the takeover was immensely popular and earned the support of Khomeini under the slogan “America can’t do a damn thing against us.”Reading Lolita in Tehran: a Memoir in Books by Azar Nafisi, p.105 The seizure of the embassy of a country he called the “Great Satan“BOOK, The Iran Primer: Power, Politics, and U.S. Policy, United States Institute of Peace, Wright, Robin B., 186, Iran and Russia, Katz, Mark N., 2010,books.google.com/books?id=MDgwl59s_hUC&pg=PA186, 978-1-60127-084-9, helped to advance the cause of theocratic government and outflank politicians and groups who emphasized stability and normalized relations with other countries. Khomeini is reported to have told his president: “This action has many benefits ... this has united our people. Our opponents do not dare act against us. We can put the constitution to the people’s vote without difficulty, and carry out presidential and parliamentary elections.“Moin, Khomeini, (2000), p.228 The new constitution was successfully passed by referendum a month after the hostage crisis began.The crisis had the effect of splitting of the opposition into two groups – radicals supporting the hostage taking, and the moderates opposing it.Example of anti-theocratic support for the hostage crisis in Nafisi, Azar, Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books, Random House, 2003, p.105–106, 112 On 23 February 1980, Khomeini proclaimed Iran’s Majlis would decide the fate of the American embassy hostages, and demanded that the United States hand over the Shah for trial in Iran for crimes against the nation. Although the Shah died a few months later, during the summer, the crisis continued. In Iran, supporters of Khomeini named the embassy a “Den of Espionage”, publicizing details regarding armaments, espionage equipment and many volumes of official and classified documents which they found there.

Relationship with Islamic and non-aligned countries

File:Carpet given to Id Kah mosque by Ayatollah Khomeini.jpg|thumb|Carpet given to Khotan mosque by Ayatollah KhomeiniKhomeiniKhomeini believed in Muslim unity and solidarity and the export of his revolution throughout the world. He believed Shia and (the significantly more numerous) Sunni Muslims should be “united and stand firmly against Western and arrogant powers.“WEB, Imam Emphasized Unity Between Shia and Sunni: Ayatollah Mousawi Jazayeri,en.imam-khomeini.ir/en/n6322/News/Imam_Emphasized_Unity_Between_Shia_and_Sunni_Ayatollah_Mousawi_Jazayeri, Imam Khomeini, 3 December 2015, “Establishing the Islamic state world-wide belong to the great goals of the revolution.“(Resalat, 25 March 1988) (quoted on p.69, The Constitution of Iran by Asghar Schirazi, Tauris, 1997 He declared the birth week of Muhammad (the week between 12th to 17th of Rabi’ al-awwal) as the Unity week. Then he declared the last Friday of Ramadan as Quds Day in 1981.WEB,www.opendemocracy.net/article/iran-s-unfinished-crisis, Iran’s unfinished crisis Nazenin Ansari, 16–09–2009, Opendemocracy.net, 18 September 2009, 19 March 2010,web.archive.org/web/20141110165615/https://www.opendemocracy.net/article/iran-s-unfinished-crisis, 10 November 2014, dead,

Iran–Iraq War

File:KhomeiniRajai32.jpg|thumb|Ruhollah Khomeini with Ahmad Khomeini and Mohammad-Ali RajaiMohammad-Ali RajaiShortly after assuming power, Khomeini began calling for Islamic revolutions across the Muslim world, including Iran’s Arab neighbor Iraq,1980 April 8 – Broadcast call by Khomeini for the pious of Iraq to overthrow Saddam Hussein and his regime. Al-Dawa al-Islamiya party in Iraqi is the hoped for catalyst to start rebellion. From: Mackey, The Iranians, (1996), p.317 the one large state besides Iran with a Shia majority population. At the same time Saddam Hussein, Iraq’s secular Arab nationalist Ba’athist leader, was eager to take advantage of Iran’s weakened military and (what he assumed was) revolutionary chaos, and in particular to occupy Iran’s adjacent oil-rich province of Khuzestan, and to undermine Iranian Islamic revolutionary attempts to incite the Shi’a majority of his country.In September 1980, Iraq launched a full-scale invasion of Iran, beginning the Iran–Iraq War (September 1980 – August 1988). A combination of fierce resistance by Iranians and military incompetence by Iraqi forces soon stalled the Iraqi advance and, despite Saddam’s internationally condemned use of poison gas, Iran had by early 1982 regained almost all of the territory lost to the invasion. The invasion rallied Iranians behind the new regime, enhancing Khomeini’s stature and allowing him to consolidate and stabilize his leadership. After this reversal, Khomeini refused an Iraqi offer of a truce, instead demanding reparations and the toppling of Saddam Hussein from power.Wright, In the Name of God (1989), p.126NEWS, Smith, William E.,www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,950688,00.html,www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,950688,00.html," title="web.archive.org/web/20071015110904www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,950688,00.html,">web.archive.org/web/20071015110904www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,950688,00.html, dead, 15 October 2007, The $150 Billion Question, Time, 14 June 1982, 19 March 2010, In 1982, there was an attempted military coup against Khomeini.WEB,www.nytimes.com/1982/06/28/world/iran-says-an-attempted-coup-by-army-group-was-foiled.html, Iran Says an Attempted Coup by Army Group Was Foiled, 28 June 1982, The New York Times, Although Iran’s population and economy were three times the size of Iraq’s, the latter was aided by neighboring Persian Gulf Arab states, as well as the Soviet Bloc and Western countries. The Persian Gulf Arabs and the West wanted to be sure the Islamic revolution did not spread across the Persian Gulf, while the Soviet Union was concerned about the potential threat posed to its rule in central Asia to the north. However, Iran had large amounts of ammunition provided by the United States of America during the Shah’s era and the United States illegally smuggled arms to Iran during the 1980s despite Khomeini’s anti-Western policy (see Iran–Contra affair).During war Iranians used human wave attacks (people walking to certain death including child soldiers)BOOK,books.google.com/books?id=L_RqWaBZqLcC&q=would+be+used+in+human%E2%80%94wave+attacks,+used+to+walk+over+minefields,+giving+their+lives+for+Khomeini,+brainwashed+into+thinking+that+it+was+sweeter+to+die,&pg=PA205, The Cypress Tree, Kamin, Mohammadi, 2012, A&C Black, Google Books, 978-1-4088-3429-9, BOOK,books.google.com/books?id=iIy5CgAAQBAJ&q=khomeini+human+wave+attack+promise+walking+to+certain+death&pg=PT872, Understanding the Volatile and Dangerous Middle East: A Comprehensive Analysis, Steven, Carol, 2015, iUniverse, Google Books, 978-1-4917-6658-3, on Iraq, with his promise that they would automatically go to paradise—al Janna— if they died in battle, and his pursuit of victory in the Iran–Iraq War that ultimately proved futile.WEB, Shane Harris, Matthew M. AID, Exclusive: CIA Files Prove America Helped Saddam as He Gassed Iran,foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/08/25/secret_cia_files_prove_america_helped_saddam_as_he_gassed_iran, Foreign Policy, 27 August 2013, ENCYCLOPEDIA,www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/316812/Ruhollah-Khomeini, Ruhollah Khomeini, Encyclopedia Britannica, 30 May 2023, By March 1984, two million of Iran’s most educated citizens had left the country.WEB,www.journalofdemocracy.org/articles/iranians-turn-away-from-the-islamic-republic/, Iranians Turn Away from the Islamic Republic, In July 1988, Khomeini, in his words, “drank the cup of poison” and accepted a truce mediated by the United Nations. Despite the high cost of the war – 450,000 to 950,000 Iranian casualties and US$300 billionMoin, Khomeini (2000), (estimate by Iranian officials) p. 252 – Khomeini insisted that extending the war into Iraq in an attempt to overthrow Saddam had not been a mistake. In a “Letter to Clergy” he wrote: “... we do not repent, nor are we sorry for even a single moment for our performance during the war. Have we forgotten that we fought to fulfill our religious duty and that the result is a marginal issue?“Moin, Khomeini (2000), p. 285

Fatwa against chemical weapons

In an interview with Gareth Porter, Mohsen Rafighdoost, the eight-year war time minister of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, disclosed how Khomeini had opposed his proposal for beginning work on both nuclear and chemical weapons by a fatwa which had never been made public in details of when and how it was issued.NEWS, Porter, Gareth, Gareth Porter, When the Ayatollah Said No to Nukes,foreignpolicy.com/2014/10/16/when-the-ayatollah-said-no-to-nukes/, 21 August 2015, Foreign Policy, 16 October 2014,

Rushdie fatwa

{{See also|The Satanic Verses controversy}}| width = 25%}}In early 1989, Khomeini issued a fatwa calling for the assassination of Salman Rushdie, an India-born British author.Marzorati, Gerald, “Salman Rushdie: Fiction’s Embattled Infidel”. Named Man of the Year in 1979 by American newsmagazine Time Rushdie’s book, The Satanic Verses, published in 1988, was alleged to commit blasphemy against Islam and Khomeini’s juristic ruling (fatwā) prescribed Rushdie’s assassination by any Muslim. The fatwā required not only Rushdie’s execution, but also the execution of “all those involved in the publication” of the book.BOOK, Woo, Richard, God Or Allah, Truth Or Bull?,books.google.com/books?id=Vlvo5oQHSCkC, 2011, Strategic Book Publishing, 978-1-60976-813-3, 10, Khomeini’s fatwā was condemned across the Western world by governments on the grounds that it violated the universal human rights of free speech and freedom of religion. The fatwā has also been attacked for violating the rules of fiqh by not allowing the accused an opportunity to defend himself, and because “even the most rigorous and extreme of the classical jurist only require a Muslim to kill anyone who insults the Prophet in his hearing and in his presence.“Bernard Lewis’s comment on Rushdie fatwa in The Crisis of Islam (2003), Bernard Lewis, pp. 141–142Though Rushdie publicly regretted “the distress that publication has occasioned to sincere followers of Islam”,NEWS,www.nytimes.com/books/99/04/18/specials/rushdie-regret.html, Rushdie regrets, The New York Times, 19 February 1989, 5 January 2013, the fatwa was not revoked.The fatwa was followed by a number of deaths, including the lethal stabbing of Hitoshi Igarashi, the Japanese translator of the book, in 1991. Rushdie himself and two other translators of the book survived murder attempts, the last – in Rushdie’s case – in August 2022. The controversy, and subsequent unrest associated with the fatwa has been linked to surges in sales for Rushdie’s work.WEB,www.nytimes.com/books/99/04/18/specials/rushdie-translator.html, Japanese Translator of Rushdie Book Found Slain, The New York Times, 16 October 2010, live,www.nytimes.com/books/99/04/18/specials/rushdie-translator.html," title="web.archive.org/web/20020602193856www.nytimes.com/books/99/04/18/specials/rushdie-translator.html,">web.archive.org/web/20020602193856www.nytimes.com/books/99/04/18/specials/rushdie-translator.html, 2 June 2002, , WEISMAN, Steven R. The New York Times, 13 July 1991.WEB,www.theguardian.com/books/2022/aug/23/uk-sales-of-the-satanic-verses-surge-after-rushdie-stabbing, UK sales of the Satanic Verses surge after Rushdie stabbing, TheGuardian.com, 23 August 2022,

Life under Khomeini

In a speech on 1 February 1979 delivered to a huge crowd after returning to Iran from exile, Khomeini made a variety of promises to Iranians for his coming Islamic regime: a popularly elected government that would represent the people of Iran and with which the clergy would not interfere. He promised that “no one should remain homeless in this country,” and that Iranians would have free telephone, heating, electricity, bus services and free oil at their doorstep.Moin, Baqer, Khomeini, (2000), p. 258)Under Khomeini’s rule, sharia (Islamic law) was introduced, with the Islamic dress code enforced for both men and women by Islamic Revolutionary Guards and other Islamic groups.WEB,www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-47032829, Iranian women - before and after the Islamic Revolution, BBC News, 8 February 2019, 12 February 2023, Women were required to cover their hair, and men were forbidden to wear shorts. Alcoholic drinks, most Western movies, and the practice of men and women swimming or sunbathing together were banned.“Khomeini bans broadcast music”, The New York Times, 24 July 1979 The Iranian educational curriculum was Islamized at all levels with the Islamic Cultural Revolution; the “Committee for Islamization of Universities“WEB,www.iranculture.org/en/about/tarikh.php, Secretariat of the Supreme Council of the Cultural Revolution. Brief history of the SCCR, Iranculture.org, 19 March 2010,www.iranculture.org/en/about/tarikh.php," title="web.archive.org/web/20071230042759www.iranculture.org/en/about/tarikh.php,">web.archive.org/web/20071230042759www.iranculture.org/en/about/tarikh.php, 30 December 2007, carried this out thoroughly. The broadcasting of any music other than martial or religious on Iranian radio and television was banned by Khomeini in July 1979. The ban lasted 10 years (approximately the rest of his life).The ban started with the revolution and lasted 10 years. Hossein Shahidi. ‘BBC Persian Service 60 years on.’ The Iranian. 24 September 2001According to Janet Afari, “the newly established regime of Ayatollah Khomeini moved quickly to repress feminists, ethnic and religious minorities, liberals, and leftists – all in the name of Islam.“BOOK, Janet, Afari, Foucault and the Iranian Revolution: Gender and the Seductions of Islamism, University of Chicago Press, 2010, 978-0-226-00786-1, 163,

Women and child rights

Khomeini took on extensive and proactive support of the female populace during the ousting of the Shah and his subsequent homecoming, advocating for mainstreaming of women into all spheres of life and even hypothesizing about a woman head of state.BOOK,www.cambridge.org/core/books/critical-introduction-to-khomeini/khomeinis-legacy-on-womens-rights-and-roles-in-the-islamic-republic-of-iran/A31FB62AC60F41E697489D28D9FF3926, Khomeini’s Legacy on Women’s Rights and Roles in the Islamic Republic of Iran, 239–255, Osanloo, Arzoo, Arshin, Adib-Moghaddam, 2014, A Critical Introduction to Khomeini, en, 10.1017/cbo9780511998485.013, 26 October 2019, 978-0-511-99848-5, However, once he returned, his stances on women’s rights exhibited drastic changes. Khomeini revoked Iran’s 1967 divorce law, considering any divorce granted under this law to be invalid. Nevertheless, Khomeini supported women’s right to divorce as allowed by Islamic law.BOOK, Arshin Adib-Moghaddam, A Critical Introduction to Khomeini, His [Khomeini’s] position on divorce was much more in favor of women. Contrary to the majority of the clergy, Khomeini did not stigmatize divorce initiated by women. According to him: Although it is correct to say that Islam has granted men the right to divorce, but it has also given this right to women..., 186, Cambridge University Press, 2014, Khomeini reaffirmed the traditional position of rape in Islamic law in which rape by a spouse was not equivalent to rape or zina, declaring “Issue 2412- A woman who has entered into a permanent marriage should not go out of the house without her husband’s permission, and she should surrender herself to whatever pleasure he wants and not prevent him from getting close to her without a legitimate excuse. If she obeys the husband in these matters, it is obligatory on the husband to provide her food, clothes, house and other items mentioned in the books, and if he does not provide, he is indebted to the wife, whether he has the ability or not. Issue 2413- If a woman does not obey her husband in the matters mentioned in the previous issue, she is a sinner and has no right to food, clothing, housing, and co-sleeping, but her dowry is not lost. Issue 2414- A man has no right to force his wife to serve the house.”.BOOK, Khomeini, Ruhollah, رساله توضیح المسائل حضرت آیةالله العظمی امام خمینی قدس سره, Imam Khomeini (PBUH) Editing and Publishing Institute, 2024, 3-025-335-964-978, 2nd, Iran-Tehran, 2013–2014, 430–431, Persian, A treatise explaining the verdicts of Grand Ayatollah Imam Khomeini (Quds Sera), WEB, Mousavi Khomeini, Sayed Rohullah, the resale of Ayatollah Khomeini,www.leader.ir/fa/book/2?sn=544, 2412 Sentence, BOOK, Aghtaie, Nadia, Breaking the silence: rape law in Iran and controlling women’s sexuality, Breaking the silence, 2011, International Approaches to Rape, 121–146, Westmarland, Nicole, 1st, Bristol University Press, 10.2307/j.ctt9qgkd6.10, j.ctt9qgkd6.10, Gangoli, Geetanjali, BOOK, Khomeini, Ruhollah, A Clarification of Questions: An Unabridged Translation of Resaleh Towzih al-Masael, no pagination, 2019, 1984, yes, foreword by Michael M. J. Fischer and Mehdi Abedi, Routledge, 10.4324/9780429047114-1, 978-0-429-04711-4, 197985749, Borujerdi, J., A mere three weeks after assuming power, under the pretext of reversing the Shah’s affinity for westernization and backed by a vocal conservative section of Iranian society, he revoked the divorce law. Under Khomeini the minimum age of marriage was lowered to 15 for boys and 13 for girls; nevertheless, the average age of women at marriage continued to increase.Laws were passed that encouraged polygamy, made it impossible for women to divorce men, and treated adultery as the highest form of criminal offense.BOOK,books.google.com/books?id=aVp5AAAAQBAJ&q=Khoemini+lowered+the+marriage+age+for+females+from+eighteen+to+thriteen,+but+permitted+girls+as+young+as+nine,&pg=PT107, Price of Honor: Muslim Women Lift the Veil of Silence on the Islamic World, Goodwin, Jan, PLUME, 2002, 978-0-452-28377-0, BOOK, Encounters with Islam: On Religion, Politics and Modernity (Library of Modern Religion), Ruthven, Malise, I.B. Tauris, 2012, 978-1-78076-024-7, 166, Women were compelled to wear veils and the image of Western women was carefully reconstructed as a symbol of impiety. Morality and modesty were perceived as fundamental womanly traits that needed state protection, and concepts of individual gender rights were relegated to women’s social rights as ordained in Islam. Fatima was widely presented as the ideal emulatable woman.At the same time, amidst the religious orthodoxy, there was an active effort to rehabilitate women into employment. Female participation in healthcare, education and the workforce increased drastically during his regime.Reception among women of his regime has been mixed. Whilst a section were dismayed at the increasing Islamisation and concurrent degradation of women’s rights, others did notice more opportunities and mainstreaming of relatively religiously conservative women.

LGBTQ persecution

Shortly after his accession as supreme leader in February 1979, Khomeini imposed capital punishment on homosexuals. Between February and March, sixteen Iranians were executed due to offenses related to sexual violations.BOOK, Brian, Whitaker, Unspeakable Love: Gay and Lesbian Life in the Middle East, Saqi Books, 2011, 978-0-86356-483-3,books.google.com/books?id=e0YhBQAAQBAJ&q=Soon+after+coming+to+power+in+1979,+Ayatollah+Khomeini+established+the+death+penalty+for+homosexuality.+In+February+and+March+1979+there+were+16+executions+for+crimes+related+to+sexual+violatio&pg=PT44, Khomeini also created the “Revolutionary Tribunals”. According to historian Ervand Abrahamian, Khomeini encouraged the clerical courts to continue implementing their version of the Shari’a. As part of the campaign to “cleanse” the society,BOOK, Seliktar, Ofira, Failing the Crystal Ball Test, Greenwood Publishing Group, 978-0-275-96872-4,books.google.com/books?id=LzjKeAekZL8C&q=%22Revolutionary+Tribunals%22+Khomeini+after+the+revolution&pg=PA135, 2000, these courts executed over 100 drug addicts, prostitutes, homosexuals, rapists, and adulterers on the charge of “sowing corruption on earth.“BOOK, Ervand, Abrahamian, Radical Islam: The Iranian Mojahedin, I.B. Tauris, 1989, 978-1-85043-077-3, 53, According to author Arno Schmitt, “Khomeini asserted that ‘homosexuals’ had to be exterminated because they were parasites and corruptors of the nation by spreading the ‘stain of wickedness.’“BOOK, Arno, Schmid, Sexuality and Eroticism Among Males in Moslem Societies, Routledge, 1992, 978-0-918393-91-3, 185–186, In 1979, he had declared that the execution of homosexuals (as well as prostitutes and adulterers) was reasonable in a moral civilization in the same sense as cutting off decayed skin.BOOK, Faramerz, Dabhoiwala, The Origins of Sex: A History of the First Sexual Revolution, Oxford University Press, 2013, 978-0-19-989241-9, 364, Being transgender, however, was designated by Khomeini as a sickness that was able to be cured through gender-affirming surgery.NEWS,www.spiegel.de/international/world/the-gay-sons-of-allah-wave-of-homophobia-sweeps-the-muslim-world-a-647913-2.html, The Gay Sons of Allah: Wave of Homophobia Sweeps the Muslim World, Juliane von, Mittelstaedt, Daniel, Steinvorth, 17 September 2009, Spiegel Online, Since the mid-1980s, the Iranian government has legalized the practice of sex reassignment surgery (under medical approval) and the modification of pertinent legal documents to reflect the reassigned gender. In 1983, Khomeini passed a fatwa allowing gender reassignment operations as a cure for “diagnosed transsexuals”, allowing for the basis of this practice becoming legal.NEWS,news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7259057.stm, Iran’s ‘diagnosed transsexuals’, Barford, Vanessa, 25 February 2008, BBC, 1 March 2008,news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7259057.stm," title="web.archive.org/web/20080229004936news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7259057.stm,">web.archive.org/web/20080229004936news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7259057.stm, 29 February 2008, live, NEWS,www.cbc.ca/arts/film/story/2008/08/26/f-homosexuality-iran-sex-change.html, Film – Iran’s gay plan, CBC News, 26 August 2008, 22 October 2010, dead,www.cbc.ca/arts/film/story/2008/08/26/f-homosexuality-iran-sex-change.html," title="web.archive.org/web/20100222091444www.cbc.ca/arts/film/story/2008/08/26/f-homosexuality-iran-sex-change.html,">web.archive.org/web/20100222091444www.cbc.ca/arts/film/story/2008/08/26/f-homosexuality-iran-sex-change.html, 22 February 2010,

Emigration and economy

Khomeini is said to have stressed “the spiritual over the material”.(Brumberg, Reinventing Khomeini (2001), p. 125) Six months after his first speech he expressed exasperation with complaints about the sharp drop in Iran’s standard of living, saying that: “I cannot believe that the purpose of all these sacrifices was to have less expensive melons.“(Khomeini July 1979) [quoted in The Government of God p. 111. see the FBIS for typical broadcasts, especially GBIS-MEA-79-L30, 5 July 1979 v.5 n.130, reporting broadcasts of the National Voice of Iran.] On another occasion emphasizing the importance of martyrdom over material prosperity, he said: “Could anyone wish his child to be martyred to obtain a good house? This is not the issue. The issue is another world.“(Brumberg, Reinventing Khomeini (2001), p. 125)(pp. 124–5 source: ‘Khomeini to the Craftsmen’ broadcast on Teheran Domestic Service 13 December 1979, FBIS-MEA-79-242) He also reportedly answered a question about his economic policies by declaring that ‘economics is for donkeys’.{{efn|reference=Sourced from:Nasr, Vali, The Shia Revival, (2006), p. 134 The original quote which is part of a speech made in 1979 can be found here: I cannot imagine and no wise person can presume the claim that we spared our bloods so watermelon becomes cheaper. No wise person would sacrifice his young offspring for [say] affordable housing. People [on the contrary] want everything for their young offspring. Human being wants economy for his own self; it would therefore be unwise for him to spare his life in order to improve economy [...] Those who keep bringing up economy and find economy the infrastructure of everything -not knowing what human[ity] means- think of human being as an animal who is defined by means of food and clothes[...] Those who find economy the infrastructure of everything, find human beings animals. Animal too sacrifices everything for its economy and economy is its sole infrastructure. A donkey too considers economy as its only infrastructure. These people did not realize what human being [truly] is.}} This disinterest in economic policy is said to be “one factor explaining the inchoate performance of the Iranian economy since the revolution.“BOOK,books.google.com/books?id=Zrpmm4120OUC&q=%22economics+is+for+donkeys%22+khomeini&pg=PA206, An Introduction to the Modern Middle East, By David S. Sorenson, 2007, 19 March 2010, 978-0-8133-4399-0, Sorenson, David S., Avalon, {{Dead link|date=February 2023 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }} Other factors include the long war with Iraq, the cost of which led to government debt and inflation, eroding personal incomes, and unprecedented unemployment,Moin, Baqer, Khomeini, (2000), p. 267 ideological disagreement over the economy, and “international pressure and isolation” such as US sanctions following the hostage crisis.WEB, Maloney, Suzanne, The Iran Primer. The Revolutionary Economy,iranprimer.usip.org/resource/revolutionary-economy, United States Institute of Peace, 3 December 2015, 2010, Due to the Iran–Iraq War, poverty is said to have risen by nearly 45% during the first 6 years of Khomeini’s rule.Based on the government’s own Planning and Budget Organization statistics, from: Jahangir Amuzegar, ‘The Iranian Economy before and after the Revolution,’ Middle East Journal 46, n.3 (summer 1992): 421) Emigration from Iran also developed, reportedly for the first time in the country’s history.Ebadi, Shirin, Iran Awakening: A Memoir of Revolution and Hope by Shirin Ebadi with Azadeh Moaveni, Random House, 2006, pp. 78–9 Since the revolution and war with Iraq, an estimated “two to four million entrepreneurs, professionals, technicians, and skilled craftspeople (and their capital)” have emigrated to other countries.However, a significant degree of this can be attributed to Iranians fleeing during the war.Iran’s Economic Morass: Mismanagement and Decline under the Islamic Republic {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090617210433www.washingtoninstitute.org/templateC04.php?CID=23 |date=17 June 2009 }} {{ISBN|0-944029-67-1}} [Donate book to Archive.org]NEWS, Harrison, Frances,news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6240287.stm, Huge cost of Iranian brain drain By Frances Harrison, BBC News, 8 January 2007, 19 March 2010,

Suppression of opposition

In a talk at the Fayzieah School in Qom on 30 August 1979, Khomeini warned pro-imperialist opponents: “Those who are trying to bring corruption and destruction to our country in the name of democracy will be oppressed. They are worse than Bani-Ghorizeh Jews, and they must be hanged. We will oppress them by God’s order and God’s call to prayer.“WEB,www.iranian.com/Opinion/2003/August/Khomeini/, Democracy? I meant theocracy By Dr. Jalal Matini, 5 August 2003, Iranian.com, 19 March 2010, {{unreliable source?|date=August 2020}}However, in 1983, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) helped him by providing a list of Soviet KGB agents and collaborators operating in Iran to Khomeini, who then executed up to 200 suspects and closed down the Communist Tudeh Party of Iran.WEB,articles.latimes.com/1986-11-19/news/mn-4323_1_iranian-exile, CIA Support for Exiles, Other Covert Iran Activity Reported, Bob, Woodward, 19 November 1986, Los Angeles Times, BOOK, John Tower, Tower, John, Edmund Muskie, Muskie, Edmund, Brent Scowcroft, Scowcroft, Brent, Report of the President’s Special Review Board, Bantam Books, 1987, 104, 978-0-553-26968-0, In 1983, the U.S. helped bring to the attention of Tehran the threat inherent in the extensive infiltration of the government by the communist Tudeh Party and Soviet or pro-Soviet cadres in the country. Using this information, the Khomeini government took measures, including mass executions, that virtually eliminated the pro-Soviet infrastructure in Iran., Tower Commission, Available online here.The Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and his family left Iran and escaped harm, but hundreds of former members of the overthrown monarchy and military were executed by firing squads, with exiled critics complaining of “secrecy, vagueness of the charges, the absence of defense lawyers or juries”, or the opportunity of the accused “to defend themselves.“Bakhash, The Reign of the Ayatollahs (1984), p.61 In later years these were followed in larger numbers by the erstwhile revolutionary allies of Khomeini’s movement—Marxists and socialists, mostly university students—who opposed the theocratic regime. From 1980 to 1981, the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran and other opposition groups (including leftist and moderate groups) rallied against the takeover of the Islamic Republic Party through large demonstrations. Acting on the orders of Khomeini, the Islamic Republic responded by shooting demonstrators, including children.University of Massachusetts Boston, “Wavelength – Vol. 03, No. 04 – Spring 1982” (1982). Wavelength (1979–1984). Paper 12. The 1981 Hafte Tir bombing escalated the conflict, leading to increasing arrests, torture, and executions of thousands of Iranians. Targets also included “innocent, non political civilians, such as members of the Baha’i religious minority, and others deemed problematic by the IRP.“BOOK, Vanguard of the Imam: Religion, Politics, and Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, Afshon, Ostovar, 2016, Oxford University Press, 978-0-19-049170-3, 73, {{sfnp|Moin|2000|p=https://archive.org/details/khomeinilifeofay00moin/page/241/mode/2up?q=bombing 241}} The number of those executed between 1981 and 1985’s “reign of terror” is reported to be between 8,000 and 10,000.BOOK, Cronin, Stephanie, 2013, Reformers and Revolutionaries in Modern Iran: New Perspectives on the Iranian Left, Routledge/BIPS Persian Studies Series, 978-1-134-32890-1, Routledge, 48, BOOK, Cohen, Ronen, The Rise and Fall of the Mojahedin Khalq, 1987-1997: Their Survival After the Islamic Revolution and Resistance to the Islamic Republic of Iran, 2009, Sussex Academic Press, 978-1-84519-270-9, 15, In the 1988 executions of Iranian political prisoners,BOOK, Karsh, Efraim, The Iran–Iraq War: 1980–1988, Osprey Publishing, 2002, 978-1-84176-371-2, 1–8, 12–16, 19–82, WEB, Mistiaen, Veronique, 5 September 2004, A survivor tells of 1988 massacre in Islamic Republic Thousands of men, women, children secretly executed,www.iranfocus.com/en/?option=com_content&task=view&id=160, Iran Focus, Toronto Star, 1 February 2020, 20 February 2008,www.iranfocus.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=160," title="web.archive.org/web/20080220155725www.iranfocus.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=160,">web.archive.org/web/20080220155725www.iranfocus.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=160, dead, WEB, A Faith Denied: The Persecution of the Baháʼís of Iran,www.iranhrdc.org/english/publications/reports/3149-a-faith-denied-the-persecution-of-the-baha-is-of-iran.html, 9 March 2012, Iran Human Rights Documentation Center, following the People’s Mujahedin of Iran unsuccessful operation Forough-e Javidan against the Islamic Republic, Khomeini issued an order to judicial officials to judge every Iranian political prisoner (mostly but not all Mujahedin)WEB, 21 July 2021, Raisi: Role in 1988 Massacre,iranprimer.usip.org/blog/2021/jul/21/raisi-role-1988-massacre, 24 May 2023, The Iran Primer, en, and kill those judged to be apostates from Islam (mortad) or “waging war on God” (moharebeh). Almost all of those interrogated were killed, 1,000 to 30,000 of them.NEWS, Lamb, Christina, 4 February 2001, Khomeini fatwa ‘led to killing of 30,000 in Iran’, The Daily Telegraph, London,www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iran/1321090/Khomeini-fatwa-led-to-killing-of-30000-in-Iran.html, live, subscription, 23 June 2017,ghostarchive.org/archive/20220111/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iran/1321090/Khomeini-fatwa-led-to-killing-of-30000-in-Iran.html, 11 January 2022, {{cbignore}}WEB,www.iranfocus.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=160, Memories of a slaughter in Iran, Iranfocus.com, 5 September 2004, 19 March 2010, 20 February 2008,www.iranfocus.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=160," title="web.archive.org/web/20080220155725www.iranfocus.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=160,">web.archive.org/web/20080220155725www.iranfocus.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=160, dead, The Millimeter Revolution By Elizabeth Rubin {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20030518140431www.daneshjooyan.org/english/article/130403a.html |date=18 May 2003 }}. Because of the large number, prisoners were loaded into forklift trucks in groups of six and hanged from cranes in half-hour intervals.The World’s Most Notorious Dictators. Athlon Special Issue. 2017. p. 80

Minority religions

{{See also|Persecution of Baháʼís}}Zoroastrians, Jews, and Christians are officially recognized and protected by the government. Shortly after Khomeini’s return from exile in 1979, he issued a fatwa ordering that Jews and other minorities (except those of the Baháʼí Faith) be treated well.Wright, Last Revolution (2000), p.207WEB,www.sephardicstudies.org/iran.html, Iran: Life of Jews Living in Iran, Sephardicstudies.org, 19 March 2010, In power, Khomeini distinguished between Zionism as a secular political party that employs Jewish symbols and ideals and Judaism as the religion of Moses.R. Khomeini ‘The Report Card on Jews Differs from That on the Zionists,’ Ettelaat, 11 May 1979]Senior government posts were reserved for Muslims. Schools set up by Jews, Christians and Zoroastrians had to be run by Muslim principals.Wright, The Last Great Revolution, (2000), p.210 Conversion to Islam was encouraged by entitling converts to inherit the entire share of their parents (or even uncle’s) estate if their siblings (or cousins) remain non-Muslim.Wright, The Last Great Revolution, (2000), p.216 Iran’s non-Muslim population has decreased. For example, the Jewish population in Iran dropped from 80,000 to 30,000.Wright, The Last Great Revolution, (2000), p.207 The Zoroastrian population has also decreased, due to suffering from renewed persecution and the revived legal contrasts between a Muslim and Zoroastrian, which mirrors the laws that Zoroastrians experienced under earlier Islamic regimes.{{sfnp|Choksy|2015}} The view that Zoroastrians are najis (“unclean“) has also been renewed.{{sfnp|Choksy|2015}}Four of the 270 seats in parliament were reserved for each three non-Muslim minority religions, under the Islamic constitution that Khomeini oversaw. Khomeini also called for unity between Sunni and Shi’a Muslims. Sunni Muslims make up 9% of the entire Muslim population in Iran.WEB,www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/countries/iran/, CIA – The World Factbook, Cia.gov, 4 December 2012, One non-Muslim group treated differently were the 300,000 members of the Baháʼí Faith. Starting in late 1979 the new government systematically targeted the leadership of the Baháʼí community by focusing on the Baháʼí National Spiritual Assembly (NSA) and Local Spiritual Assemblies (LSAs); prominent members of NSAs and LSAs were often detained and even executed.WEB, Iran Human Rights Documentation Center, A Faith Denied: The Persecution of the Baháʼís of Iran, 2007, 6 October 2007,www.iranhrdc.org/english/pdfs/Reports/bahai_report.pdf, dead,www.iranhrdc.org/english/pdfs/Reports/bahai_report.pdf," title="web.archive.org/web/20071127005930www.iranhrdc.org/english/pdfs/Reports/bahai_report.pdf,">web.archive.org/web/20071127005930www.iranhrdc.org/english/pdfs/Reports/bahai_report.pdf, 27 November 2007, “Some 200 of whom have been executed and the rest forced to convert or subjected to the most horrendous disabilities.”Turban for the Crown: The Islamic Revolution in Iran, by Said Amir Arjomand, Oxford University Press, 1988, p.169Like most conservative Muslims, Khomeini believed Baháʼí to be apostates.{{efn|For example, he issued a fatwa stating:It is not acceptable that a tributary [non-Muslim who pays tribute] changes his religion to another religion not recognized by the followers of the previous religion. For example, from the Jews who become Baháʼís nothing is accepted except Islam or execution. From Poll Tax, 8. Tributary conditions, (13), Tahrir al-Vasileh, volume 2, pp. 497–507, Quoted in A Clarification of Questions: An Unabridged Translation of Resaleh Towzih al-Masael by Ayatollah Syed Ruhollah Moosavi Khomeini, Westview Press/ Boulder and London, c1984, p.432}} He claimed they were a political rather than a religious movement,JOURNAL, James, Cockroft, Iran’s Khomeini, 23 February 1979, Seven Days, NEWS, 13 February 1979, U.S. Jews Hold Talks With Khomeini Aide on Outlook for Rights, The New York Times, declaring: {{blockquote|the Baháʼís are not a sect but a party, which was previously supported by Britain and now the United States. The Baháʼís are also spies just like the Tudeh [Communist Party].Kayhan International, 30 May 1983; see also Firuz Kazemzadeh, ‘The Terror Facing the Baháʼís’ New York Review of Books, 1982, 29 (8): 43–44.}}

Ethnic minorities

After the Shah left Iran in 1979, a Kurdish delegation traveled to Qom to present the Kurds’ demands to Khomeini. Their demands included language rights and the provision for a degree of political autonomy. Khomeini responded that such demands were unacceptable since it involved the division of the Iranian nation.Gérard Chaliand, A People Without a Country: The Kurds and Kurdistan, Interlink Books, 1993. (p. 212–213) In a speech during the same year, Khomeini hinted that the new government’s attitudes were to curb contrasts instead of accepting them. Khomeini is quoted saying: “Sometimes the word minorities is used to refer to people such as Kurds, Lurs, Turks, Persians, Baluchis, and such. These people should not be called minorities because this term assumes there is a difference between these brothers.“JOURNAL, Castellino, Joshua, Cavanaugh, Kathleen A., 25 April 2013, Minority Identities in the Middle East: Ethno-national and Other Minorities,academic.oup.com/book/6843/chapter/151042892, en, 163, 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199679492.003.0003, Oxford University Press, The following months saw numerous clashes between Kurdish militia groups and the Revolutionary Guards. The referendum on the Islamic Republic was massively boycotted in Kurdistan, where it was thought 85 to 90% of voters abstained. Khomeini ordered additional attacks later on in the year, and by September most of Iranian Kurdistan was under direct martial law.

Death and funeral

{{See also|Death and state funeral of Ruhollah Khomeini|Mausoleum of Ruhollah Khomeini}}File:Funeral of Ruhollah Khomeini, 4 June 1989 (5).jpg|thumb|right|Mourning men in residence of Khomeini around his seat area, JamaranJamaranKhomeini’s health declined several years prior to his death. After spending eleven days in Jamaran hospital, Ruhollah Khomeini died on 3 June 1989 after suffering five heart attacks in just ten days,WEB,news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1755&dat=19890613&id=PDseAAAAIBAJ&pg=6937,3485824, Sarasota Herald-Tribune – Google News Archive Search, at the age of 89 just before midnight. He was succeeded as Supreme Leader by Ali Khamenei. Large numbers of Iranians took to the streets to publicly mourn his death and in the scorching summer heat, fire trucks sprayed water on the crowds to cool them.Pink/Gölz, “Die Drohung der ungewissen Zukunft: Der Tod Nassers und Khomeinis als Epochenbruch.”, In: Helden müssen sterben: Von Sinn und Fragwürdigkeit des heroischen Todes. Hg. von Cornelia Brink, Nicole Falkenhayner and Ralf von den Hoff, 231–45. Baden-Baden: Ergon, 2019, p. 239f. At least 10 mourners were trampled to death, more than 400 were badly hurt and several thousand more were treated for injuries sustained in the ensuing pandemonium.Moin, Khomeini (2000), p. 312In the Name of God: The Khomeini Decade by Robin Wright, (1989), p. 204According to Iran’s official estimates, 10.2 million people lined the {{convert|32|km|mi|adj=on}} route to Tehran’s Behesht-e Zahra cemetery on 11 June 1989, for the funeral of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.BOOK,books.google.com/books?id=FiodAQAAMAAJ&q=khomeini+second+largest+funeral, Impact International, 1989, News & Media., en, WEB, Pendle, George, 29 August 2018, Which Famous Figure Had the Biggest Public Funeral?,www.history.com/news/which-famous-figure-had-the-biggest-public-funeral, live,web.archive.org/web/20211030034351/https://www.history.com/news/which-famous-figure-had-the-biggest-public-funeral, 30 October 2021, 25 December 2021, HISTORY, en, WEB, Philipson, Alice, 19 January 2015, The ten largest gatherings in human history,www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/11354116/The-ten-largest-gatherings-in-human-history.html, live,web.archive.org/web/20211029174847/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/11354116/The-ten-largest-gatherings-in-human-history.html, 29 October 2021, 25 December 2021, The Telegraph, Western agencies estimated that 2 million paid their respects as the body lay in state.WEB,www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/largest-percentage-of-population-to-attend-a-funeral, Largest percentage of population to attend a funeral, Guinness World Records, 11 June 1989, 25 August 2015, Figures about Khomeini’s initial funeral attendance which took place on 4 June range around 2.5–3.5 million people.NEWS,articles.chicagotribune.com/1989-06-07/news/8902070407_1_ayatollah-ruhollah-khomeini-ahmad-khomeini-mourners, Mourners Rip Shroud, Khomeini’s Body Falls – Chicago Tribune, Articles.chicagotribune.com, 7 June 1989, 2 March 2014, Ray, Moseley, WEB,www.everyculture.com/wc/Germany-to-Jamaica/Iranians.html, Iranians – Introduction, Location, Language, Folklore, Religion, Major holidays, Rites of passage, Relationships, Living conditions, Every Culture, 19 March 2010, Early the following day, Khomeini’s corpse was flown in by helicopter for burial at the Behesht-e Zahra. Iranian officials postponed Khomeini’s first funeral after a huge mob stormed the funeral procession, destroying Khomeini’s wooden coffin in order to get a last glimpse of his body or touch of his coffin. In some cases, armed soldiers were compelled to fire warning shots in the air to restrain the crowds.Pink/Gölz, “Die Drohung der ungewissen Zukunft: Der Tod Nassers und Khomeinis als Epochenbruch.”, In: Helden müssen sterben: Von Sinn und Fragwürdigkeit des heroischen Todes. Hg. von Cornelia Brink, Nicole Falkenhayner and Ralf von den Hoff, 231–45. Baden-Baden: Ergon, 2019, p. 240f. At one point, Khomeini’s body fell to the ground, as the crowd ripped off pieces of the death shroud, trying to keep them as if they were holy relics. According to journalist James Buchan:{{blockquote|Yet even here, the crowd surged past the makeshift barriers. John Kifner wrote in The New York Times that the “body of the Ayatollah, wrapped in a white burial shroud, fell out of the flimsy wooden coffin, and in a mad scene people in the crowd reached to touch the shroud”. A frail white leg was uncovered. The shroud was torn to pieces for relics and Khomeini’s son Ahmad was knocked from his feet. Men jumped into the grave. At one point, the guards lost hold of the body. Firing in the air, the soldiers drove the crowd back, retrieved the body and brought it to the helicopter, but mourners clung on to the landing gear before they could be shaken off. The body was taken back to North Tehran to go through the ritual of preparation a second time.Ayatollah Khomeini’s funeral: The funeral of Ayatollah Khomeini was not a tragedy but a gruesome farce, James Buchan, New Statesman, 12 March 2009|title=|source=}}The second funeral was held under much tighter security five hours later. This time, Khomeini’s casket was made of steel, and in accordance with Islamic tradition, the casket was only to carry the body to the burial site. In 1995, his son Ahmad was buried next to him. Khomeini’s grave is now housed within a larger mausoleum complex.

Succession

File:President Ali Khamenei visit to Ruhollah Khomeini - August 13, 1986.jpg|thumb|Khomeini and his successor, Ali KhameneiAli KhameneiGrand Ayatollah Hussein-Ali Montazeri, a former student of Khomeini and a major figure of the Revolution, was chosen by Khomeini to be his successor as Supreme Leader and approved as such by the Assembly of Experts in November 1985.Mackey, Iranians, (1998), p. 353 The principle of velayat-e faqih and the Islamic constitution called for the Supreme Leader to be a marja (a grand ayatollah),WEB, Ayatollah Khomeini (1900–1989),www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/khomeini_ayatollah.shtml, 20 June 2013, BBC History, and of the dozen or so grand ayatollahs living in 1981 only Montazeri qualified as a potential Leader (this was either because only he accepted totally Khomeini’s concept of rule by Islamic jurists,Roy, Olivier, The Failure of Political Islam, translated by Carol Volk Harvard University Press, 1994, pp. 173–74. Quoted in The Islamic Republic Will Be Run By the Most Learned JuristMackay, Iranians, (1998), p.353{{Unreliable source?|date=January 2009}} or, as at least one other source stated, because only Montazeri had the “political credentials” Khomeini found suitable for his successor).Moin, Khomeini, (2000), p. 293 The execution of Mehdi Hashemi in September 1987 on charges of counterrevolutionary activities was a blow to Ayatollah Montazeri, who knew Hashemi since their childhood.BOOK, Modern Iran: Roots and Results of Revolution, Keddie, Nikki R., Nikki Keddie, Yann Richard, 2003, 260, Yale University Press, New Haven, CN, 978-0-300-09856-3, Yann Richard, In 1989 Montazeri began to call for liberalization, freedom for political parties. Following the execution of thousands of political prisoners by the Islamic government, Montazeri told Khomeini: “Your prisons are far worse than those of the Shah and his SAVAK.“Ahmad Khomeini’s letter, in Resalat, cited in The Reign of the Ayatollahs: Iran and the Islamic Revolution, rev. ed. by Shaul Bakhash, p.282 After a letter of his complaints was leaked to Europe and broadcast on the BBC, a furious Khomeini ousted him in March 1989 from his position as official successor.WEB,www.irvl.net/Translation%20of%20Ayatollah%20Khomeini’s%20Letter%20Dismissing%20Montazeri.htm, Translation of Ayatollah Khomeini’s Letter Dismissing Montazeri, 7 June 2007, Iran Virtual Library, printed in Abrar,www.irvl.net/Translation%20of%20Ayatollah%20Khomeini%27s%20Letter%20Dismissing%20Montazeri.htm," title="web.archive.org/web/20070313222514www.irvl.net/Translation%20of%20Ayatollah%20Khomeini%27s%20Letter%20Dismissing%20Montazeri.htm,">web.archive.org/web/20070313222514www.irvl.net/Translation%20of%20Ayatollah%20Khomeini%27s%20Letter%20Dismissing%20Montazeri.htm, 13 March 2007, dead, His portraits were removed from offices and mosques.WEB,alef.ir/1388/content/view/60225/, الف – بخشنامه موسوي درباره عكس‌ منتظري/تصویر, Behnegarsoft.com, alef.ir, dead,alef.ir/1388/content/view/60225," title="web.archive.org/web/20091226020034alef.ir/1388/content/view/60225,">web.archive.org/web/20091226020034alef.ir/1388/content/view/60225, 26 December 2009, To deal with the disqualification of the only suitable marja, Khomeini called for an ‘Assembly for Revising the Constitution’ to be convened. An amendment was made to Iran’s constitution removing the requirement that the Supreme Leader be a Marja and this allowed Ali Khamenei, the new favoured jurist who had suitable revolutionary credentials but lacked scholarly ones and who was not a Grand Ayatollah, to be designated as successor.Moin, Khomeini (2000) p. 293Mackey, Sandra, The Iranians (1996), p. 353 Ayatollah Khamenei was elected Supreme Leader by the Assembly of Experts on 4 June 1989. Grand Ayatollah Hossein Montazeri continued his criticism of the regime and in 1997 was put under house arrest for questioning what he regarded to be an unaccountable rule exercised by the supreme leader.Profile: Iran’s dissident ayatollah BBC NewsLeader Khamenei{{dead link|date=December 2021 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }} PBS

Anniversary

The anniversary of Khomeini’s death is a public holiday.WEB, Calendar center of Geophysics institute of Tehran University, 1395 Calendar” (in Persian),calendar.ut.ac.ir/Fa/TYear/Data/Ordibehesht-Khordad1398.pdf, calendar.ut.ac, 19 May 2019, 12 May 2019,web.archive.org/web/20190512075053/https://calendar.ut.ac.ir/Fa/TYear/Data/Ordibehesht-Khordad1398.pdf, dead, BOOK, Chase’s Calendar of Events 2019: The Ultimate Go-to Guide for Special Days ..., Bernan Press, 978-1-64143-263-4, 307,books.google.com/books?id=JVJtDwAAQBAJ&q=public+holiday+anniversary+khomeini%27s+death&pg=PA307, 30 September 2018, BOOK, Trawicky, Bernard, Anniversaries and Holidays, American Library Association, 978-0-8389-1004-7, 95,books.google.com/books?id=dp2TAwAAQBAJ&q=public+holiday+anniversary+khomeini%27s+death&pg=PA95, 30 April 2009, To commemorate Khomeini, people visit his mausoleum placed on Behesht-e Zahra to hear sermons and practice prayers on his death day.BOOK, Cavendish, Marshall, World and Its Peoples, Volume 1, Marshall Cavendish, 978-0-7614-7571-2, 529,books.google.com/books?id=j894miuOqc4C&q=public+holiday+anniversary+khomeini%27s+death&pg=PA529, September 2006, WEB, Iran arrests 11 over SMS Khomeini insults,www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/afp/140922/iran-arrests-11-over-sms-khomeini-insults-1,www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/afp/140922/iran-arrests-11-over-sms-khomeini-insults-1," title="web.archive.org/web/20160314022740www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/afp/140922/iran-arrests-11-over-sms-khomeini-insults-1,">web.archive.org/web/20160314022740www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/afp/140922/iran-arrests-11-over-sms-khomeini-insults-1, 14 March 2016, GlobalPost, NEWS, 22 September 2017, Iran arrests 11 over SMS Khomeini insults: report, The Daily Star,www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Middle-East/2014/Sep-22/271511-iran-arrests-11-over-sms-khomeini-insults-report.ashx, dead, 4 February 2017,www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Middle-East/2014/Sep-22/271511-iran-arrests-11-over-sms-khomeini-insults-report.ashx," title="web.archive.org/web/20170205100948www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Middle-East/2014/Sep-22/271511-iran-arrests-11-over-sms-khomeini-insults-report.ashx,">web.archive.org/web/20170205100948www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Middle-East/2014/Sep-22/271511-iran-arrests-11-over-sms-khomeini-insults-report.ashx, 5 February 2017,

Reception, political thought and legacy

{{See also|Islamic fundamentalism in Iran}}{{Wikisource|The Crimes of the Shah}}According to at least one scholar, politics in the Islamic Republic of Iran “are largely defined by attempts to claim Khomeini’s legacy” and that “staying faithful to his ideology has been the litmus test for all political activity” there.The New Republic“Khamenei vs. Khomeini” by Ali Reza Eshraghi, 20 August 2009. Retrieved 20 August 2009. Throughout his many writings and speeches, Khomeini’s views on governance evolved. Originally declaring rule by monarchs or others permissible so long as sharia law was followed1942 book/pamphlet Kashf al-Asrar quoted in Islam and Revolution Khomeini later adamantly opposed monarchy, arguing that only rule by a leading Islamic jurist (a marja’) would ensure Sharia was properly followed (velâyat-e faqih),1970 book Hukumat Islamiyyah or Islamic Government, quoted in Islam and Revolution before finally insisting the ruling jurist need not be a leading one and Sharia rule could be overruled by that jurist if necessary to serve the interests of Islam and the “divine government” of the Islamic state.Hamid Algar, ‘Development of the Concept of velayat-i faqih since the Islamic Revolution in Iran,’ paper presented at London Conference on wilayat al-faqih, in June 1988] [p.135–38]Also Ressalat, Tehran, 7 January 1988. Quoted in “The Rule of the Religious Jurist in Iran,” by Abdulaziz Sachedina,from p.135–36 of Iran at the Crossroads, Edited by John Esposito and R.K. Ramazani, Palgrave, 2001. Quoted inKhomeini on how Laws in Iran will strictly adhere to God’s perfect and unchanging divine lawKhomeini’s concept of (Islamic Government: Governance of the Jurist|Guardianship of the Islamic Jurist) (ولایت فقیه, velayat-e faqih) as Islamic government did not win the support of the leading Iranian Shi’i clergy of the time.The Failure of Political Islam by Olivier Roy, translated by Carol Volk Harvard University Press, 1994, p.173–74 quoted in “the vilayat-i faqih thesis was rejected by almost the entire dozen grand ayatollahs living in 1981” Towards the 1979 Revolution, many clerics gradually became disillusioned with the rule of the Shah, although none came around to supporting Khomeini’s vision of a theocratic Islamic Republic. Khomeini has been described as the “virtual face of Shia Islam in Western popular culture”.Nasr, Vali, The Shia Revival, Norton (2006), p. 138There is much debate to as whether Khomeini’s ideas are or are not compatible with democracy and whether he intended the Islamic Republic to be a democratic republic. According to the state-run Aftab News,Ganji, Sorush and Mesbah Yazdi {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100629045409www.aftabnews.ir/vdcdzn0ytj05s.html |date=29 June 2010 }}(Persian) both ultraconservative supporters (Mohammad Taghi Mesbah Yazdi) and reformist opponents of the regime (Akbar Ganji and Abdolkarim Soroush) believe he did not, while regime officials and supporters like Ali Khamenei,The principles of Islamic Republic from viewpoint of Imam Khomeini in the speeches of the leader {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110128013330www.parstech.org/detail.php?id=1313 |date=28 January 2011 }}(Persian) Mohammad Khatami and Mortaza MotahhariAbout Islamic republic{{dead link|date=September 2017 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}(Persian) maintain the Islamic republic is democratic as Khomeini intended it to be.JOURNAL, Ayatollah Khomeini and the Contemporary Debate on Freedom, Journal of Islamic Studies, 18, 14–42, 10.1093/jis/etl042, Jis.oxfordjournals.org, 21 July 2006, Siavoshi, S., Khomeini himself also made statements at different times indicating both support and opposition to democracy.WEB, Democracy? I meant theocracy, Dr. Jalal Matini, Translation & Introduction by Farhad Mafie, 5 August 2003, Iranian.com,www.iranian.com/Opinion/2003/August/Khomeini/, One scholar, Shaul Bakhash, explains this contradiction as coming from Khomeini’s belief that the huge turnout of Iranians in anti-Shah demonstrations during the revolution constituted a ‘referendum’ in favor of an Islamic republic, more important than any elections.Bakhash, The Reign of the Ayatollahs (1984), p.73 Khomeini also wrote that since Muslims must support a government based on Islamic law, Sharia-based government will always have more popular support in Muslim countries than any government based on elected representatives.Khomeini, Islam and Revolution (1982), p. 56Khomeini offered himself as a “champion of Islamic revival” and unity, emphasizing issues Muslims agreed upon – the fight against Zionism and imperialism – and downplaying Shia issues that would divide Shia from Sunni.Nasr, Vali, The Shia Revival, Norton (2006), p.137 (The Egyptian Jihadist ideologue Sayyid Qutb was an important source of influence to Khomeini and the 1979 Iranian Revolution. The Islamic Republic of Iran under Khomeini honoured Qutb’s “martyrdom” by issuing an iconic postage stamp in 1984, and before the revolution prominent figures in the Khomeini network translated Qutb’s works into Persian.)BOOK, Calvert, John, Sayyid Qutb and the Origins of Radical Islamism, C. Hurst & co. (Publishers) ltd., 2018, 978-1849049498, London, 3, JOURNAL, Unal, Yusuf, November 2016, Sayyid Quá¹­b in Iran: Translating the Islamist Ideologue in the Islamic Republic,www.jstor.org/stable/10.2979/jims.1.2.04, Journal of Islamic and Muslim Studies, Indiana University Press, 1, 2, 35–60, 10.2979/jims.1.2.04, 10.2979/jims.1.2.04, 157443230, JSTOR, While he publicly spoke of Islamic unity and minimized differences with Sunni Muslims, he is accused by some of privately rebuking Sunni Islam as heretical and covertly promoted an anti-Sunni foreign policy in the region.BOOK, Kazemzadeh, Masoud, Iran’s Foreign Policy: Elite Factionalism, Ideology, the Nuclear Weapons Program, and the United States, Routledge, 2020, 978-0-367-49545-9, New York, 75–77, 5: The sources of the Middle East’s crises and American grand strategy, NEWS, Paul Vallely, 19 February 2014, The vicious schism between Sunni and Shia has been poisoning Islam for 1,400 years – and it’s getting worse, The Independent, London,www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/the-vicious-schism-between-sunni-and-shia-has-been-poisoning-islam-for-1400-years--and-its-getting-worse-9139525.html, 2 March 2014, Khomeini has also been lauded as politically astute, a “charismatic leader of immense popularity”,BOOK, Arjomand, Said Amir,books.google.com/books?id=B105DQAAQBAJ&pg=PA663, Encyclopedia of Global Religion, 2012, Sage, 978-0-7619-2729-7, Mark Juergensmeyer, 1, Thousand Oaks, CA, 663, 1029087338, He was a charismatic leader of immmense popularity. Millions of Iranians massed to welcome him when he returned as the Imam from exile in 1979, and a million or more joined his funeral procession after he died 10 years later., Saïd Amir Arjomand, Wade Clark Roof, a “champion of Islamic revival” by Shia scholars, and a major innovator in political theory and religious-oriented populist political strategy.Ervand Abrahamian, Iran Between Two Revolutions (1982), p. 479(iarchive:persianmirrors00elai/page/298| Persian Mirrors: The Elusive Face of Iran), Elaine Sciolino |quote=Those intellectuals who say that the clergy should leave politics and go back to the mosque speak on behalf of Satan.“Khomeini strongly opposed close relations with either Eastern or Western Bloc nations, believing the Islamic world should be its own bloc, or rather converge into a single unified power.Bayan, No.4 (1990), p.8) He viewed Western culture as being inherently decadent and a corrupting influence upon the youth. The Islamic Republic banned or discouraged popular Western fashions, music, cinema, and literature.NEWS,news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4543720.stm, Iran president bans Western music, BBC News, 19 December 2005, 19 March 2010, In the Western world it is said “his glowering visage became the virtual face of Islam in Western popular culture” and “inculcated fear and distrust towards Islam,“Nasr, Vali The Shia Revival, Norton, 2006, p.138 making the word ‘Ayatollah’ “a synonym for a dangerous madman ... in popular parlance.“WEB,www.qantara.de/webcom/show_article.php/_c-476/_nr-1103/i.html, A Revolution Misunderstood. Charlotte Wiedemann, Qantara.de, 19 March 2010, This has particularly been the case in the United States where some Iranians complained that even at universities they felt the need to hide their Iranian identity for fear of physical attack. There Khomeini and the Islamic Republic are remembered for the American embassy hostage taking and accused of sponsoring hostage-taking and terrorist attacks,Wright, Sacred Rage, (2001), p.28, 33,for example the 1983 Beirut barracks bombing see:Hizb’allah in Lebanon: The Politics of the Western Hostage Crisis Magnus Ranstorp, Department of International Relations University of St. Andrews St. Martins Press, New York, 1997, p.54, 117 and which continues to apply economic sanctions against Iran.Before taking power Khomeini expressed support for the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. “We would like to act according to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. We would like to be free. We would like independence.”Sahifeh Nour (Vol. 2 p. 242) However once in power Khomeini took a firm line against dissent, warning opponents of theocracy for example: “I repeat for the last time: abstain from holding meetings, from blathering, from publishing protests. Otherwise I will break your teeth.“in Qom, Iran, 22 October 1979, quoted in, The Shah and the Ayatollah: Iranian Mythology and Islamic Revolution by Fereydoun Hoveyda, Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2003, p.88Many of Khomeini’s political and religious ideas were considered to be progressive and reformist by leftist intellectuals and activists prior to the Revolution. However, once in power his ideas often clashed with those of modernist or secular Iranian intellectuals. This conflict came to a head during the writing of the Islamic constitution when many newspapers were closed by the government. Khomeini angrily told the intellectuals:Yes, we are reactionaries, and you are enlightened intellectuals: You intellectuals do not want us to go back 1400 years. You, who want freedom, freedom for everything, the freedom of parties, you who want all the freedoms, you intellectuals: freedom that will corrupt our youth, freedom that will pave the way for the oppressor, freedom that will drag our nation to the bottom.p.47, Wright. source: Speech at Feyziyeh Theological School, 24 August 1979; reproduced in Rubin, Barry and Judith Colp Rubin, Anti-American Terrorism and the Middle East: A Documentary Reader, Oxford University Press, 2002, p.34 File:Esfahan (Iran) Emam Place with Emam Mosque.JPG|thumb|right|250px|Murals of Khomeini and Ali Khamenei, Shah Mosque in Isfahan]]In contrast to his alienation from Iranian intellectuals, and “in an utter departure from all other Islamist movements,” Khomeini embraced international revolution and Third World solidarity, giving it “precedence over Muslim fraternity.” From the time Khomeini’s supporters gained control of the media until his death, the Iranian media “devoted extensive coverage to non-Muslim revolutionary movements (from the Sandinistas to the African National Congress and the Irish Republican Army) and downplayed the role of the Islamic movements considered conservative, such as the Afghan mujahidin.“Roy, The Failure of Political Islam. 1994, p.175 Khomeini’s supporters and pro-government media in Iran also claim that he was a fighter against racismenglish.khamenei.ir/news/7744/When-did-Imam-Khomeini-let-out-the-cry-of-Black-Lives-Matter Khomeini was a staunch critic of the Apartheid regime in South Africairanwire.com/en/politics/60189/ After the 1979 Iranian Revolution, anti-Apartheid activist and African National Congress president Oliver Tambo sent a letter to congratulate Khomeini for the success of the revolution.WEB,www.sahistory.org.za/archive/letter-oliver-tambo-ayatollah-khomeini-13-february-1979-iran-maputo-peoples-republic, Letter from Oliver Tambo to Ayatollah Khomeini, 13 February 1979, Iran, Maputo, People’s Republic of Mozambique | South African History Online, Former South African President Nelson Mandela claimed several times that Khomeini served as an inspiration for the anti-apartheid movement.WEB,www.tehrantimes.com/news/486965/How-did-Iran-s-Islamic-revolution-inspire-Nelson-Mandela, How did Iran’s Islamic revolution inspire Nelson Mandela?, 17 July 2023, WEB,en.mehrnews.com/news/189801/Imam-Khomeini-gave-us-impetus-to-topple-apartheid-gov, Imam Khomeini gave us impetus to topple apartheid gov, 2 August 2022, During the 1979 Iran hostage crisis, Khomeini ordered the release of all female and African-American staff working there.WEB,en.imam-khomeini.ir/en/n36869/A-letter-by-black-American-Muslim-to-Imam-reflected-centuries-old-racism-in-US, A letter by black American Muslim to Imam reflected centuries-old racism in US, Khomeini’s legacy to the economy of the Islamic Republic has been expressions of concern for the mustazafin (a Quranic term for the oppressed or deprived), but not always results that aided them. During the 1990s the mustazafin and disabled war veterans rioted on several occasions, protesting the demolition of their shantytowns and rising food prices, etc.In March 1992, disabled war veterans protested against the mismanagement of the Foundation of the Disinherited. January and May 1992. In January 1992 a Tehran mob attacked grocery stores in a protest against the rise in subsidized milk prices. In May 1992 there were protests by squatters against the demolition of shantytowns in Mashhad. Government buildings were set alight. (Mackey, Sandra, The Iranians: Persia, Islam and the soul of a nation, Dutton, c1996. p.361, 362, 366). Quoted in Class Division and Poverty Will Not Be Tolerated Khomeini’s disdain for the science of economics is said to have been “mirrored” by the populist redistribution policies of former president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who allegedly wears “his contempt for economic orthodoxy as a badge of honour”, and has overseen sluggish growth and rising inflation and unemployment.WEB,www.newstatesman.com/economy/2008/09/iran-economic-ahmadinejad, “Economics is for donkeys” Robert Tait. 11 September 2008, Newstatesman.com, 11 September 2008, 19 March 2010, In 1963, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini wrote a book in which he stated that there is no religious restriction on corrective surgery for transgender individuals. At the time Khomeini was an anti-Shah revolutionary and his fatwas did not carry any weight with the Imperial government, which did not have any specific policies regarding transsexual individuals.Robert Tait, A fatwa for transsexuals {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110606185558dir.salon.com/story/news/feature/2005/07/28/iran_transsexuals/print.html |date=6 June 2011 }}, and a similar article on The Guardian. Gives details on Molkara’s plea.However, after 1979, his fatwa “formed the basis for a national policy” and perhaps in part because of a penal code that “allows for the execution of homosexuals”, as of 2005 Iran “permits and partly finances seven times as many gender reassignment operations as the entire European Union”.BOOK, Kadri, Sadakat, Heaven on Earth: A Journey Through Shari’a Law from the Deserts of Ancient Arabia ..., 2012, Macmillan, 978-0-09-952327-7, 251,books.google.com/books?id=ztCRZOhJ10wC&q=Heaven+on+Earth:+A+Journey+Through+Shari%27a+Law, NEWS, Tait, Robert, A fatwa for freedom, The Guardian,www.theguardian.com/world/2005/jul/27/gayrights.iran, 27 July 2005, 2 December 2015,

Appearance and habits

Khomeini was described as “slim”, but athletic and “heavily boned”.BOOK, Taheri, Amir, The spirit of Allah: Khomeini and the Islamic revolution, 1986, Adler & Adler, Bethesda, Md., 978-0-917561-04-7, 1st U.S,archive.org/details/spiritofallah00amir, (File:Imam Khomeini Potrait.jpg|thumb|Khomeini in the 1980s)He was known for his punctuality:{{blockquote|He’s so punctual that if he doesn’t turn up for lunch at exactly ten past everyone will get worried, because his work is regulated in such a way that he turned up for lunch at exactly that time every day. He goes to bed exactly on time. He eats exactly on time. And he wakes up exactly on time. He changes his cloak every time he comes back from the mosque.According to a daughter quoted in In the Name of God by Robin Wright, 1989, p.45}}Khomeini was also known for his aloofness and austere demeanor. He is said to have had “variously inspired admiration, awe, and fear from those around him.“Brumberg, Reinventing Khomeini (2001), p.53 His practice of moving “through the halls of the madresehs never smiling at anybody or anything; his practice of ignoring his audience while he taught, contributed to his charisma.“Mackay, Iranians (198?) p.224Khomeini adhered to traditional beliefs of Islamic hygienical jurisprudence holding that things like urine, excrement, blood, wine, and also non-Muslims were some of eleven ritualistically “impure” things that physical contact with which while wet required ritual washing or Ghusl before prayer or salat.fatwa No. 83 from A Clarification of Questions: An Unabridged Translation of Resaleh Towzih al-Masael, by Ayatollah Syed Ruhollah Moosavi Khomeini, Translated by J. Borujerdi, with a Foreword by Michael M. J. Fischer and Mehdi Abedi, Westview Press/ Boulder and London c1984, p.48.Mottahedeh, Roy, The Mantle of the Prophet: Religion and Politics in Iran, One World, Oxford, 1985, 2000, p.383 He is reported to have refused to eat or drink in a restaurant unless he knew for sure the waiter was a Muslim.Personal communications from Dr. Mansur Farhang, a biographer and supporter of Khomeini who was the former Iranian representative at the United Nations, with Ervand Abrahamian. Quoted in Abrahamian, Ervand, Khomeinism: Essays on the Islamic Republic University of California Press, (1993)

Mystique

According to Baqer Moin, with the success of the revolution, not only had a personality cult developed around Khomeini, but he “had been transformed into a semi-divine figure. He was no longer a grand ayatollah and deputy of the Imam, one who represents the Hidden Imam, but simply ‘The Imam’.“BOOK, Baqer Moin, Khomeini: Life of the Ayatollah, 1999, I.B. Tauris, 978-1-85043-128-2, 200, illustrated, Khomeini’s cult of personality fills a central position in foreign- and domestically targeted Iranian publications.BOOK, Ervand Abrahamian, The Iranian Mojahedin, 1992, Yale University Press, 978-0-300-05267-1, 255, Ervand Abrahamian, BOOK, Michael Chertoff, Homeland Security: Assessing the First Five Years, 2011, University of Pennsylvania Press, 978-0-8122-0588-6, 27, Michael Chertoff, BOOK, Chetan Bhatt,archive.org/details/liberationpurity0000bhat/page/141, Liberation and Purity: Race, New Religious Movements and the Ethics of Postmodernity, 1997, Taylor & Francis, 978-1-85728-423-2, Illustrated, reprint, 141, BOOK, Sivan, Emmanuel, Friedman, Menachem, Religious Radicalism and Politics in the Middle East, 1990, State University of New York Press, 978-0-7914-0158-3, 68, illustrated, The methods used to create his personality cult have been compared to those used by such figures as Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong and Fidel Castro.BOOK, Barry Rubin, The Middle East: A Guide to Politics, Economics, Society and Culture, 2015, Routledge, 978-1-317-45578-3, 427, Barry Rubin, BOOK, Mikaberidze, Alexander, Conflict and Conquest in the Islamic World: A Historical Encyclopedia [2 volumes], 2011, ABC-CLIO, 978-1-59884-337-8, 483, BOOK, Arshin Adib-Moghaddam, A Critical Introduction to Khomeini, 2014, Cambridge University Press, 978-1-107-01267-7, 305, illustrated, An eight-century Hadith attributed to the Imam Musa al-Kazim that said “A man will come out from Qom and he will summon people to the right path. There will rally to him people resembling pieces of iron, not to be shaken by violent winds, unsparing and relying on God” was repeated in Iran as a tribute to Khomeini. (In Lebanon, however, this saying was also attributed to Musa al-Sadr.)(Mackay Iranians, p.277. Source: Quoted in Fouad Ajami, The Vanished Imam: Musa al Sadr and the Shia of Lebanon (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1986), p.25Khomeini was the first and only Iranian cleric to be addressed as “Imam”,Moin, Khomeini (2001), p. 201WEB, 4 June 1989, BBC: Historic Figures: Ayatollah Khomeini (1900–1989),www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/khomeini_ayatollah.shtml, 19 March 2011, BBC History, Gölz, “Khomeini’s Face is in the Moon: Limitations of Sacredness and the Origins of Sovereignty”, in Sakralität und Heldentum. Edited by Felix Heinzer, Jörn Leonhard and von den Hoff, Ralf, 229–44. Helden – Heroisierungen – Heroismen 6. Würzburg: Ergon, 2017, p. 230. a title hitherto reserved in Iran for the twelve infallible leaders of the early Shi’a.Moin, Khomeini (2000), p.201 He was also associated with the Mahdi or 12th Imam of Shia belief in a number of ways. One of his titles was Na’eb-e Imam (Deputy to the Twelfth Imam). His enemies were often attacked as taghut and Mofsed-e-filarz, religious terms used for enemies of the Twelfth Imam. Many of the officials of the overthrown Shah’s government executed by Revolutionary Courts were convicted of “fighting against the Twelfth Imam”. When a deputy in the majlis asked Khomeini directly if he was the ‘promised Mahdi’, Khomeini did not answer, “astutely” neither confirming nor denying the title.Nasr, Vali, The Shia Revival, Norton, (2006), p.131(File:بچه Ùˆ خمینی.JPG|thumb|right|Khomeini and a child.)As the revolution gained momentum, even some non-supporters exhibited awe towards Khomeini, called him “magnificently clear-minded, single-minded and unswerving.“Harney, The Priest and the King (1998) pp. 173–4 His image was as “absolute, wise, and indispensable leader of the nation”:Benard/Khalilzad, The Government of God, 1984, p. 121The Imam, it was generally believed, had shown by his uncanny sweep to power, that he knew how to act in ways which others could not begin to understand. His timing was extraordinary, and his insight into the motivation of others, those around him as well as his enemies, could not be explained as ordinary knowledge. This emergent belief in Khomeini as a divinely guided figure was carefully fostered by the clerics who supported him and spoke up for him in front of the people.Moin Khomeini, (2000), p. 297Even many secularists who firmly disapproved of his policies were said to feel the power of his “messianic” appeal.Wright, In the Name of God, (1989) (p.21-22) Comparing him to a father figure who retains the enduring loyalty even of children he disapproves of, journalist Afshin Molavi writes that defenses of Khomeini are “heard in the most unlikely settings”:{{blockquote|A whiskey-drinking professor told an American journalist that Khomeini brought pride back to Iranians. A women’s rights activist told me that Khomeini was not the problem; it was his conservative allies who had directed him wrongly. A nationalist war veteran, who held Iran’s ruling clerics in contempt, carried with him a picture of ‘the Imam’.Molavi, The Soul of Iran, (2005), p. 256}}Another journalist tells the story of listening to bitter criticism of the regime by an Iranian who tells her of his wish for his son to leave the country and who “repeatedly” makes the point “that life had been better” under the Shah. When his complaint is interrupted by news that “the Imam” – over 85 years old at the time and known to be ailing – might be dying, the critic becomes “ashen faced” and speechless, pronouncing the news to be “terrible for my country.”In the Name of God: The Khomeini Decade by Robin Wright c 1989, pp. 21–22Non-Iranians were not immune from the effect. In 1982, after listening to a half-hour-long speech on the Quran by him, a Muslim scholar from South Africa, Sheikh Ahmad Deedat gushed:{{blockquote|... the electric effect he had on everybody, his charisma, was amazing. You just look at the man and tears come down your cheek. You just look at him and you get tears. I never saw a more handsome old man in my life, no picture, no video, no TV could do justice to this man, the handsomest old man I ever saw in my life was this man.WEB,www.inminds.com/unity.html, Sunni-Shia Unity, A lecture by Sheikh Ahmad Deedat, inminds.com, 6 April 2012, }}

Family and descendants

{{multiple image|align=right|direction=vertical|width=200|image1=خمینی Ùˆ نوه‌ها.JPGAhmad Khomeini>Ahmad) and grandsons (Hassan and left side Ali Eshraghi)|image2=Family>grandson and granddaughter}}In 1929BOOK, Dabashi, Hamid, 1993, Theology of Discontent: The Ideological Foundations of the Islamic Revolution in Iran, New York, New York University Press, 410,online.sfsu.edu/mroozbeh/CLASS/H-606-pdfs/Khomeini-Dabashi.pdf,online.sfsu.edu/mroozbeh/CLASS/H-606-pdfs/Khomeini-Dabashi.pdf," title="web.archive.org/web/20150402163547online.sfsu.edu/mroozbeh/CLASS/H-606-pdfs/Khomeini-Dabashi.pdf,">web.archive.org/web/20150402163547online.sfsu.edu/mroozbeh/CLASS/H-606-pdfs/Khomeini-Dabashi.pdf, 2 April 2015, dead, WEB,en.imam-khomeini.ir/en/n3119/Biography/Marital_life, Marital life, Imam-khomeini.ir,en.imam-khomeini.ir/en/n3119/Biography/Marital_life," title="web.archive.org/web/20120818161956en.imam-khomeini.ir/en/n3119/Biography/Marital_life,">web.archive.org/web/20120818161956en.imam-khomeini.ir/en/n3119/Biography/Marital_life, 18 August 2012, live, (or possibly 1931), Khomeini married Khadijeh Saqafi,Taheri, The Spirit of Allah (1985), p. 90-1 the daughter of a cleric in Tehran. Some sources claim that Khomeini married Saqafi when she was ten years old,BOOK, Thomas M. Leonard, Encyclopedia of the Developing World, 2005, Routledge, 978-1-57958-388-0, 909, BOOK, Diane Morgan, Essential Islam: A Comprehensive Guide to Belief and Practice, 2005, Praeger, 978-0-313-36025-1, 165, BOOK, Ervand Abrahamian, Khomeinism: Essays on the Islamic Republic, 2005, Univ. of California, 978-0-520-08503-9, 8,archive.org/details/khomeinismessays00erva/page/8, while others claim she was fifteen years old.WEB,en.radiofarda.com/a/many-iran-religious-leaders-support-child-marriage/29735413.html, Despite Outrage, No End in Sight For Child Marriage in Iran, RFE/RL, 28 January 2019, By all accounts their marriage was harmonious and happy. She died on 21 March 2009, at the age of 93.WEB, Khadijeh Saqafi, Khomeini’s Wife, Is Dead at 93,www.nytimes.com/2009/03/24/world/middleeast/24saqafi.html, The New York Times, 23 March 2009,archive.today/20231117120445/https://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/24/world/middleeast/24saqafi.html, 17 November 2023, live, WEB, Iranians mourn Khomeini’s widow,news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7958025.stm, BBC News, 22 March 2009,news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7958025.stm," title="web.archive.org/web/20090324165855news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7958025.stm,">web.archive.org/web/20090324165855news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7958025.stm, 24 March 2009, live, They had seven children, though only five survived infancy. His daughters all married into either merchant or clerical families, and both his sons entered into religious life. Mostafa, the elder son, died in 1977 while in exile in Najaf, Iraq with his father and was rumored by supporters of his father to have been murdered by SAVAK.Moin, Khomeini, (2001), 184–5 Ahmad Khomeini, who died in 1995 at the age of 50, was also rumoured to be a victim of foul play, but at the hands of the regime.NEWS,www.independent.co.uk/life-style/love-the-revolution-shame-about-reality-1585085.html, Love the revolution, shame about reality, The Independent, 5 June 1995, 19 March 2010, London, Robert, Fisk, Perhaps his “most prominent daughter”,“Khamenei vs. Khomeini” by Ali Reza Eshraghi, 20 August 2009. Retrieved 23 August 2009. Zahra Mostafavi, is a professor at the University of Tehran, and still alive.Khomeini’s fifteen grandchildren include:

• Zahra Eshraghi, granddaughter, married to Mohammad Reza Khatami, head of the Islamic Iran Participation Front, the main reformist party in the country, and is considered a pro-reform character herself.
• Hassan Khomeini, Khomeini’s elder grandson Sayid Hasan Khomeini, son of the Seyyed Ahmad Khomeini, is a cleric and the trustee of the Mausoleum of Khomeini and also has shown support for the reform movement in Iran,Grandchildren of the revolution. By von Najmeh Bozorgmehr and Roula Khalaf 4 March 2009 {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090505165822www.ftd.de/karriere_management/business_english/:Business-English-Grandchildren-of-the-revolution/481985.html |date=5 May 2009 }}. Retrieved 23 August 2009. and Mir-Hossein Mousavi’s call to cancel the 2009 election results.
• Husain Khomeini (Sayid Husain Khomeini), Khomeini’s other grandson, son of Sayid Mustafa Khomeini, is a mid-level cleric who is strongly against the system of the Islamic republic. In 2003, he was quoted as saying: “Iranians need freedom now, and if they can only achieve it with American interference I think they would welcome it. As an Iranian, I would welcome it.“”Make Iran Next, Says Ayatollah’s Grandson”, Jamie Wilson, 10 August 2003, The Observer In that same year Husain Khomeini visited the United States, where he met figures such as Reza Pahlavi, the son of the last Shah and the pretender to the Sun Throne. Later that year, Husain returned to Iran after receiving an urgent message from his grandmother. According to Michael Ledeen, quoting “family sources”, he was blackmailed into returning.WEB, Ledeen, Michael A.,www.aei.org/publications/pubID.19680,filter.all/pub_detail.asp, Veiled Threats Lure Ayatollah’s Grandson Home By Michael A. Ledeen, 6 January 2004, Aei.org, 6 January 2004, 19 March 2010, dead,www.aei.org/publications/pubID.19680,filter.all/pub_detail.asp," title="web.archive.org/web/20090424185149www.aei.org/publications/pubID.19680,filter.all/pub_detail.asp,">web.archive.org/web/20090424185149www.aei.org/publications/pubID.19680,filter.all/pub_detail.asp, 24 April 2009, In 2006, he called for an American invasion and overthrow of the Islamic Republic, telling Al-Arabiyah television station viewers, “If you were a prisoner, what would you do? I want someone to break the prison [doors open].NEWS, PHILIP SHERWELL, 19 June 2006, Ayatollah’s grandson calls for US overthrow of Iran,www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/06/18/wiran18.xml,www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=%2Fnews%2F2006%2F06%2F18%2Fwiran18.xml," title="web.archive.org/web/20060625232000www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=%2Fnews%2F2006%2F06%2F18%2Fwiran18.xml,">web.archive.org/web/20060625232000www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=%2Fnews%2F2006%2F06%2F18%2Fwiran18.xml, dead, 25 June 2006, The Daily Telegraph, 19 March 2010, London,
• Another of Khomeini’s grandchildren, Ali Eshraghi, was disqualified from the 2008 parliamentary elections on grounds of being insufficiently loyal to the principles of the Islamic revolution, but later reinstated.NEWS,news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7243383.stm, Khomeini grandson returns to poll, 13 February 2008, BBC News, 13 February 2008, 19 March 2010,

Bibliography

Khomeini was a writer and speaker (200 of his books are online)NEWS,news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/104312.stm, World: Middle East Ayatollah Khomeini on the Web, BBC News, 1 June 1998, 19 March 2010, who authored commentaries on the Qur’an, on Islamic jurisprudence, the roots of Islamic law, and Islamic traditions. He also released books about philosophy, gnosticism, poetry, literature, government and politics.WEB,www.imamreza.net/eng/imamreza.php?id=2037, The Works and Declarations of Imam Khomeini, Imamreza.net, 19 March 2010, dead,imamreza.net/eng/imamreza.php?id=2037," title="web.archive.org/web/20100612174031imamreza.net/eng/imamreza.php?id=2037,">web.archive.org/web/20100612174031imamreza.net/eng/imamreza.php?id=2037, 12 June 2010, {{Better source needed|date=May 2023}}His books include:

• (Islamic Government: Governance of the Jurist|Hokumat-e Islami: Velayat-e faqih) (Islamic Government: Governance of the Jurist)
• The Little Green Book: A sort of manifesto of Khomeini’s political thought
• Forty HadithWEB,www.al-islam.org/fortyhadith/, Forty Hadith, An Exposition, Second Revised Edition, Al-Islam.org, 25 February 2016, 14 December 2005,www.al-islam.org/fortyhadith/," title="web.archive.org/web/20131013193510www.al-islam.org/fortyhadith/,">web.archive.org/web/20131013193510www.al-islam.org/fortyhadith/, 13 October 2013, dead, (Forty Traditions)
• Adab as SalatWEB,www.al-islam.org/adab/, Adab as-Salat: The Disciplines of the Prayer Second Revised Edition, Al-Islam.org, 12 October 2013, (The Disciplines of Prayers)
• (The Greatest fight: Combat with the Self|Jihade Akbar)WEB,al-islam.org/al-tawhid/default.asp?url=greater_jihad.htm, Journal Articles, al-islam.org, (The Greater Struggle)
• Tahrir al-Wasilah
• Kashf al-Asrar

See also

• Khomeinism
• Political thought and legacy of Ruhollah Khomeini
• Islamic Government (book by Khomeini)
• Muhammad Kazim Khurasani
• Mirza Husayn Tehrani
• Abdallah Mazandarani
• Mirza Ali Aqa Tabrizi
• Mirza Sayyed Mohammad Tabatabai
• Seyyed Abdollah Behbahani
• Fazlullah Nouri
• Mohammad Baqir al-Hakim
• Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr
• Islamic fundamentalism in Iran
• Execution of Imam Khomeini’s Order
• Exiles of Imam Khomeini
• Ideocracy
• List of cults of personality
• Ruhollah Khomeini’s letter to Mikhail Gorbachev
• Ruhollah Khomeini’s residency (Jamaran)
• 1979 Iranian Revolution conspiracy theory

Notes

{{notelist}}

References

Citations

{{Reflist}}

Sources

• BOOK, Ansari, Hamid,www.ghadeer.org/english/imam/n_o_a/html/fehrest.html, The Narrative of Awakening, The Institute for Compilation and publication of the work of Imam Khomeini,www.ghadeer.org/english/imam/n_o_a/html/fehrest.html," title="web.archive.org/web/20150514145122www.ghadeer.org/english/imam/n_o_a/html/fehrest.html,">web.archive.org/web/20150514145122www.ghadeer.org/english/imam/n_o_a/html/fehrest.html, 14 May 2015,
• BOOK, Bakhash, Shaul, The Reign of the Ayatollahs: Iran and the Islamic Revolution, Basic Books, New York, 1984,
• BOOK, Brumberg, Daniel, Reinventing Khomeini: The Struggle for Reform in Iran, University of Chicago Press, 0-226-07758-6, 2001,
• ENCYCLOPEDIA, Zoroastrianism ii. Historical Review: from the Arab Conquest to Modern Times, Choksy, Jamsheed K., Jamsheed Choksy,www.iranicaonline.org/articles/zoroastrianism-02-arab-conquest-to-modern, Encyclopaedia Iranica, 2015,
• BOOK,books.google.com/books?id=sTFdNNQP4ewC&q=intitle:%22Islamic+revolution%22, Dabashi, Hamid, Theology of Discontent: The Ideological Foundation of the Islamic Revolution in Iran, 2006, Transaction Publishers, 1-4128-0516-3,
• BOOK, Daniel, Elton L., The History of Iran,archive.org/details/historyofiran0000dani, registration, Greenwood Press, 0-313-30731-8, 2001,
• BOOK, DeFronzo, James, Revolutions And Revolutionary Movements, Westview Press, 978-0-8133-4354-9, 2007, registration,archive.org/details/revolutionsrevol0000defr_m6p2,
• BOOK, Harney, Desmond, The priest and the king: an eyewitness account of the Iranian revolution, I.B. Tauris, 1998,
• BOOK,books.google.com/books?id=bxJgsRRtDsoC&q=intitle:%22Islamic+revolution%22, Hoveyda, Fereydoun, The Shah and the Ayatollah: Iranian Mythology and Islamic Revolution, 2003, Praeger/Greenwood, 0-275-97858-3,
• BOOK, Karsh, Efraim, Islamic Imperialism: A History, Yale University Press, 978-0-300-12263-3, 2007,
• BOOK, Keddie, Nikkie R., Modern Iran: Roots and Results of Revolution, Yale University Press, 0-300-09856-1, 2003,
• BOOK, Khomeini, Ruhollah, Algar, Hamid, Islamic Government: Governance of the Jurist, Alhoda UK, 964-335-499-7, 2002,
• BOOK, Khomeini, Ruhollah, Algar, Hamid (translator and editor), Islam and Revolution: Writing and Declarations of Imam Khomeini,archive.org/details/islamrevolutionw00khom, registration, Mizan Press, Berkeley, CA, 1981,
• BOOK, Khomeini, Ruhollah, Sayings of the Ayatollah Khomeini: political, philosophical, social, and religious, Bantam, 1980,
• BOOK,books.google.com/books?id=XgoNAAAAIAAJ&q=intitle:%22khomeini%22, Lee, James, The Final Word!: An American Refutes the Sayings of Ayatollah Khomeini, 1984, Philosophical Library, 0-8022-2465-2,
• BOOK, Mackey, Sandra, The Iranians: Persia, Islam and the Soul of a Nation, Dutton, 1996, 0-525-94005-7,
• BOOK, Milani, Mohsen M., The Making of Iran’s Islamic Revolution: From Monarchy to Islamic Republic, Westview Press, 0-8133-8476-1, 1994,
• BOOK, Moin, Baqer, Khomeini: Life of the Ayatollah, St. Martin’s Press, 0-312-26490-9, 2000,archive.org/details/khomeinilifeofay00moin,
• BOOK, Molavi, Afshin, The Soul of Iran: a Nation’s Journey to Freedom, Norton paperbacks, New York, 2005,
• BOOK, Rāhnamā, ‘Ali, Pioneers of Islamic Revival, Macmillan, 1-85649-254-0, 1994,
• BOOK, Reich, Bernard, Political Leaders of the Contemporary Middle East and North Africa: A Biographical Dictionary, Greenwood Press, 0-313-26213-6, 1990,
• BOOK, Schirazi, Asghar, The Constitution of Iran, Tauris, New York, 1997,
• BOOK, Taheri, Amir, The Spirit of Allah, Adler & Adler, 1985,
• BOOK,books.google.com/books?id=4Qt-zJ7V0v8C&q=intitle:%22khomeini%22, Willett, Edward C., Ayatollah Khomeini, 2004, The Rosen Publishing Group, 0-8239-4465-4,
• BOOK, Wright, Robin, In the Name of God: The Khomeini Decade,archive.org/details/innameofgodkhome00wrig, registration, Simon & Schuster, New York, 1989, 978-0-671-67235-5,
• BOOK, Wright, Robin, The Last Revolution, Knopf, New York, 2000,

External links

{{sister project links|c=Category:Ruhollah Khomeini|d=yes|q=yes|s=yes|n=no|b=no|v=no|voy=no|m=no|mw=no|wikt=no|species=no}}

• Imam Khomeini’s Official Website
• Documentary: Imam Khomeini P1 (Free Press TV documentary)
• Imam Khomeini – Reformer of the Century (English Subtitles – Press TV Documentary)
• The New York Times article on Khomeini’s poetry
• {{YouTube|XCZ-jmDbjmQ|Documentary about the life of Ruhollah Khomeini}}
• {{YouTube|6iar_1OKOmc|Documentary: The man who changed the world}}
• {{YouTube|EA22431spOk|Documentary: I knew Khomeini}}
• Rouhollah Khomeini’s Website
• www.khomeini.ir/" title="web.archive.org/web/20190706123929www.khomeini.ir/">Who Is Imam Khomeini?

Selected bibliography

• www.wandea.org.pl/khomeini-pdf/hukumat-i-islami.pdf" title="web.archive.org/web/20031206165617www.wandea.org.pl/khomeini-pdf/hukumat-i-islami.pdf">Syed Ruhollah Moosavi Khomeini – Islamic Government (Hukumat-i Islami)
• www.wandea.org.pl/khomeini-pdf/ruhullah-musavi-khomeini.pdf" title="web.archive.org/web/20070621033510www.wandea.org.pl/khomeini-pdf/ruhullah-musavi-khomeini.pdf">Syed Ruhollah Moosavi Khomeini – The Last Will...
• Books by and or about Rouhollah Khomeini {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210517052913ghadeer.org/english/imam/imam-books/imambooks.html |date=17 May 2021 }}
• www.kayhannews.ir/851020/12.htm" title="web.archive.org/web/20070618130206www.kayhannews.ir/851020/12.htm">Letter by Ayatollah Khomeini to Mikhail Gorbachev, dated 1 January 1989. Kayhan
• Khomeinism: Essays on the Islamic Republic, 1993 by the Regents of the University of California

{{Ruhollah Khomeini}}{{Commanders-in-Chief of the Iranian Armed Forces}}{{Cold War}}{{Time Persons of the Year}}{{Time 100: The Most Important People of the Century}}{{1988 executions of Iranian political prisoners}}{{People executed by the Islamic Republic of Iran}}{{Authority control}}