Ruhollah Khomeini (1902 - 1989) was an Iranian Shia cleric, jurist and revolutionary who led the Iranian Revolution of 1979 and served as the first Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran until his death. [1] He developed and implemented the doctrine of velayat-e faqih, the guardianship of the Islamic jurist, which placed ultimate political authority in the hands of a senior cleric. [2] His decade in power encompassed the US embassy hostage crisis, the Iran-Iraq War and the mass execution of political prisoners. [4]
Early life and religious training
Khomeini was born on 24 September 1902 in Khomein, in central Iran, into a family of clerics; his father was killed when he was an infant. [1] He studied Islamic law, philosophy and mysticism in Arak and then at the seminary in Qom, where he became a teacher and gathered a following of students. He published works on ethics and jurisprudence and rose through the ranks of the Shia clergy to the position of marja, a source of emulation for believers.
Opposition and exile
Khomeini emerged as a public critic of Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi in the early 1960s, denouncing the modernisation programme known as the White Revolution, the extension of legal immunity to American personnel in Iran, and the Shah's relations with the United States and Israel. [2] Arrests and protests followed, and in 1964 he was expelled from the country.
He settled in Najaf, Iraq, where he taught for more than a decade. In lectures later published as Islamic Government, he argued that in the absence of the Hidden Imam legitimate rule belonged to qualified Islamic jurists rather than to monarchs. [2] Recordings of his sermons circulated widely in Iran. Expelled from Iraq in 1978, he moved to Neauphle-le-Château outside Paris, from where he directed the opposition through the mass demonstrations and strikes of that year.
The revolution and the Islamic Republic
The Shah left Iran in January 1979 and Khomeini returned to Tehran on 1 February to large crowds. The monarchy collapsed within days, and a referendum in March established an Islamic republic. [3] A new constitution created the post of Supreme Leader, which Khomeini occupied, with authority over the armed forces, the judiciary and the vetting of candidates for office.
In November 1979 students seized the United States embassy in Tehran and held its staff for 444 days, an action Khomeini endorsed; relations between Iran and the United States were severed and have not been restored. [1] Internally, the new authorities suppressed rival political forces, including secular nationalists, leftists and Kurdish groups, through revolutionary courts and executions. [4]
In September 1980 Iraq invaded Iran, beginning a war that lasted eight years and cost hundreds of thousands of lives on both sides. Khomeini rejected early opportunities for a settlement and continued the war after Iranian forces had recovered their territory, accepting a United Nations ceasefire in July 1988 in terms he described as more bitter than poison. [1] In the same year thousands of imprisoned political opponents were executed after brief tribunals.
Final year and legacy
In February 1989 Khomeini issued a fatwa calling for the killing of the novelist Salman Rushdie over his book The Satanic Verses, an edict that provoked an international dispute over freedom of expression and forced Rushdie into years of protection. [1] Khomeini died in Tehran on 3 June 1989 and was succeeded as Supreme Leader by Ali Khamenei.
The political system Khomeini created has outlasted him and continues to govern Iran. [2] He is venerated in official Iranian discourse as the founder of the republic, while his record of repression and the war remain the subject of sustained criticism inside and outside the country. [4]
