Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini was born on Jamadi al-Akhar 20, 1320 (September 24, 1902), the anniversary of the birth of Hazrat Fatima (SA), in the small town of Khomein, some 160km southwest of Qom. He was the child of a family with a long tradition of religious scholarship. His ancestors were the descendants of Imam Musa Kazem (AS), the seventh Imam of the infallible Household of the Prophet (S).
Imam Khomeini's grandfather, Seyyed Ahmad, settled in Khomein to assume responsibility for the religious needs of its citizens. By the time of his death, Seyyed Ahmad had fathered two children, a daughter by the name of Sahebeh, and Seyyed Mostafa, born in 1885, the father of Imam Khomeini.
Seyyed Mostafa began his religious education in Isfahan with Mir Mohammad-Taqi Modarresi before continuing his studies in Najaf and Samarra under the guidance of Mirza Hassan Shirazi (d. 1894), the principal authority of the age in Shia jurisprudence. This corresponded to a pattern of preliminary study in Iran followed by advanced study in the Atabat, the shrine cities of Iraq, which for long remained normative; Imam Khomeini was in fact the first religious leader of prominence whose formation took place entirely in Iran.
In March 1903, some five months after the Imam's birth, Seyyed Mostafa was attacked and martyred while traveling on the road between Khomein and the neighboring city of Arak. Seyyed Mostafa had aroused the anger of the local landowners because of his defense of the impoverished peasants.
Imam Khomeini described his memories when he was 12 years old, "I recall both world wars. I was attending elementary school. I used to see Soviet troops in the center we had in Khomein. In the First World War we were often subject to raids. We used to build bunkers. By the age of 17, we were given rifles and were taught how to use them. Chaos had overtaken everything and every place. The central government was powerless. They once took a borough of Khomein but the people fought them off. People took up guns and we were with them."
Imam Khomeini began his education by memorizing the Quran at a religious school near his home. He memorized the Holy Quran by the age of seven.
After his arrival in Qom in 1922, from his early days in Qom, the Imam gave an indication that he was destined to become more than another great authority on Jafari jurisprudence. He showed an exceptional interest in subjects that not only were usually absent from the school curriculum but were often an object of hostility and suspicion: philosophy, in its various traditional schools, and mysticism.
The teacher who had the most profound influence on Imam Khomeini's spiritual development was, however, Mirza Mohammad Ali Shahabadi (d. 1950); the Imam refers to him in a number of his works as Aref-e Kamel.
As a teacher, mysticism and ethics were the subject of the first classes taught by the Imam. The classes on ethics taught by Haj Javad Aqa Maleki Tabrizi were resumed, three years after his death, by Shahabadi, and when Shahabadi left for Tehran in 1936, he assigned the class to Imam Khomeini.
The popularity of the Imam's lectures ran contrary to the policies of the Pahlavi regime, which wished to limit the influence of the ulama outside the religious teaching institution. The government therefore secured the transfer of the lectures from the prestigious location of the Feizieh School to the Molla Sadeq School, which was unable to accommodate large crowds.
However, after Reza Shah was deposed in 1941, the lectures returned to the Feizieh School and instantly regained their former popularity.
While teaching ethics to a wide and diverse audience, Imam Khomeini began teaching important texts of mysticism, such as the section on the soul in al-Asfar al-Arba'eh of Molla Sadra (d. 1640), and Sabzevari's Sharh-e Manzoumeh, to a select group of young scholars that included Morteza Motahhari and Dr. Mohammad Mofatteh, who subsequently were among his principal collaborators in the revolutionary movement he launched some three decades later.
He assumed a public political stance in a proclamation dated May 4, 1944, that called for action to deliver the Muslims of Iran and the entire Islamic world from the tyranny of foreign powers and their domestic accomplices. The Imam begins by citing Quran 34:46, "Say: I enjoin but one thing upon you, that you rise up for Allah, in pairs and singly, and then reflect." The Imam's interpretation of "rising up" is, however, both spiritual and political, both individual and collective, a rebellion against lassitude in the self and corruption in society.
Imam Khomeini connected all assaults on tradition with the anti-religious policies of Reza Shah and bitterly criticized the Pahlavi regime for destroying public morality. He proposed that an assembly of competent jurisprudents should choose a just system which would not violate God's laws and would shun oppression and wrongdoing, which would not transgress against men's property, lives, and honor. There can be no doubt that the better system already envisaged by Imam Khomeini in 1944 was velayat-e faqih (rule by the just jurisprudent), which became the constitutional cornerstone of the Islamic Republic of Iran established in 1979.
The Imam's activity began to change with the demise of Borujerdi on March 31, 1961. He became marja-e taqlid for the Iranian Shias. His leadership role was, however, destined to go far beyond that traditional for a religious leader and to attain a comprehensiveness unique in the history of the Shia clergy.
This became apparent soon after the death of Borujerdi when Mohammad Reza Shah, secure in his possession of power after the CIA-organized coup of August 1953, embarked on a series of measures designed to eliminate all sources of opposition, actual or potential, and to incorporate Iran firmly into American patterns of strategic and economic domination. In the autumn of 1962, the government promulgated new laws regulating elections to local and provincial councils, which eliminated the former requirement that those elected be sworn into office on the Quran.
On January 26, the referendum was held, with a low turnout that reflected the growing heed paid by the Iranian people to Imam Khomeini's directives. He continued his denunciation of the shah's programs, issuing a manifesto that also bore the signatures of eight other senior scholars. In it he listed the various ways in which the shah had violated the Constitution, condemned the spread of moral corruption, and accused him of comprehensive submission to America and Israel. The Imam said: "I see the solution to lie in this tyrannical government being removed, for the crime of violating the ordinances of Islam and trampling upon the Constitution, and in a government taking its place that adheres to Islam and has concern for the Iranian nation."
The very next day, paratroopers were sent to the Feizieh School in Qom, the site where the Imam delivered his public speeches. They killed a number of students, beat and arrested a number of others, and ransacked the building. Unintimidated, the Imam continued his attacks on the regime. On April 1, he denounced the persistent silence of certain apolitical ulama as "tantamount to collaboration with the tyrannical regime. When the shah sent his emissaries to the houses of the ulama in Qom to threaten them with the destruction of their homes, the Imam reacted contemptuously by referring to the shah as "that little man."
Confrontation turned to insurrection some two months later. The beginning of the month of Moharram saw demonstrators in Tehran carrying pictures of the Imam and denouncing the shah in front of his own palace. On the afternoon of Ashura (June 3, 1963), Imam Khomeini delivered a speech at the Feizieh School in which he drew parallels between the Umayyad caliph Yazid and the shah, and warned the shah 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.
This warning was remarkably prophetic, for on January 16, 1979, the shah was indeed obliged to leave Iran amidst scenes of popular rejoicing. The immediate effect of the Imam's speech was, however, his arrest two days later at 3 o'clock in the morning by a group of commandos, who hastily transferred him to the Qasr Prison in Tehran.
As dawn broke on June 4, the news of his arrest spread first through Qom and then to other cities. In Qom, Tehran, Shiraz, Mashhad, and Varamin, masses of angry demonstrators were confronted by tanks and ruthlessly slaughtered. It was not until six days later that order was fully restored.
After his release, shortly before dawn on November 4, 1964, again a detachment of commandos surrounded the Imam's house in Qom, arrested him, and this time took him directly to Mehrabad Airport in Tehran for immediate banishment, together with his son Haj Mostafa, to Turkey. The decision to exile him was based no doubt on the hope that in exile he would fade from popular memory. On September 5, 1965, Imam Khomeini left Turkey for Najaf in Iraq, where he was destined to spend thirteen years.
The distribution in Iran, on however limited a scale, of the proclamations and fatwas of Imam Khomeini, was in itself enough to ensure that his name not be forgotten during the years of exile.
The chain of events that ended in February 1979 with the overthrow of the Pahlavi regime and the foundation of the Islamic Republic began in Najaf on October 23, 1977 with the martyrdom of Haj Seyyed Mostafa Khomeini, unexpectedly and under mysterious circumstances. This martyrdom was widely attributed to the Iranian security police, SAVAK, and protest meetings took place in Qom, Tehran, Yazd, Mashhad, Shiraz, and Tabriz. Imam Khomeini described the death of his son as one of the "hidden favors" of God, and advised the Muslims of Iran to show fortitude and hope.
The esteem in which Imam Khomeini was held was demonstrated once again on January 7, 1978 when an article appeared in the semi-official newspaper attacking him in scurrilous terms as a traitor working together with foreign enemies of the country. The next day, a furious mass protest took place in Qom. It was suppressed by the security forces with heavy loss of life. This was the first in a series of popular confrontations that, gathering momentum throughout 1978, soon turned into a vast revolutionary movement, demanding the overthrow of the Pahlavi regime, and the installation of an Islamic government.
The martyrs of Qom were commemorated forty days later with demonstrations and shop closures in every major city of Iran. Particularly grave were the disturbances in Tabriz, which ended only after more than 100 people had been killed by the shah's troops. On March 29, the fortieth day after the killings in Tabriz was marked by a further round of demonstrations in some fifty-five Iranian cities.
As these events were unfolding in Iran, Imam Khomeini delivered a whole series of messages and speeches which reached his homeland not only in printed form but also increasingly on tape cassettes. His voice could be heard congratulating the people for their sacrifices, denouncing the shah in categorical fashion as a criminal, and underlining the responsibility of the United States for the killings and the repression.
After a period of hesitation in which Algeria, Lebanon, and Syria were considered as possible destinations, Imam Khomeini was forcibly sent to Paris, where his second son, Haj Seyyed Ahmad Khomeini, joined him. Upon arrival in Paris, the Imam took up residence in a suburban house.
Telephonic communications with Tehran were far easier from Paris than they had been from Najaf. The messages and instructions the Imam issued flowed forth uninterrupted from the modest command center he established in a small house opposite his residence. Moreover, a host of journalists from across the world now made their way to France, and the image and the words of the Imam soon became a daily feature in the world's media.
On January 3, 1979, Shahpour Bakhtiar was appointed prime minister of Iran to replace General Azhari, and plans were drawn up for the shah to leave the country for what was advertised as a temporary absence. None of these maneuvers distracted the Imam from the goal now increasingly within reach. The very next day after the formation of the regency council, he proclaimed from France the formation of the Council of the Islamic Revolution, a body entrusted with establishing a transitional government to replace the Bakhtiar administration.
On January 16, amid scenes of feverish popular rejoicing, the shah left Iran for exile and death. Conditions now seemed appropriate for Imam Khomeini to return to Iran and preside over the final stages of the revolution. After a series of delays, he left on the evening of January 31, 1979, and arrived in Tehran the following morning.
Amid unparalleled scenes of popular joy, it has been estimated that more than ten million people gathered in Tehran to welcome the Imam back to his homeland. The following day the Supreme Military Council withdrew its support from Bakhtiar, and on February 11, 1979, all organs of the regime, political, administrative, and military, finally collapsed.
There can be no doubting the centrality of Imam Khomeini's role and the integrally Islamic nature of the revolution he led.
Physically removed from his countrymen for fourteen years, he had a clear sense of the revolutionary potential that had surfaced, and was able to mobilize the broad masses of the Iranian people for the attainment of what seemed to many inside the country as a distant and excessively ambitious goal.
His role pertained, moreover, not merely to moral inspiration and symbolic leadership; he was also the operational leader of the revolution. He took all key decisions himself, silencing early on all advocates of compromise with the shah. It was the mosques that were the organizational units of the revolution and mass prayers, demonstrations and martyrdom that were -- until the very last stage -- his principal weapons.
On June 4, 1989, after eleven days in the hospital for an operation to stop internal bleeding, Imam Khomeini lapsed into a critical condition and passed away. The outpouring of grief was massive and spontaneous, the exact counterpoint to the vast demonstrations of joy that had greeted his return to Iran a little over ten years earlier. Such was the press of mourners, estimated at some nine million, that the body ultimately had to be transported by helicopter to the place of burial in Behesht-e Zahra.
The testament of Imam Khomeini was published soon after his death. A lengthy document, it addresses itself principally to the various classes of Iranian society, urging them to do whatever is necessary for the preservation and strengthening of the Islamic Republic. Significantly, however, it begins with an extended meditation on the hadith-e Saqalein: "I leave among you two great and precious things: the Book of God and my household; they will never be separated from each other until they meet me at al-kauthar."
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