Who is ayatollah khomeini in iran

Born in the north-eastern city of Mashhad in , the son of a religious scholar, Ali Khamenei studied at seminaries in his home city before moving to the Shia holy city of Qom. The young Ali Khamenei became a devoted follower of Khomeini. According to his own account, everything he has done and believes today is derived from Khomeini's vision of Islam. Ali Khamenei was actively involved in protests against the shah and was imprisoned several times.

After the Islamic Revolution in , Ali Khamenei served on the Revolutionary Council, which ruled alongside the interim government. In June , he was severely injured in a bomb attack on a mosque in Tehran that was blamed on a leftist insurgent group. The incident left him paralysed in his right arm. Ali Khamenei was elected to succeed Rajai and stayed in the then largely-ceremonial role for eight years, often clashing with the then prime minister, Mir Hossein Mousavi, whom he thought favoured too much reform to the Iranian system.

After the death of Khomeini in June the Assembly of Experts a council of clerics chose Ali Khamenei to be the new Supreme Leader, even though he had not achieved the required rank among Shia clerics that the constitution stipulated - marja-e taqlid source of emulation or grand ayatollah.

To rectify the situation, the constitution was amended to say the Supreme Leader had to show "Islamic scholarship", enabling Ali Khamenei to be selected.

He was also elevated overnight from the clerical rank of Hojjat al-Islam to ayatollah. Iran's constitution was also changed to abolish the post of prime minister and vest greater authority in the presidency. The four presidents that have served under Ayatollah Khamenei since then have each posed challenges to his authority without undermining the Islamic Republic.

But the supreme leader and his allies blocked many of his reforms. But he faced mounting criticism over his government's management of the economy and foreign policy decisions, and then fell out with the supreme leader after reportedly trying to increase his own powers. Mr Ahmadinejad's disputed re-election in also triggered the biggest protests in Iran since the revolution.

The supreme leader insisted the result was valid and ordered a major crackdown on dissent that saw dozens of opposition supporters killed and thousands detained. In the wake of these protests, the Shah felt that Khomeini's exile in Iraq was too nearby for comfort.

Soon thereafter, Khomeini was confronted by Iraqi soldiers and given a choice: either stay in Iraq and abandon all political activity, or leave the country. He chose the latter. Khomeini moved to Paris, which was to be his last place of residence before his triumphant return to Iran.

During his stay there, he defended himself against critics who accused him of being power-hungry with statements such as, "It is the Iranian people who have to select their own capable and trustworthy individuals and give them the responsibilities. However, personally, I can't accept any special role or responsibility.

The year of his return was , mere months after his move to Paris. Students, the middle-class, self-employed businessmen, and the military all took to the street in protest.

The Shah turned to the U. Despite statements such as the one he made in Paris, Khomeini was widely acknowledged as the new leader of Iran, and came to be known as the Supreme Leader. He returned home to cheering crowds, and began laying the groundwork for the Islamic state he had for so long been imagining. During this period, he put other clerics to work on writing an Islamic constitution for Iran.

He also began iterating more authoritarian sentiments than before: "Don't listen to those who speak of democracy. They all are against Islam. They want to take the nation away from its mission. We will break all the poison pens of those who speak of nationalism, democracy, and such things. Meanwhile, the Shah needed a place to serve out his exile. It became known that the Shah was ill with cancer.

With this in mind, the U. In protest, a group of Iranians seized more than sixty American hostages at the U. Embassy in Tehran on November 4, Khomeini saw this as a chance to demonstrate the new Iranian defiance of Western influence.

The new Iranian government and the Carter Administration of the U. This is now known as the Iranian Hostage Crisis. Once in power, the Ayatollah Khomeini was no more sympathetic to the cries of the secular left than the Shah had been to Khomeini's cries for reform. In Qom, Tehran, Shiraz, Mashhad and Varamin, masses of angry demonstrators were confronted by tanks and paratroopers.

It was not until six days later that order was fully restored. This uprising of 15 Khordad marked a turning point in Iranian history. Ayatollah Khomeini going to exile After nineteen days in the Qasr prison, Ayatollah Khomeini was moved first to the 'Eshratabad' military base and then to a house in the 'Davoudiyeh' section of Tehran where he was kept under surveillance. He was released on April 7, , and returned to Qom. The Shah's regime continued its pro-American policies and in the autumn of , it concluded an agreement with the United States that provided immunity from prosecution for all American personnel in Iran and their dependents.

This occasioned the Khomeini to deliver a speech against the Shah. Shortly before dawn on November 4, , again commandos surrounded the Ayatollah Khomeini house in Qom, arrested him, and this time took him directly to Mehrabad airport in Tehran for immediate exile to Turkey on the hope that in exile he would fade from popular memory.

As Turkish law forbade Ayatollah Khomeini to wear the cloak and turban of the Muslim scholar, an identity which was integral to his being. At this madreseh he delivered, between January 21 and February 8, , his lectures on Velayat-e faqeeh, the theory of governance and Islamic Leadership the text of these lectures was published in Najaf, not long after their delivery, under the title Velayat-e faqeeh ya Hukumat-i Islami.

The text of the lectures on Velayat-e faqeeh was smuggled back to Iran by visitors who came to see the Khomeini in Najaf. The most visible sign of the popularity of Ayatollah Khomeini in the pre-revolutionary years, above all at the heart of the religious institution in Qom, came in June on the anniversary of the uprising of 15 Khordad.

Students at the Feyziyeh madreseh began holding a demonstration within the confines of the building, and a sympathetic crowd assembled outside. Both gatherings continued for three days until they were attacked military forces, with numerous deaths resulting.

Ayatollah Khomeini reacted with a message in which he declared the events in Qom and similar disturbances elsewhere to be a sign of hope that "freedom and liberation from the bonds of imperialism" were at hand. The beginning of the revolution came indeed some two and a half years later.

In January 7, when an article appeared in the semi-official newspaper Ittila'at attacking him in such 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 , soon turned into a vast revolutionary movement, demanding the overthrow of the Pahlavi regime and the installation of an Islamic government.

Ayatollah Khomeini arrives in Tehran. He is received by officers of Royal Air Force Shah decided to seek the deportation of Ayatollah Khomeini from Iraq, the agreement of the Iraqi government was obtained at a meeting between the Iraqi and Iranian foreign ministers in New York, and on September 24, , the Khomeini's house in Najaf was surrounded by troops.

Privacy Copyright. Skip to main content. Author Dustin John Byrd. Abstract This thesis examines the events leading up to the Islamic Revolution in Iran and the role of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in bringing about that revolution.