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Ayatollah Seyyed Ruhollah Khomeini (Persian: آیت الله روح الله خمینی Arabic: آية الله روح الله الخميني) (May 17 1900? – June 3 1989) was a Shi'a Muslim cleric and marja, and the political and spiritual leader of the 1979 Iranian Revolution which saw the overthrow of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the last Shah of Iran. Following the Revolution, Khomeini held the office of Supreme Leader, the paramount figure in the political system of the new Islamic Republic, and retained this position until his death.
Khomeini was considered a spiritual leader to many Shi'a Muslims, and in Iran is officially addressed as Imam rather than Ayatollah, and his supporters also adhere to this convention. Khomeini was also a highly influential and innovative Islamic political theorist, most noted for his development of the theory of velayat-e faqih, the "guardianship of the jurisconsult". He was named Time Magazine's Man of the Year in 1979.
Early years
Ruhollah Khomeini was born in the town of Khomein, about 180 miles south of the capital Tehran, as Ruhollah Mousavi (Persian: روحالله موسوی) on May 17, 1900. He came from a religious family with an established clerical heritage that claimed descent from the Prophet Muhammad, hence being a Seyyed. Khomeini became an Ayatollah in the 1920s. In accordance with clerical tradition, he changed his surname to that of the town of his birth.
His father was murdered when he was five months old. As such his mother and one of his aunts brought up Khomeini. Later on in his life, at the age of fifteen, both his mother and aunt passed away that same year. He received his early education at home and at the local school, under the supervision of Mullah Abdul-Qassem and Sheikh Jaffar, also under the guardianship of his elder brother Ayatollah Pasandideh until he was eighteen years old. He had arrangements made for him to study at the Islamic seminary in Isfahan, but he was attracted instead to the seminary in Arak, which was renowned for its scholastic brilliance under the leadership of Ayatollah Sheikh Abdol-Karim Haeri-Yazdi (himself a pupil of some of the greatest scholars of Najaf and Karbala both in Iraq).
It was in 1921 that Khomeini commenced his studies in Arak. The following year, Ayatollah Haeri-Yazdi transferred the Islamic seminary to the holy city of Qom, and invited his students to follow him. Khomeini accepted the invitation, moved, and took up residence at the Dar al-Shafa school in Qum, before being exiled to the holy city of Najaf in Iraq. After graduation, he taught Islamic jurisprudence (Sharia), philosophy and mysticism (Irfan) for many years and wrote numerous books on these subjects.
Life in exile
In 1963 he publicly denounced the government of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. He was thereby imprisoned for 8 months, and upon his release in 1964 he made a similar denunciation of the United States. This led to his forced exile out of Iran. He initially went to Turkey, before later being allowed to move to Iraq, where he stayed until being forced to leave in 1978, after then-Vice President Saddam Hussein forced him out (the two countries would fight a bitter eight year war 1980-1988 only a year after the two reached power in 1979) after which he went to Neauphle-le-Château in France. According to Alexandre de Marenches (then head of the French secret services), France suggested to the Shah that they could "arrange for Khomeini to have a fatal accident"; the Shah declined the assassination offer, arguing that this would make him a martyr.
After the murder of Dr. Ali Shariati, a prominent revolutionary university academic/philosopher, Khomeini became one of the most influential opponents to the rule of the Shah, being perceived as the spiritual leader of those fighting his rule. During his exile, Khomeini wrote a book titled Guardianship of the Islamic Jurists (velayat-e faqih), which laid out his beliefs as such: that all laws in an Islamic society should be based on the laws of God (Shariah), all laws and activities should be monitored by clerical authorities on Islamic law (guardians), there should be no monarch (that Islamic countries should become republics and not monarchies). Khomeini believed that the leader of an Islamic Republic should be a faqih (an Islamic jurist, who is also a member of the clergy), who should be selected by a group of clerics. The Supreme Leader, as the post is officially called, would have absolute authority, and could only be removed from power by that very same group of clerics. Though the public cannot vote for the Leader, in a similar fashion to the Pope, Dalai Lama and Chief rabbis of Israel, according to the constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran, a group of clerics called the Assembly of Experts is voted in by the citizens of Iran every eight years, and it is they who select him. The book provides an insight on the eventual political background of the Islamic Republic of Iran. In short, after the success of the Revolution Khomeini replaced the monarchist government of the Shah with a theocratic system dominated by the clergy.
Return to Iran
Only two weeks after the Shah fled Iran on January 16, 1979, Khomeini returned to Iran triumphantly, on Thursday, February 1, 1979, invited by the anti-Shah revolution which was already in progress. Western media sources estimated that up to 6-7 million revolutionaries welcomed him.[citation needed] When Khomeini was on plane on his way to Iran after many years in exile, a reporter asked him: "What do you feel?" and surprisingly Khomeini answered "Nothing!".[1] On February 11, Khomeini declared a provisional government, with Mehdi Bazargan as its prime minister. On March 30, 1979, and March 31, 1979, the provisional government asked all Iranians sixteen years of age and older, male and female, to vote in a referendum on the question of accepting an Islamic Republic as the new form of government and constitution. Through the ballot box, over 98% voted in favour of replacing the monarchy with an Islamic republic. Subsequent elections were held to approve of the newly-drafted constitution. Along with the position of the Supreme Leader, the constitution also requires that a president be elected every four years, but only those candidates approved indirectly by the Council of Guardians may run for the office. Khomeini himself became instituted as the Supreme Leader for life, and officially decreed as the "Leader of the Revolution." On February 4, 1980, Abolhassan Banisadr was elected as the first president of Iran.
Hostage crisis
On November 4, 1979, a group of students, all of whom were ardent followers of Khomeini, seized the United States embassy in Tehran, and took 63 American citizens as hostage. Three additional hostages were taken at the Iranian Foreign Ministry. Thirteen of the 63 hostages were released (mostly women and black personnel) within two weeks, and one more in July 1980. The remaining fifty men and two women were held for 444 days — an event usually referred to as the Iran hostage crisis. The hostage-takers justified this violation of long-established international law as a reaction to the American refusal to hand over the Shah for trial, for crimes against the Iranian Nation. Supporters of Khomeini named the embassy a "Spy Den", weapons and electronic listerning devices and equipment were found, and fifty volumes of official and secret classified documents were later retrieved from it, after embassy staff were caught shredding and destroying it. Khomeini stated on February 23, 1980, that Iran's Parliament would decide the fate of the American embassy hostages, demanding that the United States hand over the Shah for trial in Iran for crimes against the nation. President Jimmy Carter launched a commando mission to rescue the hostages, but the attempt was aborted when the helicopters crashed into other aircraft under unexpected desert conditions in Tabas. Some Iranians considered this to be a miracle caused by divine intervention. Many commentators point to this failure as a major cause for Carter's loss in the following elections to Ronald Reagan. The hostages were released during Ronald Reagan's inauguration ceremony; Reagan was informed of this upon leaving the podium after taking the oath of office. See also October Surprise.
Iran-Iraq War
Shortly after assuming power, Khomeini began calling for similar style Islamic revolutions across the Muslim world. Saddam Hussein, leader of the secular Ba'athist Iraqi state, was ambitious to occupy his oil-rich neighbor (the province of Khuzestan, in particular) and believed Iran to be weakened due to the Revolution and in a state of upheaval and turmoil. Hussein was also anxious to prevent the success of Shi'a revolutionaries in Iran inciting Iraq's Shi'a majority.
Iraq soon launched a full scale invasion of Iran, starting what would become the eight-year-long Iran-Iraq War (September 1980 - August 1988). Supported by the West, the Iraqi invasion of Iran, intended to contain the ideological spread of potential Islamist revolutions in the oil-rich Persian Gulf states, ironically enhanced Khomeini's stature and allowed him to consolidate and stabilize his leadership. During the war, the people of Iran rallied around Khomeini and his government, and his personal popularity and power became unmatched, as Khomeini urged all Iranians to defend their country and religion against the secular Iraqi regime.
Two years after the war began, in 1982, Iraq accepted the idea of a cease-fire and negotiations concerning the border dispute. Iraq also accepted, with help of Saudi-Arabia, to pay some of the damages. Khomeini probably perceived the Iraqi diplomatic retreat as a sign of further weakness. Khomeini continuously rejected a cease-fire, demanding huge reparation payments and an end to Hussein’s rule before it would stop fighting. These conditions effectively killed any hope of a peaceful resolution. Consequently the war continued for another six years, with 450,000 to 950,000 casualties on the Iranian side and the use Chemical Weapons by the Iraqi military.
As the costs of the eight-year war mounted, Khomeini, in his words, “drank the cup of poison” and accepted a truce mediated by the United Nations. As the war ended, the struggles among the clergy resumed and Khomeini’s health began to decline. (Source: Microsoft Encarta 2006)
Life under Khomeini
Under Khomeini's rule, Sharia (Islamic law) was introduced, with the Islamic dress code enforced for both men and women. Women were forced to cover their hair and body, while men were not allowed to wear short-sleeve shirts or shorts. Many opponents fled the country because of their dislike of the political situation after the Revolution and its changes. Freedom of speech and freedom of the press were ostensibly protected, at least as long as it did not contradict Islamic law. Inevitably, however, many newspapers and other media outlets were closed down. Furthermore, opposition to the religious rule of the clergy or Islam in general was often met with harsh punishments. In the immediate aftermath of the Revolution, there were many systematic human rights violations, including mass executions and interrogation of former members of the overthrown monarchy and military and anyone who opposed the revolutionary government.
In 1979, when Khomeini returned to Iran after exile and before he led the Islamic revolution, he made a speech in Tehran’s main cemetery. In this speech, Khomeini promised Iranian citizens free telephone, heating, electricity, bus services and free oil at their door steps. He also declared that “no one should remain homeless in this country”. None of these promises were fulfilled. [2][3][4][5][6]
In 1976, Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa to allow people with hormonal disorders to undergo gender reassignment if they wished, as well as to change their birth certificates to reflect their new gender role. Before the Islamic Revolution in 1979, there was no particular policy regarding transgendered individuals. Iranians with the inclination, means, and connections could obtain the necessary medical treatment and new identity documents.
For many years, breaking the barrier of confinement of the private sphere has been a major source of frustration for advocates of women's rights in Iran. But the Islamic revolution broke the barrier overnight. When Khomeini called for women to attend public demonstration and ignore the night curfew, millions of women who would otherwise not have dreamt of leaving their homes without their husbands' and fathers' permission or presence, took to the streets. Khomeini's call to rise up against the Shah took away any doubt in the minds of many devoted Muslim women about the propriety of taking to the streets during the day or at night.[7]
The late 1980s and early 1990s witnessed a marked increase of employment for women. This increase was much more than the rate prior to the revolution. Such dramatic change in the pattern of labor force participation might not have been possible if Khomeini had not broken the barriers to women entering into the public sphere. Educational attainment for women, also a product of free education and the literacy campaign, contributed to this increase. In fact, today there are more women in higher education than there are men. The Islamic Republic had adopted certain policies to expand educational levels for women in order to ensure that sexual segregation paid off. These policies were to encourage women to become skilled workers in domains exclusive to women. For example, the government set quotas for female pediatricians and gynecologists and set up barriers against women wanting to become civil engineers.[8]
Khomeini supported family planning, a program through which the government called upon women to distribute contraceptives, as well as organ transplants. [9]
In early 1989, Khomeini issued a fatwa calling for the killing of Salman Rushdie, claiming that Rushdie's murder was a religious duty for Muslims because of his alleged blasphemy against Prophet Muhammad in his novel, The Satanic Verses. The novel, which examines the integration of Indian characters into modern Western culture, implies that the Qur'an was not properly preserved. Rushdie's book contains passages that some Muslims – including Ayatollah Khomeini – considered offensive to Islam and the prophet. The issuance of the fatwa caused many Westerners, particularly those on the left who had generally been in favor of the Revolution against the Shah, to reconsider their support of Khomeini.
Death and funeral
After eleven days in a hospital for an operation to stop internal bleeding, Khomeini died of cancer on Saturday, June 3, 1989 at the age of 89. Literally, Millions of Iranians mourned Khomeini's death and poured out into the cities and streets. During the funeral, Tehran fell into absolute chaos, requiring cancellation of the funeral, and new plans for a second funeral. Iranian officials aborted Khomeini’s first funeral, after a large crowd stormed the funeral procession, nearly destroying Khomeini's wooden coffin in order to get a last glimpse of his body. At one point, Khomeini's body actually almost fell to the ground, as the crowd attempted to grab pieces of the death shroud. Over ten thousand people were said to have been injured.
The second funeral was held under much tighter security. Khomeini's casket was made of steel, and heavily armed security personnel surrounded it. It is said that a crowd of more than nine million mourners of Khomeini attended the burial location at the vast Behesht Zahra cemetery complex, and tens of millions more around the country and outside participated in, something that has never been witnessed in history before, which itself was not supposed to have been revealed at the time.[citation needed]
Although Iran’s economy was greatly weakened at the time of his death, the Islamic state was well established.
Successorship
Grand Ayatollah Hossein-Ali Montazeri, a major figure of the Revolution, was designated by Khomeini to be his successor as Supreme Leader, who referred to Montazeri as the "fruit of my life." However, due to Montazeri's pro-democracy viewpoints and opposition to the institution of velayat-e-faqih (Guardianship of the Clergy) as it came to be established under the Islamic Republic, and his criticism of human rights abuses by the government, Khomeini denounced him in a letter in 1988 and as a result Ayatollah Ali Khamenei came to be selected by the Assembly of Experts to be Khomeini's successor. [10] [11] [12]
Political thought and legacy
Throughout his many writings and speeches, Khomeini consistently promoted his vision of a theocratic Islamic society, guided by the morality and ethics of the clergy. He believed in a free market economy, with respect for private ownership, and that businesses and corporations should be encouraged to contribute to religious charitable foundations which would benefit the poor. He advised against allowing wealthy individuals to participate in the government, and that politicians should follow his example and live a modest, frugal lifestyle, devoid of elitism and excess.
During his first two years in power, Khomeini had most of his secular and religious opponents executed. By 1983, however, he began to voice ambivalence about clerical rule and revolutionary politics, saying the clergy’s sharp and often violent disagreements threatened the unity of the Islamic state. On several occasions Khomeini called on clerics to return to their “proper profession” and leave political and administrative matters to the government.
He was strongly against very close relations with Western and East bloc nations, and believed that Iran should strive towards self-reliance. He viewed certain elements of Western culture as being inherently decadent, and a corrupting influence upon the youth. As such, he often advocated the banning of popular Western fashions, music, cinema, and literature. His ultimate vision was for Islamic nations to converge together into a single unified power, in order to avoid alignment with either side (the West or the East), and he believed that this would happen at some point in the near future.
Khomeini expressed support for the Universal Declaration of Human Rights; in Sahifeh Nour (Vol.2 Page 242), he states: "We would like to act according to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. We would like to be free. We would like independence." However, Iran adopted an alternative human rights declaration, the Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam, in 1990, which diverges in key respects from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Khomeini's ideas did not originally find favor amongst the orthodox Iranian Shi'a clergy of the time, most of whom did not oppose the monarchy. While such clerics generally adhered to widely-accepted conservative theological schools of thought, Khomeini believed that interpretations should change and evolve, even if such changes were to radically differ from tradition, and that a cleric should be moved by divinely inspired guidance. In contrast with clerical mores of the day, he led an ascetic lifestyle, being deeply interested in Irfan, and was against the accumulation of land and wealth by the clergy (despite the fact that land reform had been a major cause of the mullahs' anger against the Shah). Towards the 1979 Revolution, many clerics gradually became disillusioned with the rule of the Shah, and began supporting Khomeini's vision of an Islamic Republic.
Many of Khomeini's political and religious ideas were considered to be progressive and reformist by leftist intellectuals and activists prior to the Revolution. However, they did not support many of his other views which conflicted with their own, in particular those that dealt with issues of secularism, women's rights, freedom of religion, and the concept of velayat-e-faqih.
Many of the democratic and social reforms that he had promised did not come to pass during his lifetime, and when faced with such criticism, Khomeini often stated that the Islamic Revolution would not be complete until Iran becomes a truly Islamic nation in every aspect, and that democracy and freedom would then come about "as a natural result of such a transformation". Khomeini's definition of democracy existed within an Islamic framework, his reasoning being that since Islam is the religion of the majority, anything that contradicted Islam would consequently be against democratic rule. His last will and testament largely focuses on this line of thought, encouraging both the general Iranian populace, the lower economic classes in particular, and the clergy to maintain their commitment to fulfilling Islamic revolutionary ideals.
Some centrist and reformist politicians, such as Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and Mohammad Khatami, have instituted or advocated policies which have led to conflicts with the current Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, the Judiciary, and the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps. While the hard-line Iranians consider these policies as being opposed to Khomeini's principles, the reformers, especially Mohammad Khatami, claim that they are in exact accordance with Khomeini's style, referring to his constant warnings against extremism, and his views about freedom of speech.
These policies have been viewed by some as having alienated the lower economic classes, allowing wealthy elites to dominate the government, promoting closer relations with the West, and potentially disconnecting Khomeini from the future evolution of the Islamic Republic. Such factors played an important part in the victory of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who adheres closely to Khomeini, in the 2005 presidential elections. In all Khomeini is said to be the author of 180 major and minor books. He is often quoted as the greatest scholar of the modern day Islamic world, and his teachings are taught in both Shia and Sunni universities.
Despite the fact that Khomeini helped establish a republican system in Iran, many secular and religious thinkers believe that his ideas are not compatible with the idea of a democratic republic. Mohammad Taghi Mesbah Yazdi (a senior cleric and main theorist of Iranian ultraconservatives), Akbar Ganji (a pro-democracy activist and writer who is against Islamic Republic) and Abdolkarim Soroush (an Iranian philosopher in exile) are supporters of this viewpoint, according to the state-run Aftab News. [13]
Views on non-Muslims
After his return to Iran, Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa declaring that the Jewish and Christian communities were to be protected. [14]
Family and descendants
In 1929, Khomeini married Batool Khanom the daughter of a cleric in Tehran. 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. The elder son, Mostafa, was murdered in 1977 while in exile with his father in Najaf, Iraq and SAVAK (the Imperial-era secret police) was accused of his death by Khomeini. Ahmad Khomeini, the younger son, died in 1995, under mysterious circumstances.
Khomeini's granddaughter, Zahra Eshraghi, is 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.
Khomeini's grandsons, Seyyed Hassan Khomeini, son of the late Seyyed Ahmad Khomeini, is also a cleric and the trustee of Khomeini's shrine and Hossein Khomeini, son of Seyyed Mustafa Khomeini, is a mid-level cleric who is sympathetic to American neoconservative and pro-Israel interests (he has lectured at the American Enterprise Institute) and is strongly against the system of the Islamic Republic (see [15]).
After the 2003 American-led invasion of Iraq, Hossein relocated to the holy city of Karbala. He returned to Iran after receiving an urgent message from his grandmother. According to Michael Ledeen, who has quoted "family sources," he was blackmailed into returning. [16]
Works
- Waliyat al-faqih
- Forty Hadith (Forty Traditions)
- Adab as Salat (The Disciplines of Prayers)
- Jihade Akbar (The Greater Struggle)
See also
Notes
External links
Some books by and on Ayatollah Khomeini [in PDF]: