Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini Biography

Ayatollah Khomeini, also known as Sayyid Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini in the West, was an Iranian political and religious leader. He was the creator of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Also, he was the leader of the Iranian Revolution of 1979, which saw the last Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, deposed and the Persian monarchy ended. Following the revolution, Khomeini was named the country's Supreme Leader and got a post in the Islamic Republic's constitution as the country's highest political and religious authority, which he retained until his death.

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In this Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini Biography, we will learn about his early life, achievements, and some interesting facts about him. Let’s come to our main question, who was Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini? 

Childhood of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini

Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini, whose first name means "spirit of Allah," was born on May 17, 1900, in Khomeyn, Markazi Province, though his brother Mortaza (later known as Ayatollah Pasandideh) claims he was born on September 24, 1902, the birth anniversary of the Prophet Muhammad's daughter, Fatimah. Khomeini was born in Khomein, which is presently known as Markazi Province in Iran. When Khomeini was two years old, his father was assassinated. He was raised by his mother, Hajieh Agha Khanum, and his aunt, Sahebeth, following the murder of his father, Mustapha Musavi, over two years after his birth in 1903.

At the age of six, Ruhollah began studying the Qur'an and basic Persian. He began attending a local school the next year, where he studied religion, noheh khani (lamentation recital), and other traditional disciplines. His religious education was continued throughout his youth with the help of his relatives, especially his mother's cousin, Ja'far, and his older brother, Morteza Pasandideh.

Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini Works and Career

Ruhollah Khomeini was a lecturer in the seminars of Najaf and Qom for decades before he rose to prominence in politics. He quickly rose to prominence as a Shia Muslim scholar. Political philosophy, Islamic history, and ethics were among the subjects he taught. Several of his disciples, such as Morteza Motahhari, went on to become prominent Islamic philosophers and Marja’s. Khomeini published various works on Islamic philosophy, law, and ethics during his career as a scholar and teacher. He displayed a special interest in subjects like philosophy and mysticism, which were not only lacking from most seminar curricula but were also frequently the target of antagonism and mistrust.

At the age of 27, he began his teaching career by offering private lessons in Irfan and Mulla Sadra to a small group of people. Around the same time, in 1928, he also published his first book, 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 by Sirr al-Salat (Secret of the Prayer), "where the symbolic dimensions and inner meaning of every part of the prayer by Imam Ja'far al-Sadiq" a few years later. 

Khomeini was a Twelver Shia Islam Marja ("source of emulation"), a Mujtahid or faqih (a Sharia scholar), and the author of more than 40 books, although he is most recognized for his political activity. For his opposition to the previous Shah, he spent more than 15 years in exile. He enlarged the doctrine of the wilayat-al faqih, or "Guardianship of the Islamic Jurist (clerical authority)" to incorporate theocratic political rule by Islamic jurists in his writings and sermons. After a referendum, this principle (which was unknown to the general public before the revolution) was included in the new Iranian constitution. 

From the ablution before it to the salam after it, everything is explained in a rich, complicated, and eloquent language that owes a lot to Ibn 'Arabi's notions and terminology. "The work is directed only to the foremost among the spiritual elite (akhass-i khavass) and establishes its author as one of their numbers", says Sayyid Fihri, the editor and translator of Sirr al-Salat. The second book, "The Mystery of Prayer: The Ascension of the Wayfarers and the Prayer of the Gnostics" was translated by Sayyid Amjad Hussain Shah Naqavi and published by BRILL in 2015.

In the 1940s, he battled against secularism and taught in seminaries on the role of religion in practical, social, and political challenges of the day. Kashf al-Asrar (Uncovering Secrets), his first political work, was a point-by-point critique of the Asrar-e hezar sale, published in 1942. (Secrets of a Thousand Years), a pamphlet authored by a follower of Iran's foremost anti-clerical historian, Ahmad Kasravi, condemning innovations such as international time zones and Reza Shah's prohibition on hijab. He also travelled from Qom to Tehran to hear Ayatullah Hasan Mudarris, the head of Iran's opposition majority in parliament in the 1920s. Following the death of Grand Ayatollah Seyyed Husayn Borujerdi in 1963, Khomeini was made a Marja.

Khomeini admired Islamists like Sheikh Fazlollah Noori and Abol-Ghasem Kashani for their ideas. Khomeini regarded Fazlollah Nuri as a "heroic character," and his opposition to constitutionalism and secular government stemmed from Nuri's criticisms of the 1907 constitution.

Khomeini compared democracy to prostitution, according to The New York Times. It's debatable if Khomeini's ideals are democratic, and whether he meant the Islamic Republic to be democratic. For his international influence, Khomeini was named Man of the Year by Time magazine in 1979, and he has been dubbed the "virtual face of Shia Islam in Western popular culture." He escaped a military coup attempt in 1982. 

Khomeini was noted for supporting the hostage-takers during the Iran hostage crisis, issuing a fatwa calling for the assassination of British Indian novelist Salman Rushdie, and referring to the US as the "Great Satan" and the Soviet Union as the "Lesser Satan". Khomeini has been chastised for these actions, as well as for violating Iranians' human rights. (Thousands of political detainees, war criminals, and prisoners of the Iran–Iraq War were executed as a result of his orders). The Iran–Iraq War of 1980–1988 consumed the majority of his time in power. On June 4, 1989, he was succeeded by Ali Khamenei.

He has also been hailed as a "charismatic leader of enormous appeal", "champion of Islamic revival" by Shia thinkers working to reconcile Sunnis and Shias, and a prominent innovator in political theory and religion-based populist political strategy. Khomeini was given the title of Grand Ayatollah and is known as Imam Khomeini in Iran and globally by his supporters. Others refer to him as Ayatollah Khomeini. 

Ayatollah Khomeini Cause of Death

His health had deteriorated for several years before he died. Ruhollah Khomeini died on 3 June 1989, just before midnight, at the age of 89, after spending eleven days in Jamaran hospital and having five heart attacks in a span of ten days. Ali Khamenei succeeded him as Supreme Leader. Thousands of Iranians flocked to the streets to openly grieve his death, while fire trucks splashed water on the throng to keep them cool in the sweltering summer heat. At least ten mourners were killed, more than 400 were seriously injured, and thousands more were hospitalized for injuries sustained during the chaos.

On June 11, 1989, 10.2 million people lined the 32-kilometer (20-mile) path to Tehran's Behesht-e Zahra cemetery for the funeral of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, according to official Iranian estimates. As the remains lay in state, Western agencies estimated that 2 million people paid their respects. His gold-domed grave at Tehran's Behesht-e Zahr cemetery has become a shrine for his devotees, and he is legally deemed "inviolable" with insulting him punishable by death. Following the Iranian Revolution, Khomeini built a cult of personality.

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 the last glimpse of his body and touch his coffin. Armed soldiers were forced to fire warning rounds into the air to disperse the gathering in certain circumstances. Khomeini's body dropped to the ground at one point, and the mob pulled off portions of the death shroud, attempting to keep them as holy relics. 

Despite this, the mob pushed through the temporary barriers. The "corpse of the Ayatollah, shrouded in a white burial shroud, tumbled out of the rickety wooden coffin, and in a frantic scene, many in the throng tried to touch the shroud," according to John Kifner of The New York Times. A thin white leg had been exposed. The shroud was pulled apart seeking artifacts, and Khomeini's son Ahmad was thrown to the ground. The grave was leaped into by men. The guards lost control of the body at one point. Soldiers fired into the air to drive the throng back, remove the body, and transport it to the helicopter, but mourners clung to the landing gear and could not be shaken free. The body was returned to North Tehran to undergo a second round of preparations.

Five hours later, the second funeral was held under significantly stricter security. This time, Khomeini's casket was made of steel, and it was solely used to transport the body to the burial site, as per Islamic tradition. His son Ahmad was buried close to him in 1995. Khomeini's mausoleum is currently part of a larger mausoleum complex.

Important Facts About Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini

• The Islamic Republic of Iran was founded and led by Ayatollah Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini (1902-1989). He was the only supreme leader in the Muslim world who merged political and religious powers when he took office in 1979.

• Khomeini spent his early years studying, teaching, and publishing in the field of Islamic studies. He began studying the Koran at the age of six. His older brother was the one who taught him Islamic law. He passionately believed in the need for clerics to be politically involved, as seen by his essays in both secular and religious classes.

• In the 1940s, Khomeini was the first Iranian cleric to try to reject secularism. In his novel, Kashf-e Assrar, he did just that (Discovery of Secrets). The book was created to refute claims made in a book authored by a student of Iran's foremost anti-clerical historian of the time.

• In 1962, Khomeini initiated his war against the Shah's authority, believing the government to be an un-Islamic and illegitimate institution. This crusade sparked insurrection and marked a watershed moment in the history of Iran's Islamic movement.