Khomeini's father was killed shortly after his birth. Khomeini, who lost his father at a young age, also lost his mother at the age of 15.
Ruhollah Khomeini was born on September 22, 1902. Khomeini's father was killed shortly after his birth. Khomeini, who lost his father at a young age, also lost his mother at the age of 15. He became a student of Sheikh Abdulkerim Hairi in Arak, where he went to study Islamic sciences in 1920. In 1922 he settled in the city of Kum. In 1930, he took the surname Khomeini in memory of the city where he was born. He wrote many works on philosophy, logic, kalam, fiqh, and other Islamic sciences. He married Betul Sakafi Khomeini in 1929. He was 27 years old and Betul Sakafi Khomeini was 15 when he got married. They had seven children, two of whom died.
Ruhollah Khomeini (17 May 1900 – 3 June 1989), also known as Ayatollah Khomeini, was an Iranian political and religious leader who served as the first supreme leader of Iran from 1979 until his death in 1989. He was the founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran and the leader of the 1979 Iranian Revolution, which saw the overthrow of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and the end of the Persian monarchy.
Khomeini was known more for his open stance against Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, his opposition to Western influence, and his defense of Islam in statecraft, rather than for his works on Islamic studies. He assumed the title of Ayatollah in the 1950s and Ayatollah the Great in the early 1960s, ascending to the top of the Shiite mullah hierarchy.
He was arrested in 1962-63 for opposing the confiscation of the properties of some religious foundations as part of the Shah's land reform program. Thereupon, anti-government movements erupted. Imam Khomeini was exiled to Turkey on 4 November 1964 after being imprisoned for one year. After staying in Turkey, he was exiled to Iraq on the advice of the Shah's men and settled in the Iraqi city of Najaf, which is considered sacred by the Shiites. From there he continued his calls for the overthrow of the Shah and the establishment of an Islamic republic in Iran. Imam Khomeini's influence in Iran began to grow in the mid-1970s, as public discontent with the Shah's regime escalated. On October 6, 1978, under pressure from the Shah, when Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein asked him to leave Iraq, he went to France and settled in Neauphle-le-Chateau, a suburb of Paris. From there, he engaged in intense propaganda for the overthrow of the Shah's rule and the establishment of an Islamic republic. The tape tapes to which he conveyed his messages reached an ever-expanding audience in Iran. In late 1978, when mass demonstrations, strikes, and popular discontent spread throughout the country, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was forced to leave Iran on January 16, 1979.
Khomeini and the Islamic Revolution in Iran
He returned to Iran on February 1, 1979, and was received splendidly. Imam Khomeini, the political, legal, and spiritual leader of the revolution, appointed a government four days later and settled in Qom again on 1 March. After the establishment of the Islamic Republic of Iran in a constitutional referendum in December, he was elected a lifetime political and religious leader.
Imam Khomeini transformed the Islamic movements, which gained a new vitality with their victory over the Shah, into action. He himself has demonstrated that he is absolutely determined to transform Iran into an Islamic state. The ulama, who had the authority of ijtihad, took the responsibility of determining the government policy in the country, while Imam Khomeini was content to arbitrate between different groups and make the final decision on important issues that required the use of his personal weight. Islamic law was implemented as a legal order. Women were required to cover their heads, Western music and alcohol were banned, and punishments laid down in Sharia law were implemented.
The main principle of Imam Khomeini's foreign policy was the complete abandonment of the pro-Western line and an uncompromising stance towards both the USA and the Soviet Union.
Relations with the United States came to a standstill after a group of university students seized the US Embassy in Tehran on November 4, 1979, and took 66 US citizens from the embassy and foreign affairs organization hostage. This action, with the approval of Imam Khomeini, lasted until January 29, 1981, when the hostages were released.
Iran fought Iraq for 8 years between 1980-1988 as a result of Saddam Hussein's attack. Imam Khomeini has long refused to seek a peaceful solution to the Iran-Iraq War to punish Saddam Hussein who started the war, but the US shot down an Iranian civilian plane, sent a war fleet to the Persian Gulf (279 Iranian civilians killed), and It agreed to a ceasefire in 1988 after overt interventions such as this fleet's attack on Iranian oil refineries and tankers. Despite the country's economic difficulties and the futile efforts to end the war against Iraq with victory, he retained his charismatic influence over the people until his death.
DEATH OF AYATULLAH
He died on June 3, 1989, shortly after issuing a death warrant for Salman Rushdie, the author and publisher of Satanic Verses, in the United Kingdom in 1988. The funeral prayer, which was flocked by millions (estimated between 10 and 13 million), went down in history.