Ayatollah Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini, a figure of devastation to many inside and outside Iran, ascended from obscurity as a cleric in the Iranian city of Qom to orchestrate one of the most transformative and divisive events of the 20th century.
His Islamic Revolution dismantled Iran’s monarchy and established a theocratic regime, marking the dawn of an era defined by oppression, sectarian violence, and regional and global instability. Khomeini’s vision of a Shia Islamic state, where ultimate authority rested with the clergy under Sharia law, fueled a legacy of authoritarianism and repression that stifled freedoms in Iran and reverberated far beyond its borders.
His words and actions emboldened Shia and Sunni-Islamic extremist movements, deepened sectarian rifts, and perpetuated conflicts across the Middle East, leaving a legacy shaped as much by destruction and division as by his unrelenting grip on power.
Early Life and Family Background
Ruhollah Musavi, later named Ayatollah Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini, was born on September 24, 1902, in the town of Khomein (Khomeyn) in central Iran. His family name, Musavi, reflected their claim of direct lineage from the Prophet Mohammed, and his later adoption of the name “Khomeini” followed the tradition of leading clerics taking their hometown’s name. Ruhollah, meaning “spirit of God,” was a rare name in Iran, and many of his followers believed it was chosen through divine inspiration by his father, Mostafa Musavi, a well-respected cleric. Khomeini was the youngest of Mostafa’s six children and was born into a family deeply rooted in Shia Islamic scholarship and tradition.
The Musavi family had migrated to India in the 18th century before Ruhollah’s grandfather, Ahmad Musavi Hindi, returned to Iran. Ahmad settled in Khomein (Khomeyn) in 1834, acquiring land and establishing the family as a prominent and relatively affluent household. Mostafa Musavi, Ruhollah’s father, continued the family’s clerical tradition, completing his studies in Najaf and Karbala, Iraq, two of Shia Islam’s most important centers. After becoming a senior cleric, Mostafa returned to Khomein (Khomeyn), where he started a family. However, in 1903, less than six months after Ruhollah’s birth, Mostafa was murdered under mysterious circumstances; however, the most likely reason was because of a feud with rival landowners.
Ruhollah grew up under the care of his mother, aunt, and wet nurse in a wealthy family that ensured his education. At four years old, he began his studies at a local religious school, or Maktab, where he learned Quranic verses, Persian calligraphy, and Arabic phrases. His education focused heavily on rote memorization of religious texts. This foundation laid the groundwork for Khomeini’s dedication to Islamic scholarship. By 1918, having exhausted the resources of the local Maktab, Khomeini’s family sent him to further his studies in the city of Arāk.
Clerical Studies and Influence
In 1920, Khomeini joined the Grand Ayatollah Hajj Sheikh Abdolkarim Haeri Yazdi’s seminary in Arāk, where he studied under the renowned Islamic scholar. When Haeri relocated to Qom in 1923, Khomeini followed him, committing himself to advanced religious studies and teaching younger students. This period began Khomeini’s intellectual and spiritual development as a scholar. When Haeri died in the 1930s, Grand Ayatollah Sayyid Hossein Ali Tabatabaei Borujerdi succeeded him as Qom’s leading religious figure, and Khomeini became one of his followers. Both Grand Ayatollahs believed religion should remain separate from politics, a principle the young cleric reluctantly followed, shaping his early years in the clergy.
During the rise and reign of Reza Shah Pahlavi, who overthrew the Qajar dynasty in 1925, religious leaders in Iran were marginalized as the government pursued a campaign of modernization and westernization. This policy continued under his son and the last Shah of Iran, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, who intensified efforts to modernize and westernize Iran following his rise to the Sun Throne in the 1950s. Despite the Shah’s suppression of religious voices against his policies, Khomeini focused on teaching and building a loyal base of students who would later become key figures in the Islamic Revolution. As time passed, Khomeini’s writings on Shia Islamic doctrines began to gain attention in Qom. After the death of Ayatollah Boroujerdi in 1961, many Shia Muslims saw Khomeini as Marja al-Taqlid or a “source of emulation.”
Opposition to the Shah and Path to Exile
In November 1961, the Shah introduced land reforms to redistribute land to peasants, directly impacting wealthy landowners, including the clergy. These reforms threatened the financial foundations of religious institutions, including Khomeini’s own. The Shah also proposed granting voting rights to women and non-Muslims, which Khomeini saw as an attack on Islam. Free from Yazdi and Boroujerdi’s rule of nonintervention in political affairs, Khomeini denounced the Shah as an enemy of Islam, claiming that such reforms were driven by Jewish and Zionist conspiracies and aimed to destroy Iran’s religious and social fabric. His outspoken opposition and strong rhetoric elevated him from a relatively unknown cleric in Qom to a prominent anti-Shah leader.
By 1963, Khomeini had consolidated his position as a national figure by rallying support against the Shah’s “White Revolution,” which included land redistribution, women’s suffrage, and literacy programs. Khomeini condemned these reforms as secular and foreign-driven, accusing the Shah of advancing Zionist and American interests. His vehement speeches framed the Shah as an agent of the Jewish state of Israel and a threat to Islam, further galvanizing his supporters. When the Shah’s forces suppressed dissent at the Feizeyeh seminary in Qom, killing and injuring students loyal to Khomeini, the Ayatollah declared the attack a sign of the monarchy’s impending collapse. This event solidified Khomeini’s image as a defiant cleric willing to challenge the monarchy at significant personal risk.
In June 1963, during the Ashura commemorations, Khomeini delivered his most incendiary speech, directly attacking the Shah, Israel, and the United States. He accused the Shah of betraying Islam and suggested he was working on behalf of foreign powers. The government, alarmed by Khomeini’s growing influence, arrested him, sparking nationwide protests that were violently suppressed. Although senior officials within the Shah’s government called for Khomeini’s execution, clerical intervention prevented it, as they feared turning him into a martyr. Upon his release in 1964, Khomeini resumed his fiery sermons, positioning himself as the Shah’s most vocal opponent and further cementing his role as a radical Shia Islamic leader.
Khomeini’s status as an Ayatollah granted him immunity from prosecution, frustrating the Shah’s efforts to silence him. Despite warnings from the government, Khomeini continued his anti-Shah and anti-Western rhetoric, rallying support from Iran’s bazaar merchants and clerics opposed to the monarchy’s modernization and westernization efforts. When the Shah pushed for a law granting American military personnel and their dependents complete diplomatic immunity, Khomeini accused the government of selling out Iran’s sovereignty. His public denunciations led to his re-arrest in November 1964 and immediate exile to Turkey. While his exile temporarily muted public unrest, Khomeini’s fiery activism had already established him as the undisputed leader of radical Islamic opposition in Iran.
The Ayatollah’s exile marked a turning point in his campaign against the Shah, allowing him to refine his ideological and political vision for his nation and build a domestic and international network of secular, left-wing, nationalist, and Islamic supporters. Khomeini’s growing popularity and radical rhetoric resonated with those disenchanted by the Shah’s modernization efforts, which they viewed as undermining Islamic values. Though physically absent from Iran, his influence would continue to grow, setting the stage for his return and the revolutionary upheavals of the following decades.
