KHOMEINI, RUHOLLAH

born May 17, 1900?, Khomeyn, Iran died June 3, 1989, Tehran also spelled Ruhallah Khomeyni, original name Ruhollah Musawi Iranian Shi'ite cleric who led the revolution that overthrew Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi in 1979 and who was Iran's ultimate political and religious authority for the next 10 years. Khomeini was the grandson and son of mullahs, or Shi'ite religious leaders. When he was five months old, his father was killed on the orders of a local landlord. The young Khomeini was raised by his mother and aunt and then by his older brother. He was educated in various Islamic schools, and he settled in the city of Qom about 1922. About 1930 he adopted the name of his home town, Khomeyn, as his surname. As a Shi'ite scholar and teacher, Khomeini produced numerous writings on Islamic philosophy, law, and ethics, but it was his outspoken opposition to Iran's ruler, Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, his denunciations of Western influences, and his uncompromising advocacy of Islamic purity that won him his initial following in Iran. In the 1950s he was acclaimed as an ayatollah, or major religious leader, and by the early 1960s he had received the title of grand ayatollah, thereby making him one of the supreme religious leaders of the Shi'ite community in Iran. In 196263 Khomeini spoke out against the shah's reduction of religious estates in a land-reform program and against the emancipation of women. His ensuing arrest sparked antigovernment riots, and, after a year's imprisonment, Khomeini was forcibly exiled from Iran on Nov. 4, 1964. He eventually settled in the Shi'ite holy city of An-Najaf, Iraq, from where he continued to call for the shah's overthrow and the establishment of an Islamic republic in Iran. From the mid-1970s Khomeini's influence inside Iran grew dramatically owing to mounting public dissatisfaction with the shah's regime. Iraq's ruler, Saddam Hussein, forced Khomeini to leave Iraq on Oct. 6, 1978. Khomeini then settled in Neauphle-le-Chteau, a suburb of Paris. From there his supporters relayed his tape-recorded messages to an increasingly aroused Iranian populace, and massive demonstrations, strikes, and civil unrest in late 1978 forced the departure of the shah from the country on Jan. 16, 1979. Khomeini arrived in Tehran in triumph on Feb. 1, 1979, and was acclaimed as the religious leader of Iran's revolution. He appointed a government four days later and on March 1 again took up residence in Qom. In December a referendum on a new constitution created an Islamic republic in Iran, with Khomeini named Iran's political and religious leader for life. Khomeini was able to tap the deep-seated conservatism of the Muslim fundamentalists, who had acquired new vitality by their victory over the shah. Khomeini himself proved unwavering in his determination to transform Iran into a theocratically ruled Islamic state. Iran's Shi'ite clerics largely took over the formulation of governmental policy, while Khomeini arbitrated between the various revolutionary factions and made final decisions on important matters requiring his personal authority. First his regime took political vengeance, with hundreds of people who had worked for the shah's regime reportedly executed. The remaining domestic opposition was then suppressed, its members being systematically imprisoned or killed. According to Khomeini's dictates, Iranian women were required to wear the veil, Western music and alcohol were banned, and the punishments prescribed by Isl amic law were reinstated. The main thrust of Khomeini's foreign policy was the complete abandonment of the shah's pro-Western orientation and the adoption of an attitude of unrelenting hostility toward both superpowers, while in the meantime Iran tried to export its brand of Islamic fundamentalism to neighbouring Muslim countries. Khomeini sanctioned Iranian militants' seizure of the U.S. embassy in Tehran (Nov. 4, 1979) and their holding of American diplomatic personnel as hostages for more than a year. He also refused to countenance a peaceful solution to the Iran-Iraq war, which had begun in 1980 and which he insisted on prolonging in the hope of overthrowing Iraq's ruler, Saddam Hussein. Khomeini finally approved a cease-fire in 1988 that effectively ended the war. Iran's course of economic development foundered under Khomeini's rule, and his pursuit of victory in the Iran-Iraq War ultimately proved futile. But Khomeini was able to retain his charismatic hold over Iran's Shi'ite masses, and he remained the supreme political and religious arbiter in the country until his death.