Khomeini Biography

Ayatollah Khomeini’s foundation to become the central figure and religious leader of the Iranian Revolution began in his childhood. He was born into a fairly wealthy Shi’ite Muslim family on September 24, 1902. His true name was Ruhollah Musavi, but he adopted the name of Khomeini after his place of birth. He never really knew his father because his father was murdered in 1903. When Khomeini was four years old, he began attending a local religious school and continued to attend it until he was sixteen years old. He then furthered his education at a theological college. He studied with Yazdi Ha’iri, a prominent Islamic scholar at the time. After he completed his college education, he became an Islamic teacher at Ha’iri’s school. After Ha’iri died, Ayatollah Boroujerdi took his place as the most important religious figure, and Khomeini became a follower. Khomeini preached against the continuing stray from traditional Islam in Iran and gained a group of followers. He gained the title of ayatollah, meaning a ‘sign of God,’ in the 1950s.

Ayatollah Boroujerdi died in 1961 giving Khomeini the opportunity to vie for the position of the next major religious leader. He succeeded and became the grand ayatollah. Khomeini’s political involvement in Iran increased and became more public. As the Shah continued enacting reforms that distanced Iran more and more from Islamic customs and values, Khomeini began actively protesting. Khomeini’s most notable protest was in June of 1963. In essence, he made a speech denouncing the Shah and claiming that the Iranians wanted to see the Shah leave the country. Because of a repression of freedom of speech at the time, Khomeini was arrested for negative comments about the government. Some Iranians protested...

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...nian students took 66 Americans hostage at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran on November 4, 1979, marking the beginning of the Iranian Hostage Crisis. The Iranian government refused to comply with the Carter Administration in releasing the hostages. This event lasted for 444 days into the Reagan Administration in 1981. The crisis might not have ended if it were not for the sanctions and oil embargoes.

Khomeini indoctrinated the youth of the nation through the schools. He was against freedom of speech and arrested those who voiced opposition to his regime. Khomeini was very anti-west and wanted to undo some of the westernization policies of the Shah. Ayatollah Khomeini instituted many new policies that followed Islamic principles, such as the oppression of women, the banning of Western culture, and implication of shar’ia law. He remained in power until his death in 1989.