Ruhollah Khomeini

Iran state institutions 1900.5.17.–1989.6.3. ○ Heart attack

Shia cleric who led the Iranian Revolution against the Shah and became the first Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic

Born in Khomeyn, Khomeini studied Islamic law and philosophy at the seminaries of Arak and Qom and taught for decades at the seminaries of Qom and Najaf, rising to the rank of ayatollah and marja'. In 1963 he denounced the Shah's White Revolution as "an attack on Islam" and was arrested; expelled to Turkey in 1964, he moved to Najaf, where his lectures on the Guardianship of the Jurist were compiled as Islamic Government. He returned to Iran on 1 February 1979 to lead the revolution, and after a referendum replaced the monarchy with an Islamic Republic he became its Supreme Leader in December 1979. As Supreme Leader he backed the hostage takers in the hostage crisis, pursued the Iran–Iraq War and presided over the purges of his former allies, the 1981–1982 massacres and the 1988 mass executions of political prisoners.

Also known as: Ayatollah Khomeini · Imam Khomeini · Ruhollah Mostafavi Khomeini