Rouhollah Khomeini

Rouhollah Mousavi Khomeini آیتاللهروحاللهموسويخمینی , also transcribed Khomeiny or Khomeyni (May 17th 1900, Khomein - June 4th 1989, Teheran) was a religious dignity Chiite having the titles of Ayatollah and Seyyed, a Politician Iran IEN and the spiritual guide of the Islamic revolution of 1979 which reverses the Shah of Iran Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. He was also regarded as Marja by many Shiites after the death of the Ayatollah Borudjerdi. He installs in Iran a Théocratie Shiite which he controls since his establishment until his death in 1989, period when he occupies the station of Guide of the revolution.

Youth

He was born in the town of Khomein under the name Rouhollah Moussavi روحالهموسوی in 1900 in a family very believing, her grandfather, his father and his older brother are Ayatollah. His/her father is assassinated by the henchmen of large feudal. Its youth is also marked by the political disturbances of the years 1906 - 1911 (the constitutional Révolution of Iran). In 1927 he is professor of Théologie to Qom, then in the Années 1950 he is named ayatollah. It engages in the religious opposition to the authoritarian regime of the Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and to the reforms that this one carries out for modernization of the country (the “white Révolution”) and in particular with the vote of the women. In 1962, it becomes one of the chiefs of the Shiite community, recognized like “supreme religious guide” ( marja-e taqlid ).

Exile

Its opposition to the “white revolution”, launched by the Iranian capacity the conduit with the confrontation with the capacity. It is stopped in 1963 to have played a big role in the riots of June 4th. Condamné to dead it is pardoned by the Shah of Iran, which conscious of its influence, the fact of releasing quickly in 1964. It is then forced with the Exil, initially in Turkey, then with Nadjaf and Kerbala in Iraq during 14 years, where its speech is radicalized gradually. Its activism pro-Shiite upsets the Iraqi capacity and in 1978 it leaves towards the France with a visa tourist and settles with Neauphle-the-Castle without requiring the Political asylum. According to Alexandre de Marenches (chief of the Service of external documentation and against-espionage, old name of DGSE), France would have suggested with the shah that they could “organize a fatal accident for Khomeini”; the shah refuses the offer of Assassinat, alleging that this would make a Martyr of it. Khomeini became one of the most influential adversaries of the shah.

In Iraq and in Paris, it radicalizes and systematizes its thought around a deep conviction: the democracy is not the adequate system for Iran. According to its analysis, the Ouléma S heirs to the Prophète hold the religious authority and policy, until the return of the Imam hidden. These clerks have the capacity to indicate most erudite of them to concentrate the authority. This principle will become under the name of Velayet-e-faqih after the Islamic revolution, the keystone of the new Iranian mode that Khomeini defines as the absolute capacity of the monk.

The return in Iran

Khomeini turns over to Iran the 1979, with the call of the Revolution already well moving. Khomeini seizes the power the February 11th 1979, while being Head of State, initially like “chief of the revolution”, then as “a supreme spiritual leader” within a provisional government. The Islamic Republic is accepted by referendum, instituting a four years presidential mandate. The February 4th 1980 Khomeini approves the election of Abolhassan Bani Sadr under first president of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Only the candidates approved indirectly by supreme guide of Iran, itself named by the the Council of the guards, can be candidates. In the Islamic Republic wanted by Khomeini, the constitution recognizes the Chiisme duodécimain like religion of State. Moreover, the constitution specifies that the Iranian law must be in agreement with the Charia. The situation of the human rights becomes very alarming: the women lose their acquired rights during the previous period, and freedoms continue to be restricted.

Khomeini becomes little by little the center of a Culte of the personality, and any opposition to its person, the religious government or Islam in general is seen bitterly repressed. The immediate shortly after the revolution spread systematic allegations of abuse the Human rights, about the Torture especially (See the article Human rights in Iran).

At the beginning of the revolution between 1979 and 1981, from the students members of a group called Partisans of the line of the Imam remove 52 citizens of the the United States and retain them as an hostage in the Ambassade from the USA in Teheran during 444 days during the Iranian Crise of the hostages. Khomeini indicates the February 23rd 1980 to the Iranian Parliament that the destiny of the hostages depends on the American embassy, this one having to require of the United States the extradition of the shah for his lawsuit in Iran. The President of the United States Jimmy Carter lance an illegal operation commando to save the hostages, but the attempt failed when the helicopters were crushed in the desert around Tabas. Many commentators think that this rout involved the loss of the presidential elections of Jimmy Carter to the profit of Ronald Reagan.

Iran-Iraq war

Little time after its come to power, Khomeini started to call its wishes the propagation of the Islamic revolution to the other Moslem countries. Ambitionnant to occupy the oil-bearing zones of Iran (in particular the Khuzestan) and opposed to the diffusion of a Shiism militant in Khomeini, the laic republic Iraq ienne, directed by Saddam Hussein, invades Iran then, starting what will become during one decade the Guerre Iran-Iraq. At the beginning of the war the Iranian people gather around Khomeini and its mode, like its popularity and its personal power, were some unequalled. However, the duration of the helping conflict, at the end of eight years of war, Khomeini which qualified this war of “ divine gift ”, accepts cease it fire in 1988 by describing it as “ cut of poison .”

The finished war, Khomeini orders the execution of the political prisoners. In the three months space, more than 30000 prisoners are carried out. The dolphin of Khomeini, the Ayatollah Montazeri protests against this massacre, which is worth disgrace and the house arrest to him. In 1989, Khomeini, condemn to dead the writer Salman Rushdie through a Fatwa which shows this one of “Blasphème” against the prophet Mahomet. the satanic Verses , the novel of Rushdie, which examines the integration of the Indian characters in the modern Occidental culture, contains passages which imply that certain verses of the Coran were not dictated by God but by Satan, exploiting an old folk history. The Ayatollah Khomeini regards that as a Blasphème towards the Islam and Mahomet. It would be about the moment when the discussed term of Islamophobie made its appearance, according to the thesis of Caroline Fourest and Fiammetta Venner. This event made reconsider per many Westerners, in particular those of left which had generally positioned in favor of the revolution against the Shah, their support with Khomeini.

After eleven days spent to the hospital because of an internal bleeding, Khomeini dies the June 3rd 1989. A crowd of more than one million Iranians meets around the place of burial which was not officially known at the days of funerals.

Khomeini is regarded by much as one of the most influential men of the 20th century, and was chosen by the Time Magazine like Man of the year 1980.

Random links: