- Ayatollah Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini (17 May 1900 or 24 September 1902 – 3 June 1989) was an Iranian Islamic revolutionary, politician and religious leader who served as the first supreme leader of Iran from 1979 until his death. He was the founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran and the leader of the Iranian Revolution, which overthrew Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and ended the Iranian monarchy.
- According to his birth certificate, Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini, whose first name means “spirit of Allah”, was born on 17 May 1900 in Khomeyn, Markazi province, although his brother Mortaza (later known as Ayatollah Pasandideh) gives his birth date of 24 September 1902, the birth anniversary of Muhammad’s daughter, Fatima.
- After spending eleven days in Jamaran hospital, he [Supreme Leader Ruhollah Khomeini] died on 3 June 1989 after suffering five heart attacks in ten days.
- On 22 January 1963, Khomeini issued a strongly worded declaration denouncing both the Shah and his reform plan.
- On the afternoon of ‘Ashura (3 June 1963), Khomeini delivered a speech at the Feyziyeh madrasah drawing parallels between the Caliph Yazid I, who is perceived as a “tyrant” by Shias, and the Shah, denouncing the Shah as a “wretched, miserable man”, and warning him that if he did not change his ways the day would come when the people would offer up thanks for his departure from the country.
- On 5 June 1963 (15 of Khordad) at 3:00 am, two days after this public denunciation of the Shah, Khomeini was detained in Qom and transferred to Tehran. Following this action, there were three days of major riots throughout Iran and the deaths of some 400 people.
- On 26 October 1964, Khomeini denounced both the Shah and the United States. This time it was in response to the “capitulations” or diplomatic immunity granted by the Shah to American military personnel in Iran.
- Initially, he [Ruhollah Khomeini] was sent [exiled] to Turkey on 4 November 1964 where he stayed in Bursa in the home of Colonel Ali Cetiner of the Turkish Military Intelligence.
- In a speech on 1 February 1979 delivered to a huge crowd after returning to Iran from exile, Khomeini made a variety of promises to Iranians for his coming Islamic regime: a popularly elected government that would represent the people of Iran and with which the clergy would not interfere. He promised that “no one should remain homeless in this country”, and that Iranians would have free telephone, heating, electricity, bus services and free oil at their doorstep.
- On 11 February (Bahman 22) [of 1979], Khomeini appointed his own competing interim prime minister, Mehdi Bazargan, demanding, “since I have appointed him, he must be obeyed”. He warned it was “God’s government”, and disobedience against him or Bazargan was considered a “revolt against God”, and “revolt against God is Blasphemy”.
- On 11 February [of 1979], as revolt spread and armories were taken over, the military declared neutrality and the Bakhtiar regime [last prime minister of Iran] collapsed.
- On 30 and 31 March 1979, a referendum to replace the monarchy with an Islamic Republic—with the question: “should the monarchy be abolished in favour of an Islamic Government?"—passed with 98% voting in favour of the replacement.
- Before the [rewritten] constitution [of the Islamic Republic of Iran] was approved, on 22 October 1979, the United States admitted the exiled and ailing Shah into the country for cancer treatment. In Iran, there was an immediate outcry, with both Khomeini and leftist groups demanding the Shah’s return to Iran for trial and execution.
- On 4 November, a group of Iranian college students calling themselves the Muslim Student Followers of the Imam’s Line took control of the American Embassy in Tehran, holding 52 embassy staff hostage for 444 days, an event known as the Iran hostage crisis.
- On 23 February 1980, Khomeini proclaimed Iran’s Majlis would decide the fate of the American embassy hostages, and demanded that the United States hand over the Shah for trial in Iran for crimes against the nation.
- In early 1989, Khomeini issued a fatwā (juristic ruling) calling for the assassination of Salman Rushdie, an India-born British author. Rushdie’s book, The Satanic Verses, published in 1988, was alleged to commit blasphemy against Islam. Khomeini’s fatwā required not only Rushdie’s execution, but of “all those involved in the publication” of the book.
