# Ruhollah Khomeini Ruhollah Khomeini (1902–1989) was the Shia cleric who led the [[Iranian Revolution]], founded the Islamic Republic, and served as its first Supreme Leader. He is the architect of the modern theocratic state — the man who translated a centuries-old religious tradition into a working system of clerical government via the doctrine of [[Velayat-e faqih]]. ## Rise and Exile A respected teacher of jurisprudence in the holy city of Qom, Khomeini became a political force in 1963 when he denounced [[Mohammad Reza Pahlavi]]'s [[White Revolution]] and the regime's subservience to the United States. Arrested and then exiled in 1964, he spent fourteen years in Najaf (Iraq) and finally Paris, building a network and broadcasting sermons smuggled into Iran on cassette tapes — an early information-warfare campaign that kept him at the center of opposition politics despite his absence. ## Theorist of Clerical Rule Khomeini's signal innovation was ideological. In his lectures on [[Velayat-e faqih]] ("Guardianship of the Islamic Jurist"), he argued that in the absence of the hidden Twelfth Imam, a qualified Shia jurist should hold supreme political authority over the state. This broke with quietist Shia tradition, which had largely kept clerics out of direct rule. It became the constitutional foundation of the Islamic Republic and the source of the Supreme Leader's near-absolute power. ## Supreme Leader Returning in triumph in February 1979, Khomeini outmaneuvered the secular, liberal, and leftist factions that had helped topple the Shah, consolidating clerical control through purges of groups like the [[Mujahedin-e Khalq]] and the [[Tudeh Party]]. He endorsed the seizure of the US embassy ([[Iran Hostage Crisis]]), led Iran through the brutal [[Iran-Iraq War]], and in 1989 issued the fatwa calling for the death of novelist Salman Rushdie — globalizing the regime's claim to religious authority beyond its borders. He died in 1989 and was succeeded by [[Ali Khamenei]]. ## Why It Matters For the vault, Khomeini is the foundational figure of religious [[Authoritarianism]] in its modern form. His [[Velayat-e faqih]] doctrine is studied by Western theocratic and integralist thinkers as the most complete contemporary blueprint for "rule by the godly" — and as a cautionary tale about what such rule produces in practice. He is the indispensable link between the [[Iranian Revolution]] and the [[Theocracy]] that governs Iran today. *See also: [[Iranian Revolution]], [[Velayat-e faqih]], [[Ali Khamenei]], [[Iranian History Hub]]*