Ruhollah Khomeini

Khomeini was born in the city of Khomeyn, in what is now Iran's Markazi province; his father was murdered when he was two years old, and he began studying the Quran and Arabic young, assisted by his relatives. He became a high-ranking cleric in Twelver Shi'ism, an ayatollah, a marja' ("source of emulation"), a mujtahid and a faqih (expert in fiqh). His birth date is contested: his birth certificate recorded 17 May 1900, while his brother Mortaza Pasandideh gave 24 September 1902, the date the Persian article follows. ^{1 2}

Arrested under Mohammad Reza Pahlavi for his opposition, Khomeini was exiled in 1964, first to Bursa in Turkey and then to Najaf in Iraq, where he lived from 1965 to 1978 and delivered the lectures published as Islamic Government (Hokumat-e Islami), setting out his doctrine of the guardianship of the jurist. Expelled from Iraq, he settled at Neauphle-le-Château in France before returning to Iran on 1 February 1979, as the Pahlavi monarchy collapsed. ^{1 3}

As supreme leader he presided over the transformation of Iran into an Islamic republic whose policies came to be known as Khomeinism; ideologically, the Persian article describes him as a radical Shia Islamist. His books include Tahrir al-Wasila, a manual of jurisprudence, and his 1989 fatwa against Salman Rushdie drew worldwide attention. He died in Tehran on 3 June 1989 and was buried in a mausoleum at Behesht-e Zahra cemetery. ^{1 2}

His faith is recorded as shia-twelver, documented. Three independent article texts name Twelver Shi'ism as his own tradition: the English text states that he became a high-ranking cleric in Twelver Shi'ism, the Arabic lead presents him as a religious leader in Twelver Shi'a, and the Urdu text describes him as a scholar of Usuli Twelver Shia Islam — the Usuli specification being a distinction within Twelver scholarship. ^{1 3 4}

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