Iran During the Rule of Ayatollah Khomeini - Essay Example

Gopal Pottabathni 29 November 2007 Life Under The Regime Of Ayatollah Khomeini I. Initial Life Ayatollah Ruhullah Musawi came into this world on 21 September 1902 through Ayatullah Sayid Mustafa Musawi and Hajiyah Aga Khanam in the town of Khomein, South of the capital Tehran, Iran. When he was five months old, his father was murdered. He was raised by his mother and at the age of 15 years, his mother died. He got educated at home and at the local school the supervision of Mullah Abdul-Qaasim and Shaykh Jaafar. Khomeini commenced his studies in Arak during the year 1921 and took up the residence at the Dar-al-Shafa school in Qom upon the invitation of Ayatullah Shaykh Abdul-Karim Haeri-Yazdi. [Iranchamber.com] He was a lecturer at Najaf and Qum seminaries for decades before he was known in the political scene. .[Wikipedia.org] As a scholar and teacher, Khomeini produced numerous writings on Islamic philosophy, law, and ethics. Although Khomeini was not politically active, but his teachings and writings suggested that he was firm believer on the importance of clerics in political movement. He was the first Iranian cleric to try to refute the outspoken advocacy of secularism in the 1940s. However at the age of 60, the leadership arena opened for Khomeini following the deaths of two important clerical leaders during 1960's. A. Political Activity On 22 January 1963, Khomeini summoned a meeting of the senior parliamentarians of Qom and pursuaded them to decree a boycott on the referendum initiated by the Reza Shah Pahlavi which were regarded as dangerous. Khomeini accused Shah of his submission to America and Israel by violating the constitution by the way of issuing manifesto that represented the signatures of other senior Iranian Shia religious scholars. Khomeini denunicated Shah at several occasions for which he was arrested on 5th June, 1963 which sparked off riots throughout Iran and lead to deaths of several citizens, which is referred to as 'Movement of 15 Khordad'. Once again after the release from house arrest in 1964, Khomeini denounced both Shah and United States for the capitulations granted by the Shah to United States armed military to be treid in their own Military Courts, which lead to his arrest in November 1964 and held for half a year. Four Members of Fedeyan Islam were executed for the murder of Hassan-Ali Mansur, who slapped Khomeini, when he refused to apologize and drop the opposition from the government, for which Khomeini was sent into exile to Turkey.[ www.time.com] B. Khomeini - Supreme Leader of Iran. Khomeini spent 14 years in exile, not limited to one specific nation. But mostly he lived in Nazaf of Iraq which was under Saddam Hussein's power, then Turkey and France. [news.bbc.co.uk] After the 1977 death of Dr. Ali Shariati, an Islamic reformist and political revolutionary author/academic/philosopher who greatly popularized the Islamic revival among young educated Iranians, Khomeini became the most influential leader of the opposition to the Shah perceived by many Iranians as the spiritual, if not political, leader of revolt.[Wikipedia.org] Protest grew against the rule of Shah which gave more influence to Khomeini. Although thousands of kilometers away from Iran in Paris, Khomeini set the course of the revolution, urging Iranians not to compromise and ordering work stoppages against the regime. This resulted into revolution among the supporters of Khomeini against the Shah. Khomeini returned to Iran on the condition that Shah left the country, which he did. Khomeini's return to Iran was welcomed by joyous crowd, which led to creation of the government elected by him. [news.bbc.co.uk] He appointed the interim Prime Minister, demanding since he has appointed him, he must be obeyed and respected. According to him, it was God's government and disobeying the government was a revolt against God. Soldiers loyal to the Bakthiar Government defected Khomeini's movement. [Ayatollah Khomeini] Khomeini declared Jihad on soldiers who did not surrendered after gaining power, which led to the collapse of Bakthiar Government. Although revolutionaries were now in charge and Khomeini was their leader, many of them, both secular and religious, did not approve or know of Khomeini's plan for Islamic government by a Parliamentarian Islamic cleric. Khomeini and his supporters worked to suppress these former allies turned opponents, and rewrite the proposed constitution. Newspapers were closing and those protesting the closings were attacked and opposition groups such as the National Democratic Front and Muslim People's Republican Party were attacked and finally banned. a combination of popular support and questionable balloting pro-Khomeini candidates gained an overwhelming majority of the seats of the Assembly of Experts and revised the proposed constitution to include a clerical Supreme Leader, and a Council of Guardians to veto un-Islamic legislation and screen candidates for office. II. Khomeini - Pure Dictator. The Islamic Republic under Ayatollah Khomeini was probably responsible for most of the current wisdom about why religious fundamentalism and democracy don't mix: the fundamentalists only need to win once. In 1979, a group of students seized the American Embassy in Tehran taking 63 Americans as hostages, for violation of long-established international law as a reaction to American refusal to hand over the Shah for trial and execution, who was United States for treatment of lymphoma. Khomeini supported the hostage-takers under the slogan "America can't do a damn thing." Fifty of the hostages were held prisoner for 444 days. Khomeini proclaimed that Iran's Parliament would decide the fate of the American hostages and demanded to hand over Shah for trial in Iran for crimes against nation. This crisis did not end even after the death of Shah, but stated that, this crisis has united the people and the opponents will not dare to take any action against them. And in the same, they carried out the presidential and parliamentary election, which did succeed in splitting its opposition. A. Life in Iran Under Khomeini. Khomeini began calling for Islamic revolutions across the Muslim world, including Iran's Arab neighbor Iraq, the one large state besides Iran with a Shia majority population after coming into power. [Ayatollah Khomeini] At the same time Saddam Hussein, Iraq's secular Arab nationalist Ba'athist leader, was eager to take advantage of Iran's weakened military and revolutionary chaos, to occupy Iran's adjacent oil-rich province of Khuzestan, and, to undermine Iranian Islamic revolutionary attempts to incite the Shi'a majority of his country. Iraq soon launched a full scale invasion of Iran, starting what would become the eight-year-long Iran-Iraq War from 1980 - 1988, and in 1982 Iran regained all its lost territory to the invasion. The war continued for another six years, with 450,000 to 950,000 casualties on the Iranian side and at a cost estimated by Iranian officials to total USD $300 billion. B. Khomeini - Religious Devotion 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, after returning from which were never fulfilled. He gave more importance to religious duty rather than material prosperity. Life in Iran changed under Khomeini. The clerics introduced Sharia, forced women to cover their hair, banned Western fashions and music. [About.com] The ones who opposed the religious rule of the clergy, met with harsh punishment. Nafisi's view, this was the icon of oppression in the aftermath of the revolution. Nafisi wrote in her book referring to Khomeini's funeral: "The day women did not wear the scarf in public would be the real day of his death and the end of his revolution."[Reading Lolita in Tehran]. Khomeini stated that those opposing the religious rule of the clergy are trying to bring corruption and destruction in the name of democracy will be oppressed and will be hanged. C. Pure Dictatorship Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and his family left Iran and escaped harm, but hundreds of former members of the overthrown monarchy and military met their end in firing squads. In the 1988 massacre of Iranian prisoners, Khomeini order the judiciary to judge every Iranian prisoners and kill those who would not repent anti-regime activities. It was hopeful that the revolution would bring freedom of speech and press, but in vain. Khomeini shut the newspaper and attacked on the opposition protestors club. He gave an explanation that the club of pen and tongue is the worst clubs ever and will bring corruption in the nation which is much greater than other clubs. Khomeini forced the conversion of the religious people into Islam by luring them by awarding the share of even that member of the family who had not converted into Islam. [Ayatollah Khomeini] This lead to decrease in the population of Non-Muslims in Iran. Those who did not converted into Muslims, were executed or harrased and subjected to most horredous disabilities. While the revolution has made Iran more strict Islamically, an estimated two to four million entrepreneurs, professionals, technicians, and skilled craftspeople have emigrated to other countries. As a result, the economy has not prospered in terms of inflation, unemployment and living standards. Poverty raised immediately during the first six years of revolution and this lead to increase in riots, protests and rising food prices. D. Issue of Fatwa. Ayatollah Khomeini, issued a fatwa, calling upon all the Muslims over the world, for the assasination of Salman Rushdie, an Indian-British author. He claimed that his assasination was religious duty of all Muslims all over the world, who used offensive passages and is an act of blasphemy against Muhammad, in The Satanic Verses. [Iranchamber.com] Even though Salman Rushdie publicly apologized, Khomeini stated that, if he becomes the most loyal and honest, pious man of all time, he cannot be forgived for his act, and hence he should be assasinated and it is the duty of every Muslim, with all that he has, kill Salman Rushdie. III. Khomeini's Legacy.. Khomeini's ideas are compatible with democracy and whether he intended the Islamic Republic to be a democratic republic is disputed. He viewed certain elements of Western culture as being inherently decadent and a corrupting influence upon the youth and as such, the Islamic Republic banned or discouraged popular Western fashions, music, cinema, and literature. [Wikipedia. Org] Khomeini's political and religious ideas were considered to be progressive and reformist by leftist intellectuals and activists prior to the Revolution. Husain Khomeini, Khomeini's grandson, son of Sayid Mustafa Khomeini, who is strongly against the system of the Islamic Republic, favoured secular and democratic Iran. However, he was not supported by his family members, and was put under house arrest after his return from United States, where he met Reza Pahlavi II, the son of the last Shah. IV. Conclusion. Khomeini is perhaps best remembered by the outside world for the infamous fatwa he issued against Salman Rushdie, for "blasphemies" against the Prophet contained in his book, The Satanic Verses. [About.com] The fatwa, which offered a bounty for any believer who succeeded in assassinating Rushdie, virtually forced the Indian-British author into hiding. Life during the rule of Khomeini is termed as horrible for the citizens. The Iran-Iraq War led to deaths of several soldiers and civilians and loss of other amenities that destabilized the entire nation. Democracy was never initiated during his rule. Disabled war veterans have demonstrated against mismanagement.He was the pure dictator. During his rule, lots of riots, protests tool place. Khomeini initiated the dress code for women and men, thus confining them to the virtual dress arrest. This is terrible phase of life for citizens of Iran, who are living in complete trauma. Works Cited. 1) About.com. Life Under Ayatollah Khomeini. Page:od/iran Help:History of Iran 2) Azar Nafisi. Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir In Books. Random House Trade Paperback. 2003 3) Edward Willett. Ayatollah Khomeini, The Rosen Publishing Group Inc.2004 4) Iranchamber.com Historic Personalities: Ayatollah Khomeini Page:history help:rkhomeini/ayatollah_khomeini 5) Meforum.org. Reading Lolita in Tehran. Page:meq Help: issues 6) news.bbc.co.uk. 1979: Exiled Ayatollah Khomeini returns to Iran Page:On this day 7) Time.com. Opposition against Capitulisation. Page: time/magazine, help: article 8) Wikipedia. Org. Ruhollah Khomeini. 28 November 2007 Page: wiki. Read More