Book Review: The History and Impact of the Iranian Revolution

Khomeini: Life of the Ayatollah
Baqer Moin
This book, first published in 1999 is an in-depth analysis of the life, times and rise to power of the most key figure in the Iranian Revolution, Ayatollah Khomeini. Primarily this piece was chosen in order to provide adequate historical information regarding the events and characters of the Revolution. Baqer Moin is a highly accredited scholar of Iran, specifically Khomeini of whom he was a contemporary and some would say “friend.” For this reason the piece must be evaluated in its proper historiographical context, regarding the biases of not only the author, but the zeitgeists of the period when it was written to adequately procure the necessary historical context and information that is required for this particular study. However, despite the proposed biases of Moin, he is widely regarded by westernized Iranian scholars for his accuracy and balance in portraying incredibly complex issues (Nafisi, 347).

A Brief History of the Ayatollah
Ruhollah Khomeini was born in the Iranian village adequately named Khomein (Moin, 1). He was raised in a family of Mussavi Seyyeds who claim to be decedents of the prophet. Due to this, Khomeini had a deeply religious and mystic Islamic upbringing. He was orphaned very early on in his childhood, and true to Iranian custom another family member provided sustenance for the child, but rarely love or attention/gratitude. This forced Khomeini deep into Shia mystical practices that instilled in him “the constant themes of sadness and morbidity [that] in them reflect the ever-present sense among the Shi’a that they are an oppressed community who have been wronged historically,” (Moin, 17).
A digression into the early childhood of the Ayatollah is not unintentional, but very poignant in understanding why this man was able to popularize, so quickly, large amounts of Anti-American, Anti-West, Anti-Shah and pro-Islamic sentiment. Now to dig deeper into the base of the tree of the Revolution time must fast forward to Khomeini’s emergence as an Iranian political leader. In 1964 Khomeini was exiled from Iran because he had been able, for the first time in Iranian history to use the power of a marja (teacher of Islamic doctrine) to successfully motivate political sentiments (Moin, 127). This resulted in his expulsion from Iran and eventually he traveled from Turkey to Iraq to Paris, where he masterfully conducted a revolution outside of the borders of his own country. By capitalizing on character flaws and the obvious ties that the Shah of Iran had with Western powers, namely the United States, Khomeini was able to marginalize his opponents and sweep the sentiments of the population of Iran away from western Capitalism and towards Islamic Republicanism. (For a more thorough analysis of this issue I will provide the text from a paper that I wrote for my capstone course at California State University East Bay)
From outside of Iran, Khomeini had consolidated his power and triumphantly returned in February of 1979. Upon his return Khomeini had reached nearly prophetic levels of reverence within large portions of the Iranian community (Moin, 199). Despite the sweeping popularity of his rhetoric and the sense of “Shia nationalism” that was radiating out of his speeches, there was still a significant portion of the country that had become successful under the Shah and whose families had in some way shape or form acculturated to the Western style of life. This led Khomeini to violently suppress all of his opposition, all of it. This included children and “executions at the school [that] continued non-stop for several weeks,” (Moin, 207). The severe violence that Khomeini used to suppress political enemies was so swift and so successful that it forced large numbers of non-Muslim or Sunni Muslim Iranians to flee the country. Khomeini claimed supreme jurisprudence over Iran, documenting that he was God’s viceregent on earth or the vali-ye faqih (Moin, 225). The unconditional power that comes with claiming divine right did not miss Khomeini, who used his political position to stack the parliament with like-minded Islamic conservatives (Moin, 257). This megalomaniacal power grab continued through 1986 where Khomeini began to push his stance of “Islamic internationalism” with great fervor (Moin, 265). Khomeini used the bloodshed of the Iran-Iraq war to popularize the elimination of activists who had been arrested during the revolution (Moin, 278-9). Khomeini believed that any “direct or indirect” threats to the Islamic government in Iran should be dealt with by death (Moin, 280). The brutality of Khomeini’s juridical philosophies companied with his extremely fundamental reading of Shia doctrine and the Qur’an forced even marginal supporters of Khomeini to flee the potential persecution that they could face at any moment.
Understanding that this piece does not directly address immigration, the Bay Area or even the United States, it was chosen in order to provide the contextual baseline for the extremely difficult situation that many Iranian people found themselves in when the Revolution took hold of Iran. Moin thoroughly analyzes nearly every aspect of Khomeini’s political life and uses fantastic sources and unparalleled experience in order to provide even the most ignorant of readers an insight into the world of Iran, its people and its most polarizing leader.