Ruhollah Khomeini
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
"Please, ‘mam, there are many things I still want to ask you. For example, this chador that they made me put on, to come to you, and which you insist all women must wear. Tell me, why do you force them to hide themselves, all bundled up under these uncomfortable and absurd garments, making it hard to work and move about?"--Oriana Fallaci, An Interview With KHOMEINI - The New York Times, Oct 7, 1979[1] In 1987, Rudi Carrell famously caused a diplomatic rift between Germany and Iran with a mock news program in which veiled women threw their undergarments at someone dressed like Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khomeini. The Iranian government responded by expelling two German diplomats and permanently closing the Goethe Institute in Tehran. One of the first well-known fatwas was proclaimed in 1989 by the Iranian Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, against Salman Rushdie over his novel The Satanic Verses. The reason was an allegedly blasphemous statement taken from an early biography of Muhammad, regarding the incorporation of pagan goddesses into Islam’s strongly monotheistic structure. Khomeini died shortly after issuing the fatwa. In 1998 Iran stated it is no longer pursuing Rushdie’s death; however, that decree was again reversed in early 2005 by the present theocrat, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. |
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Syed Ruhollah Mousavi Khomeini (24 September 1902 – 3 June 1989) was an Iranian religious leader and politician, and leader of the 1979 Iranian Revolution which saw the overthrow of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the Shah of Iran. Following the revolution and a national referendum, Khomeini became the country's Supreme Leader—a position created in the constitution as the highest ranking political and religious authority of the nation—until his death.
See also
- Islamism
- Islamic fundamentalism
- The Satanic Verses controversy
- Khomeini, Sade and Me (2014) by Abnousse Shalmani
- Neauphle-le-Château gained international fame in 1978 when, on October 8, Iranian Islamic leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini rented and moved into a house there following his exile by the regime of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi in the midst of the Iranian Revolution, and after being deported from Iraq where he was taking refuge amongst the Shi'a community. The Ayatollah continued to reside there until the following year when he returned to Iran following the collapse of the Shah's regime and later became Iran's Supreme Leader. Due to the Ayatollah's time residing in Neauphle-le-Château, the street in Tehran on which the French Embassy in Iran is located and was previously known as Faranseh (France) street, is now renamed after the village.