of whom were politically active, and others who
felt that they should remain aloof from politics.
However, his lectures on ethics and morality drew
large audiences in Qom and also attracted the
attention of the police. Observing that Islam was
in decline and that Western influence was grow-
ing as a result of the modernizing reforms of r
eza
s
hah
p
ahlavi
(r. 1925–41), he sought to bring
about the moral regeneration of Iranian society.
His first book, The Unveiling of Secrets (Kashf-i
asrar), published in 1942, also signaled his inter-
est in using his religious ideals to guide public life.
In it he attacked secularist critics of the mullahs
and traditional s
hiism
. He declared that govern-
ment must rule in accordance with Islamic law,
which is founded upon reason. This book was
written during World War II, when Reza Shah was
overthrown and Iran was being occupied by Brit-
ish and Russian troops.
After the war Khomeini became one of the
most respected mullahs in Qom. He continued
to avoid politics out of deference to the leading
ayatollah at the time, Sayyid Husayn Borujerdi
(d. 1962), who favored reconciliation and unity
among Muslims, including Sunnis. Khomeini
only came out publicly against m
ohammad
r
eza
p
ahlavi
(r. 1941–79), the former shah’s son and
successor, and his supporters in 1963, after
Borujerdi’s death. Now a marjaa al-taqlid, or top-
ranked
ayatollah
, he was particularly angered
by the growing influence of the United States in
Iran as a result of the aid it extended to the shah’s
White Revolution. This was a comprehensive
reform program, imposed by the government
without popular consultation. It was intended
to modernize Iranian economy and society, as
well as make Iran into a close ally of the United
States and a bulwark against Soviet expansion
into the Middle East during the cold war years.
The program featured land reform and the grant-
ing to women of the right to vote. Khomeini was
arrested in June 1963 for speaking out against
the shah at the Fayziya Mosque in Qom, which
sparked violent anti-shah demonstrations. The
shah finally deported him in November 1964
after he protested against legal immunities that
the shah had granted Americans working in Iran.
Khomeini first went to Turkey, and then was
allowed into i
raq
. He took up residence in the
Shii holy city of Najaf, where the leading Shii
madrasa was located.
While in exile Khomeini developed a net-
work of support among Iranians living outside
of Iran and students and colleagues in Iranian
madrasas. He wrote a book on Shii fiqh, Tahrir al-
Wasila (a commentary on an earlier fiqh manual
by Abu Hasan al-Isfahani), which gave political
meaning to traditional religious practices. In it
he stated that Islam does not allow the separa-
tion of religion and politics. Inspired in part by
the political activism of Ayatollah Muhammad
Baqir al-Sadr (d. 1980), a leading Iraqi ayatollah
in Najaf, and the Daawa Party, he developed the
theory of Islamic theocracy, or “governance of
the jurist” (wilayat al-faqih or wilayat-i faqih),
delivered in the form of addresses to students
at Najaf. These addresses were collected in the
book Islamic Government (Hukumat-i islami) or
Wilayat-i faqih, first published in 1970 and later
translated into a number of languages including
Arabic, Urdu, Turkish, French, and English. The
key proposition in this book is that there is not
only no division between Islam and politics but
also that the political and religious spheres both
fall under the authority (wilaya) of the supreme
expert of fiqh—the marjaa al-taqlid, acting on
behalf of the Hidden Imam, who was guided
and inspired by God. Some scholars have pro-
posed that Khomeini’s ideology concerning this
supreme leader was also inspired by his mystical
thought, particularly the concept of the p
erFect
m
an
—a kind of philosopher-king who would
lead others to moral perfection in a corrupt
world, guided by an intimate knowledge of God’s
will. In essence the book constituted a condem-
nation of worldly political systems—monarchies,
capitalist democracies, socialism, and
commU
-
nism
. Khomeini’s vision was unique to Islamic
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