Khomeini's Islamic leadership

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Ruhollah Khomeini's rule ushered a new era of political leadership by the Islamic clergy. He and the oligarchy of mullahs with their supporters counteracted the earlier modernization efforts of Reza Pahlavi starting with the Islamic Cultural Revolution.

Contents 1 Life under Khomeini 2 Views on non-Muslims 3 List of Executions 4 References and notes

[edit] Life under Khomeini

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Many promises of Khomeini were not delivered.

We, in addition to wanting to improve your material lives, want to improve your spiritual lives. Ye need spirituality; they have deprived us of our spirituality. Don’t be content that we will build real estate, make water and power free, and make buses free. Don’t be content with this. Your spirituality, state of mind, we will ameliorate. We shall elevate you to the rank of humanity. They have led you astray. They have limned the temporal world so much for you that you ideate these as everything. We shall revitalize both this world and the afterlife.

Under Khomeini's rule, Sharia (Islamic law) was introduced, with the Islamic dress code enforced for both men and women. Women were forced to cover their hair, and men were not allowed to wear shorts or t-shirts . Inevitably, many newspapers and other media outlets were closed down. Furthermore, opposition to the religious rule of the clergy or Islam in general was often met with harsh punishments. In the immediate aftermath of the Revolution, like many other revolutions, there were many systematic human rights violations, including mass executions and interrogation of former members of the overthrown monarchy and military and anyone who Khomeini's regime perceived as opposing the revolutionary government. Members of the liberal, Marxist and socialist groups (mostly university students) who opposed to the theocratic regime were imprisoned and many of them were executed. After the war with Iraq ended, in 1988, Khomeini issued an order to his guards to kill every Iranian political prisoner who would not repent anti-regime activities. No one knows the number, but many say that thousands were swiftly put to death inside the prisons.^[1]

In 1979, when Khomeini returned to Iran after exile, he made a historic speech in "Behesht e Zahra", Tehran’s main cemetery. Choosing the cemetery was a symbolic act to honour the victims (aka martyrs) of the revolution. In this speech, Khomeini attacked the government of Shapour Bakhtiar and promised to elect a popular government that represented the people of Iran and that the clergy would stay out of government business. This promise was not kept as he installed himself as de-facto dictator and only accepted clerics in later governments. He also made a few other populistic promises such as providing Iranian citizens with free telephone, heating, electricity, bus services and free oil at their door steps. He also declared that “no one should remain homeless in this country”. However none of those promises was fulfilled. [2]

Under Khomeini's rule, Sharia (Islamic law) was introduced, with the Islamic dress code enforced for both men and women. Women were forced to cover their hair and body, while men were not allowed to wear short-sleeve shirts or shorts. Many opponents fled the country because of their dislike of the political situation after the Revolution and its changes. Freedom of speech and freedom of the press were ostensibly protected, at least as long as it did not contradict Islamic law. Inevitably, however, many newspapers and other media outlets were closed down. Furthermore, opposition to the religious rule of the clergy or Islam in general was often met with harsh punishments. In the immediate aftermath of the Revolution, there were many systematic human rights violations, including mass executions and interrogation of former members of the overthrown monarchy and military and anyone who opposed the revolutionary goverment.

Khomeini, in some of his speeches, had promised Iranian citizens free gasoline and utilities such as electricity and water. None of these promises were fulfilled. ^{[citation needed]}

Ayatollah Khomeini was also supportive of religious minorities including the Persian Jewish, Christian and Zoroastrian communities.[3] He called for unity of Sunni and Shia muslims.

In 1976, Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa to allow people with hormonal disorders to undergo gender reassignment if they wished, as well as to change their birth certificates to reflect their new gender role. Before the Islamic Revolution in 1979, there was no particular policy regarding transgendered individuals. Iranians with the inclination, means and connections could obtain the necessary medical treatment and new identity documents.

For many years, breaking the barrier of confinement of the private sphere has been a major source of frustration for advocates of women's rights in Iran. But the Islamic revolution broke the barrier overnight. When Khomeini called for women to attend public demonstration and ignore the night curfew, millions of women who would otherwise not have dreamt of leaving their homes without their husbands' and fathers' permission or presence, took to the streets. Khomeini's call to rise up against the Shah took away any doubt in the minds of many devoted Muslim women about the propriety of taking to the streets during the day or at night.[4]

The late 1980s and early 1990s witnessed a marked increase of employment for women. This increase was much more than the rate prior to the revolution. Such dramatic change in the pattern of labor force participation might not have been possible if Khomeini had not broken the barriers to women entering into the public sphere. Educational attainment for women, also a product of free education and the literacy campaign, contributed to this increase. In fact, today there are more women in higher education than there are men. The Islamic Republic had adopted certain policies to expand educational levels for women in order to ensure that sexual segregation paid off. These policies were to encourage women to become skilled workers in domains exclusive to women. For example, the government set quotas for female pediatricians and gynecologists and set up barriers against women wanting to become civil engineers.[5]

Khomeini supported family planning, a program through which the government called upon women to distribute contraceptives. He also supported organ transplants. .[6]

In early 1989, Khomeini issued a fatwa calling for the killing of Salman Rushdie, claiming that Rushdie's murder was a religious duty for Muslims because of his alleged blasphemy against Prophet Muhammad in his novel, The Satanic Verses. The novel, which examines the integration of Indian characters into modern Western culture, implies that the Qur'an was not properly preserved. Rushdie's book contains passages that some Muslims – including Ayatollah Khomeini – considered offensive to Islam and the prophet. The issuance of the fatwa caused many Westerners, particularly those on the left who had generally been in favor of the Revolution against the Shah, to reconsider their support of Khomeini.

[edit] Views on non-Muslims

Khomeini subscribed to the traditional Shia view that unbelievers are ritually unclean (najis). In the Iranian interpretation of Islam, an unbeliever is someone who does not follow any of the four religions of Islam, Christianity, Judaism, and Sabianism^{[citation needed]} . In his book Risala-i Tawzih al-Masail, Khomeini lists 11 things that make a Muslim ritually unclean (and thus unable to conduct prayer or touch the Qur'an): urine, feces, sperm, carrion, blood, a dog, a pig, an unbeliever, wine, beer, and the sweat of a camel that eats unclean things. Khomeini further explains: "When a non-Muslim man or woman is converted to Islam, their body, saliva, nasal secretion, and sweat are ritually clean."^[2]

On working with the Jews, Khomeini wrote:

It is not strictly prohibited for a Muslim to work in an establishment run by a Muslim who employs Jews, if the products do not aid Israel in one way or another. However, it is shameful [for a Muslim] to be under the orders of a Jewish departmental head.^[3]

After his return to Iran, Khomeini issued a fatwa declaring Jewish and Christian communities protected in light of anti-Israeli sentiment that swept Iran during the revolution.[7].

Khomeini started the persecution of Bahá'ís and spreading hatred of Israel.

[edit] List of Executions

Here is a specific list of Khomeini's execution orders of noteworthy people.

• Ali Dashti
• Sadegh Ghotbzadeh
• Amir Abbas Hoveyda[8]
• Hassan Pakravan
• General Nader Jahanbani[9]
• Farokhroo Parsa

Many thousands of others were also executed for religious or political reasons.

In his memoirs, Grand Ayatollah Hossein-Ali Montazeri, who was himself pivotal in founding the Islamic Republic, gives gruesome details of Khomeini's 1988 Massacre of Iranian Prisoners after the Iran-Iraq War. Khomeini's fatwa reads:^[4]

"It is decreed that those who are in prisons throughout the country and remain steadfast in their support for the Monafeqin (Mojahedin) are waging war on God and are condemned to execution." — Christina Lamb, Khomeini fatwa 'led to killing of 30,000 in Iran', The Daily Telegraph, 2 April 2001

[edit] References and notes