Word: ayatullah
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...undertaken a campaign to modernize his country, in the manner of Turkey's Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. By 1941, as a result, the number of students at the Faizieh had dropped from several thousand to 500. Khomeini urged the new director of the school, the Ayatullah Boroujerdi, to oppose the Shah more openly. When Boroujerdi refused, Khomeini was bitterly disappointed. Thereafter he called on his superior only once a year, as required. Shortly after Reza Shah was deposed by the British and the Soviets in 1941, Khomeini published a polemic attacking the Pahlavi dynasty for its efforts...
When Dr. Mohammad Mossadegh came to power as Iran's Premier in 1951, Khomeini welcomed his anticolonialism and his opposition to the Shah, though he considered Mossadegh too secular. Khomeini had much more sympathy for the Ayatullah Abolqasem Kashani, who was then Mossadegh's partner. Kashani later split with him and may even have cooperated with the CIA-backed coup that toppled Mossadegh's government in August 1953 and enabled the Shah to return to his throne. Khomeini still identifies himself with Kashani, whose memory is reviled by Iranian nationalists because of his alleged betrayal of Mossadegh...
...Khomeini's curious blend of mysticism and activism still made him slightly suspect in the eyes of the Islamic Establishment- as a holy man who tried to run around with the Mob, one might say -but his following was growing steadily. In the late 1950s he became an Ayatullah, a title that is earned, more or less, by developing a following and gradually gaining the recognition of one's superiors. Khomeini's first significant political victory came in November 1962, after the Shah's government decided that a witness in court could henceforth swear...
...again: this time he was held for a half a year. upon his second release, he was brought before Premier Hassan Mansur, who tried to convince Khomeini that he should apologize and drop his opposition to the government. Khomeini refused. In fury, Mansur slapped Khomeini's face. The Ayatullah did not blink. Two weeks later, Hassan Mansur was assassinated on his way to parliament. Four members of the Fedayan Islam were later executed for the murder...
...Mostafa, 49, died suddenly in Najaf a day after he had been visited by two "strangers." Khomeini has never claimed that his son was murdered, but throughout Iran it was widely assumed that SAVAK was responsible. On the occasion of his son's death, the Ayatullah wrote a letter to the Iranian people that is now regarded as the crucial document of the revolution. After denouncing the "absurdities of this incompetent agent [the Shah] and his family of looters," Khomeini declared, "it is the responsibility of the Iranian army and its heads to liberate their country from destruction." Khomeini...