Word: ayatullah
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...following day Mousavi briefed the Ayatullah on Vinogradov's proposal, then officially informed the Soviets that it was under consideration. Khomeini is known to be deeply suspicious of Moscow for its role in crushing Islamic revolutionaries in Afghanistan, and is wary of allowing Iran to become a strategic pawn of either superpower. But growing numbers of the ruling clergy are beginning to believe the Soviets can be used for protection and economic assistance without compromising Iranian autonomy...
These relations were virtually broken off when a mob sacked and burned the U.S. embassy in Tripoli in December 1979, ostensibly to show support for Iran's Ayatullah Khomeini. The following spring, President Carter expelled four Libyan diplomats who were accused of threatening anti-Gaddafi students and exiles in the U.S. Then, after the embarrassing disclosure that his brother Billy had accepted $220,000 in loans from Gaddafi's government, Carter launched a State Department study of U.S. relations with Libya...
...divisions have pitted Muslim against Muslim, faction against faction-and, increasingly, right-wing mullahs against the revolution's leader, the Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini. Though the disputes have so far been contained, they have become worrisome enough to elicit a pointed warning from Khomeini: "Let no one doubt that if dissension continues between groups committed to Islam, it will spread nationwide and lead to armed confrontation...
Khomeini took that step to end a deadlock between the parliament and the "guardian council," a twelve-member constitutional watchdog committee, which for religious reasons had blocked needed reform legislation. Still, his questionable action offended many right-wingers. Said one ayatullah: "It is bad enough that his understanding and application of the [mandate] are faulty and selfish. His decision to suspend Islamic law for political expediency is apostasy. If his so-called Islamic republic cannot survive the application of God's law, then there is something wrong with his system. God does not make defective laws...
...team of highly professional, meticulously schooled intelligence agents from the Soviet Union invited to Iran by the ruling Islamic Republic Party (I.R.P.). The agents were the first among several KGB and other Soviet advisory missions that have arrived in Iran since mid-October to help the government of Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini create an efficient intelligence and security force and strengthen the Islamic Guards, the clergy's private army...