Word: ayatullah
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From the perspective of nearly 2 1/2 decades, the success of the Islamic revolution in Iran and its monumental impact across the Islamic world may appear to have been inevitable. It seemed like anything but certain destiny, however, to those of us on board the Air France 747 taking Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini from Paris to Tehran that morning in 1979. The exiled Shah's Prime Minister, Shahpour Bakhtiar, still controlled the country and commanded the armed forces, and our immediate concern was whether the air force might decide that the best way to solve the problem of what...
...bank entrance. Virtually everyone carried a weapon, even children. Armed revolutionaries manned checkpoints at every corner. A boy of about 11 pointed an automatic rifle at my chest, safety off, and asked for identification, which he couldn't read. After considerable vacillation, the military leadership declared its neutrality. The Ayatullah went on radio to announce, "The dictatorship has abandoned its last trench...
...able to reconcile the widely divergent forces in his revolution. Top aides fled into exile or were executed, and thousands of other Iranians were imprisoned or killed. Iran became a deeply divided country and remains so today. Despite this, to Khomeini's neighbors in the Arab world the Ayatullah's revolution serves as a historical beacon...
...Show when the Beatles made their first appearance on Feb. 9, 1964, and recalls the "piercing din of screaming. That noise level was something new in pop performances--beyond Frank Sinatra's, even beyond Elvis'." Retired correspondent Bruce van Voorst was on the chartered Air France 747 that carried Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini from his Parisian exile back to Tehran on Feb. 1, 1979. "At sunrise, somewhere over Turkey," remembers Van Voorst, "the Ayatullah said prayers, then wa* As served an omelet for breakfast...
RELEASED. AYATULLAH HOSSEIN ALI MONTAZERI, 80, Iran's most prominent dissident cleric; from five years of house arrest imposed after he challenged the institution of supreme clerical rule; by the Supreme Council of National Security; in Qum. Montazeri was once in line to lead the country but was stripped of that status by Ayatullah Khomeini in 1989 after he accused the judiciary of "murdering" political opponents, among other criticisms of the government. He has vowed to "continue to talk about issues...