Word: ayatullah
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Zurich. Originally an engineering professor, the soft-spoken Bazargan was imprisoned for his human-rights activism during the reign of Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, making Bazargan a natural choice for Prime Minister of the provisional government formed after the Shah fled in 1979. But Bazargan's relationship with the Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini's Revolutionary Council soon deteriorated into a bitter power struggle, culminating in his resignation just nine months later...
DIED. MEHDI BAZARGAN, 87, Iranian academic whose lifelong campaign for democracy culminated in his brief premiership after the Islamic revolution; in Zurich. An engineering professor, Bazargan led the National Resistance Movement, which accused the Shah of human-rights violations. Imprisoned several times for his activism, Bazargan allied himself with Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini, who made him Prime Minister of the provisional government after the Shah was ousted, in 1979. Bazargan's relationship with Khomeini's Revolutionary Council soon deteriorated into a power struggle, and Bazargan resigned just nine months later. ``The government has been a knife with no blade,'' he complained...
...BEEN ALMOST SIX YEARS SINCE Iran's Ayatullah Khomeini put a price on the head of Salman Rushdie for allegedly blaspheming Islam in his novel The Satanic Verses. Since then the world has grown ever more complacent about Rushdie's predicament even as he has done his share of -- entirely justified -- complaining and hectoring; the author now resembles, in some minds, Coleridge's Ancient Mariner, a man doomed by an unwitting offense to go on talking about his fate to any listener he can corner...
...stories over a two-hour lunch of foie gras and braised veal. "Shortly after your hostages were taken in Tehran in 1979," he recalls, "the Americans asked my advice. I told them, 'When dealing with rug merchants, you need something to trade.' " The count's modest proposal: kidnap the Ayatullah Khomeini and exchange him for the 53 Americans. "After weeks of reconnaissance, my people came up with a detailed plan to land a helicopter near Khomeini's residence, neutralize his guards and whisk him away. The CIA loved the idea, but Jimmy Carter nixed it. He said, 'We just...
...other links. Combing through thousands of visa applications, French authorities found forms submitted by Vakili and Azadi. Their applications had been endorsed by a French electronics company called Syfax. Officials of the company said they had intervened at the request of Iranian businessman Massoud Hendi, a nephew of the Ayatullah Khomeini and a former Paris bureau chief for Iranian television...