Word: ites
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Those who know the Ayatullah expect that eventually he will settle in the Shi'ite holy city of Qum and resume a life of teaching and prayer. It seems improbable that he would try to become a kind of Archbishop Makarios of Iran, directly holding the reins of power. Khomeini believes that Iran should become a parliamentary democracy, with several political parties. But he is unlikely to withdraw to shadows and silence until Iran adopts a new constitution and the threat of civil war is removed...
...government. Expectations are that he will eventually return to his home in the holy city of Qum (pronounced, roughly, koom) and resume a life of prayer and learning. He may serve as an arbiter of last resort, leaving the details of government to professional politicians. The Shi'ite branch of Islam, to which most Iranians adhere, has no formal hierarchy. Five other Ayatullahs are deemed theoretically equal to Khomeini as spiritual leaders. They may urge him to maintain a low profile, partly for his own safety, partly, perhaps, out of rivalry. Said Ayatullah Sharietmadari last week: "Khomeini...
...today is the Shah reviled and Ayatullah Khomeini revered? One reason is that millions of Iranian poor were untouched by the new wealth of the monarch's industrializing society; meanwhile, many remember the role traditionally played by the Shi'ite mullahs as protectors of the oppressed. TIME Correspondent William McWhirter talked with one peasant family, uprooted from the Ayatullah's birthplace of Khomein (pop. 12,000) in central Iran. His report...
...everybody utters his name with reverence; his photograph, hawked on virtually every Iranian street corner, is now as ubiquitous as the Shah's portrait once was. Yet little is known of the private life and thought of Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini, the enigmatic patriarch of 32 million Shi'ite Muslims who regard him as their guiding light...
...honorific title meaning sign of God) was born in central Iran, the son of a mullah who was shot to death-according to Khomeini followers, by Iranian government agents-while on a pilgrimage to Iraq. Educated largely at the holy city of Qum, Iran's orthodox Shi'ite center of learning, Khomeini became what has been described as a "fine medieval scholar." That did not mean he was an expert on the Iranian Middle Ages, but rather that his Islamic philosophical and legal expertise belong to an intellectual tradition unstudied in the West since the 16th century Spanish...