Khomeinism
Khomeinism (also transliterated Khumaynism) refers to the religious and political ideas of the leader of the 1979 Iranian Islamic Revolution, Ruhollah Khomeini. In addition, Khomeinism may also refer to the ideology of the clerical class which has ruled the Islamic Republic of Iran, founded by Khomeini. It can also be used to refer to the "radicalization" of segments of the Twelver Shia populations of Iran, Iraq, and Lebanon, and the Iranian government's "recruitment" of Shia minorities in Afghanistan,[1] Pakistan,[2] Saudi Arabia[3] and Africa.[4] The words Khomeinist and Khomeinists, derived from Khomeinism, can also be used to describe members of Iran's clerical rulers and attempt to differentiate them from "regular" (non-Wilayat ul-Faqih supporting) Shia Muslim clerics.
Under Khomeini's leadership, Iran replaced its millennia-old monarchy with a theocratic republic. Khomeini brought about a major paradigm shift in Shia Islam. He declared that Islamic jurists are the true holders of religious and political authority, who must be obeyed as "an expression of obedience to God",[5] and whose rule has "precedence over all secondary ordinances in Islam such as prayer, fasting, and pilgrimage."[6] Khomeini's doctrines would make a major influence on the landscape of Shia Islam; which traditionally upheld political quietism over a thousand years. Another significant revision was on Mahdism, the messianic belief in the reappearance of their Twelfth Imam and the proper way to wait for Him. Traditional Twelver theologians urged believers to wait patiently for his return, but Khomeini and his followers called upon Shia Muslims to actively pave the way for Mahdi's global Islamic rule.[7]
Since his death, politics in the legal sphere of the Islamic Republic of Iran has been "largely defined by attempts to claim Khomeini's legacy", according to at least one scholar, and "staying faithful to his ideology has been the litmus test for all political activity" there.[8]
According to Vali Nasr, outside Iran, Khomeini's influence has been found among the large Shia populations of Iraq and Lebanon. In the non-Muslim world, Khomeini had an impact on the West and even Western popular culture where it is said he became "the virtual face of Islam" who "inculcated fear and distrust towards Islam."[9]
Western reception[edit]
After the collapse of the Eastern Bloc and the Soviet Union, Khomeini's legacy lives on in the Western world. From the beginning of the Iranian Revolution to the time of his death Khomeini's "glowering visage became the virtual face of Islam in Western popular culture" and "inculcated fear and distrust towards Islam."[9] He is said to have made the word "Ayatollah" "a synonym for a dangerous madman ... in popular parlance."[191] His fatwa calling for the death of secular Muslim author Salman Rushdie in particular was seen by some as a deft attempt to create a wedge issue that would prevent Muslims from imitating the West by "dividing Muslims from Westerners along the default lines of culture."[16] The fatwa was greeted with headlines such as one in the popular British newspaper the Daily Mirror referring to Khomeini as "that Mad Mullah",[192] observations in a British magazine that the Ayatollah seemed "a familiar ghost from the past – one of those villainous Muslim clerics, a Faqir of Ipi or a mad Mullah, who used to be portrayed, larger than life, in popular histories of the British Empire",[193] and laments that Khomeini fed the Western stereotype of "the backward, cruel, rigid Muslim, burning books and threatening to kill the blasphemer."[194] The fatwa indicated Khomeini's contempt for the right to life; for the presumption of innocence; for the rule of law; and for national sovereignty, since he ordered Rushdie killed 'wherever he is found' [195]
This was particularly the case in the largest nation of the Western bloc—the United States (or "Great Satan")—where Khomeini and the Islamic Republic are remembered for the American embassy hostage taking and accused of sponsoring hostage-taking and terrorist attacks—especially using the Lebanese Shi'a Islamic group Hezbollah[196][197]—and which continues to apply economic sanctions against Iran. Popular feeling during the hostage-taking was so high in the United States that some Iranians had complained that they felt the need to hide their Iranian identity for fear of physical attack even at universities.[198]
Some books by and on Ayatollah Khomeini:
Pictures of Ayatollah Khomeini:
Critics of Ayatollah Khomeini:
Biography of Ayatollah Khomeini