Ayatollah Khomeini: Islamic Government: Governance of the Jurist

Context

The context for Khomeini's militancy and for Islamic Government extends back at least to World War II, when Iran's oil and strategic geographical position were vital to Allied interests in the fight against Nazi Germany. In 1941 the Allies installed Mohammad Reza Pahlavi as shah, correctly believing that he would support the Allies against Germany, unlike his father, who had declared neutrality in the war. After the war, Mohammad Mosaddeq was democratically elected as Iran's prime minister, but the U.S. government believed that Mosaddeq's sympathies were increasingly leaning toward the Communist Soviet Union. Accordingly, the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, in concert with its British counterpart, engineered a 1953 coup d'état that deposed Mosaddeq. The United States and Great Britain supported the shah because of his secularism and pro-West stance, seen as crucial at a time when the West feared the expansion of Iran's northern neighbor, the Soviet Union. These events set the stage for ongoing clashes between Iran's secular government and Muslims, who believed that the monarchal government was corrupt, extravagant, repressive, godless, and a puppet of the United States.

Khomeini rose to prominence in the 1960s during the so-called White Revolution—an effort on the part of Shah Pahlavi to promote Western values, break up the landholdings of religious institutions, give women the right to vote, increase literacy in state-run schools, and allow non-Muslims to hold political office, among other measures. Khomeini strongly denounced the shah and his pro-Western plans in a statement released on January 22, 1963. Then, on June 3 of that year, he delivered a speech further denouncing the shah. Two days later he was arrested, sparking three days of mass protests called the Movement of 15 Khordad, the date on the Persian calendar corresponding to June 5 on the Western calendar. Khomeini was held under house arrest until April 1964. After his release, he continued his antigovernment agitation, singling out the government's cooperation with Israel and its “capitulations” giving diplomatic immunity to Western military personnel in Iran. He was arrested again in November 1964 and went into exile, eventually settling in An Najaf, Iraq.

During these years Khomeini and others developed the ideology that would lead to the Islamic Revolution in Iran. Jalal Al-e-Ahmad, a political activist and writer, coined the term gharbzadegi, translated variously as “westoxification,” “weststruckness,” or “occidentosis”; the present document refers to those afflicted with this condition as “xenomaniacs.” Gharbzadegi refers to Muslims who have become intoxicated or seduced by Western cultural models, which Al-e-Ahmad believed constituted a plague that had to be done away with; he used the word as the title of his most influential book, published in 1952. Ali Shariati, a sociologist regarded as the intellectual father of the Islamic Revolution, taught that Islam was uniquely able to liberate the Third World from repressive colonialism and capitalism. Khomeini began to formulate the views that would become the basis of Islamic Government, particularly what he called vilayat-i faqih, meaning “guardianship of the jurist.” This is the belief that Muslims require the guardianship of Islamic jurists, whose knowledge of sharia, or Islamic law, can protect Muslims from plundering by foreign, non-Muslim influences. As his views spread through Iran, often in the form of speeches and sermons recorded on smuggled cassette tapes, revolutionary fervor began to grow. In response, the shah's regime became more oppressive. The fuse was lit for the 1979 Islamic Revolution, which drove the shah into exile, established the Islamic Republic of Iran, and created the post of supreme leader based on principles outlined in Islamic Government.