On April 6, 1964 Khomeini was released and immediately resumed his attacks on the regime, ignoring a government announcement that he had agreed not to do so. His new campaign of attacks came to a climax on October 27, when he accused the government of treason because of the agreement on the status of forces it had made with the United States. On November 4 he was arrested once again and sent into exile that was to last more than fourteen years.

His first place of exile was Bursa in western Turkey, but in October 1965 he was transferred to the more congenial environment of Najaf, a center of Shi’ite learning and pilgrimage in Iraq. During the years in Najaf, Khomeini issued periodic pronouncements on Iranian affairs that were smuggled by audio tape into the country and circulated there. He also received visits from numerous personalities from the oppositional diaspora as well as from inside Iran. He was thus able to remain in touch with his following, despite the best efforts of the Pahlavi regime. Far from lapsing in obscurity, he was so well remembered by a significant portion of his countrymen that he emerged in 1978 as the natural and undisputed leader of the revolutionary movement.

The events that culminated in the overthrow of the monarchy began with a demonstration in Qom on January 9, 1978 in protest of the appearance of an article defaming Khomeini in the government-controlled press. Thereafter, a series of demonstrations broke out across the country so that by the end of 1978 nearly all the Iranian people were demanding the installation of an Islamic government under the leadership of Khomeini. His role was crucial throughout. His declarations provided constant encouragement and guidance, and his refusal to settle for anything less than the abolition of the monarchy gave the movement a clear and radical goal.

In the hope of diminishing Khomeini’s role, the Pahlavi regime persuaded the Iraqi government to expel him from Najaf in October 1978. Khomeini then established a new headquarters in the hamlet of Neauphle-le-Chateau near Paris, so communicating with Iran was, if anything, easier than it had been in Najaf. This last stage of Khomeini’s exile was relatively brief. On February 1, 1979, two weeks after the shah had fled, Khomeini returned to Tehran to a massive and tumultuous welcome. On February 12 the surrogate government left behind by the shah collapsed, and a provisional government took office under Khomeini’s supervision. The abolition of the monarchy and the establishment of the Islamic Republic were formalized through a referendum held on March 30 and 31st.

Soon after the triumph of the revolution, Khomeini returned to Qom, but in January 1980 he came to Tehran for medical treatment, and after his release from the hospital he stayed on in the capital, taking up residence in the northern suburb of Jamaran. This transfer of residence was necessitated by the successive problems and crises that beset the Islamic Republic: the divisions that existed between the provisional government and the revolutionary council; the crisis surrounding the detention of the American hostages; the conflicts between President Bani Sadr and the Islamic Republican Party, which ended in the removal of Bani Sadr from the Presidency; and the war unleashed by Iraq in September 1980. In confronting these various difficulties Khomeini played a skillful role as arbiter and as decision maker. His function as “leader” (rahbar) was constitutionally defined by chapter 8 of the Constitution of the Islamic Republic, but as important as his exercise of specific responsibilities was, his dominating charismatic presence, still perceived by many to embody this values and aspirations of the revolution.

By February 1989 Khomeini issued a fatwa demanding the death of writer Salman Rushdie and condemns his book The Satanic Verses. Shortly after, on June 3, 1989, Khomeini died in Tehran with millions attending his funeral.

Since 1979 Khomeini’s appeal as a pan-Islamic revolutionary spread widely outside Iran. Posters bearing his portrait can still be seen in Muslim homes from Mombasa to Manila.

The Encyclopedia of Asian History
the Asia Society 1988.