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Ruhollah Khomeini
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Ruhollah Khomeini was a man who single handedly captivated the people of Iran, against the brutal Shah. Khomeini was named Time's Man of the Year in 1979 and ... one of Time magazine's 100 most influential people of the 20th century.
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Quarter of a century earlier, on February 1, 1979, Ruhollah Khomeini returned from exile to Iran after having planned, instigated and succeeded in turning a nation against the monarchy and the Shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. The revolution he started from exile promised the people of Iran social justice and a better future, and he vowed to act as a spiritual leader to the nation, leaving politics to an elected President and parliament. Instead, he became the founder of a theocratic Shiite State and ruled Iran for ten years from the Shah's overthrow to his own death in 1989. Khomeini had proclaimed himself Head of State for life, Leader of the Revolution, Supreme Spiritual Leader, and in passing, his ghost maintains all those qualities in his ever-present depictions across Iran.
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Ruhollah Khomeini was born on September 24, 1902 in Khomein, Iran. He studied theology, like his father Sayyid Mostafa, and then later he moved to becoming a jurist. As a seminary student and teacher from the 1920s through the 1940s he watched Reza Shah Pahlavi, a monarch followed the model of Kemal Ataturk, worked to secularize Iranian society and limit the powers of religious leaders.
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Ruhollah Khomeini ended the Westernized society that had existed in Iran and replaced it with a strict Shia Islamic Shari'a Law. Women lost many of their rights as equal citizens and had Islamic dress code imposed on them. The new system curtailed freedom of press and speech for all citizens. Former politicians and military personnel were executed. Political dissidents were imprisoned and tortured. Systematic human rights abuses became prevalent.
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Ruhollah Khomeini