An earthy sense of justice, an all-embracing code of behavior
There is no room for play in Islam. It is deadly serious about everything.
Khomeini in speech at Qum
All Western governments are just thieves. Nothing but evil comes from them.
Khomeini counseling supporters
The nation voted for the Islamic Republic, and everyone should obey. If you do not obey, you will be annihilated.
Khomeini denouncing opponents
Arogant and pious. Stubborn and vengeful. Humorless and inflexible. Ascetic and power hungry. These are some of the adjectives that experts on Iran use to describe the Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini.
Much as his principles differ from those of the Shah, some analysts believe, Khomeini has many things in common with the deposed ruler—most notably, a sense of having been divinely ordained to guide and govern Iran. Marvin Zonis, director of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Chicago, notes that the Ayatullah "has more titles now than the Shah ever had: Savior of the Generations, Defeater of the Oppressors, Imam of the Age." Zonis believes , that the Ayatullah and the Shah "are a lot alike as leaders. Neither is particularly intelligent, but each is shrewd and cunning. Each is determined to impose his views on the Iranian people. Khomeini is ending up the same kind of ruler that the Shah was—namely grandiose, arrogant, despotic."
Khomeini is not a man given to self-doubt. Through 64 years of philosophical
study and teaching, inclduing almost 15 years of exile, and now a year of adulation and power in his homeland, the Ayatullah has been wholly consistent—and totally unbending. Why not? In his own mind he speaks not for himself but for God, whose precepts never change. Says Richard Cottam of the University of Pittsburgh, one of the few American scholars who have held long conversations with Khomeini: "The trouble in talking to him is that you always run up against a wall called God."
Khomeini and the world outside Iran have spent most of 1979 glaring past each other in mutual incomprehension. The barriers to understanding go well beyond the Ayatullah's lack of interest in explaining himself to foreigners. He spent most of his life in obscurity; he was an enigma even to many of the theological students who presumably knew him best. Some of the most basic facts about his life are matters of conjecture, largely because Khomeini regards such personal details as unimportant. It is not known whether his birth date is actually May 17, 1900, as Tehran newspapers assert, or whether his wife of 50 years—Quesiran, or Khadijah, as different spellings have it—is his first or second spouse. Almost all Western translations of his basic prerevolutionary teachings are of doubtful authenticity or accuracy. In particular, a howlingly funny French translation of some of his remarks—dealing with, among other things, the proper attitude of Muslims toward the meat of a camel that has been sodomized—is composed of random pronouncements from a thick book, deliberately excerpted out of context to make the Ayatullah look ridiculous.