Imam Ayatollah Seyed Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini was a Muslim cleric and Marja, and the political leader of the 1979 Islamic Revolution of Iran which overthrew Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the last Shah of Iran. Following the Revolution, Imam Khomeini became Grand Leader of Iran , the paramount figure in the political system of the new Islamic Republic —, until his demise.
Imam Khomeini was considered a Marja-e Taqlid to many Muslims, and in Iran was officially addressed as Imam rather than Grand Ayatollah; his supporters adhere to this convention. Imam Khomeini was also a highly-influential and innovative Islamic political theorist, most noted for his development of the theory of Velayat-e Faqih, the "guardianship of the juries consult."
He was a Seyyed from a religious family that are descendants of Prophet Mohammad, through the seventh Imam.
Imam Khomeini's father was murdered when he was five months old, and he was raised by his mother and one of his aunts. Later, when he was 15, his mother and aunt died in the same year. At the age of six he began to study the Quran, Islam's holy book. He received his early education at home and at the local school, under the supervision of Mullah Abdul-Qassem and Sheikh Jaffar, and was under the guardianship of his elder brother, Ayatollah Pasandideh, until he was 18 years old.
Arrangements were made for him to study at the Islamic seminary in Esfahan, but he was attracted, instead, to the seminary in Arak, which was renowned for its scholastic brilliance under the leadership of Ayatollah Sheikh Abdol-Karim Haeri-Yazdi.
In 1921, Imam Khomeini commenced his studies in Arak. The following year, Ayatollah Haeri-Yazdi transferred the Islamic seminary to the holy city of Qom, and invited his students to follow. Imam Khomeini accepted the invitation, moved, and took up residence at the Dar al-Shafa school in Qom before being exiled to the holy city of Najaf in Iraq. After graduation, he taught Islamic sharia, Islamic philosophy for many years and wrote numerous books on these subjects.
Although during this scholarly phase of his life Imam Khomeini was not politically active, the nature of his studies, teachings, and writings revealed that he firmly believed from the beginning in political activism by clerics. Three factors support this suggestion. First, his interest in Islamic studies surpassed the bounds of traditional subjects of Islamic law (Sharia), jurisprudence (Fiqh), and principles (Usul) and the like. He was keenly interested in philosophy and ethics. Second, his teaching focused often on the overriding relevance of religion to practical social and political issues of the day. Third, he was the first Iranian cleric to try to refute the outspoken advocacy of secularism in the 1940s. His now well-known book, Kashf-e Asrar (Discovery of Secrets) was a point by point refutation of Asrar-e Hezar Saleh (Secrets of a Thousand Years), a tract written by a disciple of Iran's leading anti-clerical historian, Ahmad Kasravi. Also he went from Qom to Tehran to listen to Ayatollah Hassan Modarres —the leader of the opposition majority in Iran's parliament during 1920s.
Imam Khomeini became a Marja in 1963, following the death of Grand Ayatollah Seyyed Hossein Borujerdi.

Early Political Activity:

In this time he could represent his religious-political ideas openly. Because the deaths of the leading, although quiescent, Shia religious leader, Ayatollah Seyyed Mohammad Borujerdi (1961), and of the activist cleric Ayatollah Abol-Ghasem Kashani (1962) left the arena of leadership open to Imam Khomeini, who had attained a prominent religious standing by the age of 60. In addition, although ever since the rise of Reza Shah Pahlavi to power in the 1920s the clerical class had been on the defensive because of his secular and anticlerical policies and those of his son, Mohammad Reza Shah, these policies reached their peak in the early 1960s with "White Revolution.

Life in exile:

Imam Khomeini spent over 14 years in exile, mostly in the holy city of Najaf in Iraq. Initially, he was sent to Turkey on 4 November 1964, where he stayed in the city of Bursa for less than a year. He was hosted by a Turkish Colonel named Ali Cetiner in his own residence, who couldn't find another accommodation alternative for his stay at the time. Later in October 1965 he was allowed to move to Najaf, Iraq, where he stayed until being forced to leave in 1978, after then-Vice President Saddam Hossein forced him out (the two countries would fight a bitter eight year war 1980-1988 only a year after the beginning of Imam Khomeini’s leadership in Iran and the start of Saddam Hussein’s term in Iraq) after which he went to Neauphle le Château in France.

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