Return to Iran
Khomeini had refused to return to Iran until the Shah left. On 17 January 1979, the Shah did leave the country (ostensibly "on vacation"), never to return. Two weeks later, on Thursday, 1 February 1979, Khomeini returned in triumph to Iran, welcomed by a joyous crowd estimated at least six million by ABC News reporter Peter Jennings, who was reporting the event from Tehran.
On the Air France flight on his way to Iran, Khomeini was asked by Jennings: "What do you feel in returning to Iran?" Khomeini answered "
Hichi" (nothing). This statement was considered reflective of his mystical or puritanical belief that
Dar al-Islam, rather than the motherland, was what mattered, and also a warning to Iranians who hoped he would be a "mainstream nationalist leader" that they were in for disappointment. To others, it was a reflection of a leader incapable or unconcerned with the beliefs or the needs of the Iranian populace.
Khomeini adamantly opposed the provisional government of Shapour Bakhtiar, promising "I shall kick their teeth in. I appoint the government. I appoint the government by support of this nation." On 11 February [(Bahman 22)], Khomeini appointed his own competing interim prime minister, Mehdi Bazargan, demanding, "since I have appointed him, he must be obeyed." It was "God's government," he warned, disobedience against which was a "revolt against God."
Establishment of new government
As Khomeini's movement gained momentum soldiers began to defect to his side, and Khomeini declared jihad on soldiers who did not surrender. On 11 February, as revolt spread and armories were taken over, the military declared neutrality and the Bakhtiar regime collapsed. On 30 March 1979, and 31 March 1979, a referendum to replace the monarchy with an Islamic Republic passed with 98% voting in favour of the replacement
Islamic constitution
Although revolutionaries were now in charge and Khomeini was their leader, several secular and religious groups were unaware of Khomeini's plan for Islamic government by
wilayat al-faqih, which involved rule by a marja' Islamic cleric. This provisional constitution for the Islamic Republic did not include the post of supreme Islamic clerical ruler.
Khomeini and his supporters worked to suppress some former allies and rewrote the proposed constitution. Some newspapers were closed, and those protesting the closings were attacked. Opposition groups such as the National Democratic Front and Muslim People's Republican Party were attacked and finally banned. Through popular support and with charges of questionable balloting, Khomeini supporters gained an overwhelming majority of the seats of the Assembly of Experts which revised the proposed constitution. The newly proposed constitution included an Islamic jurist Supreme Leader of the country, and a Council of Guardians to veto un-Islamic legislation and screen candidates for office, disqualifying those found un-Islamic.
In November 1979, the new constitution of the Islamic Republic was adopted by national referendum. Khomeini himself became instituted as the Supreme Leader (supreme jurist ruler), and officially became known as the
"Leader of the Revolution." On 4 February 1980, Abolhassan Banisadr was elected as the first president of Iran.
Hostage crisis
On 22 October 1979 the United States admitted the exiled and ailing Shah into the country for cancer treatment. In Iran there was an immediate outcry with both Khomeini and leftist groups demanding the Shah's return to Iran for trial and execution. Revolutionaries were reminded of Operation Ajax, 26 years earlier when the Shah fled abroad while American CIA and British intelligence organized a coup d'état to overthrow his nationalist opponent.
On 4 November, Islamist students calling themselves Muslim Student Followers of the Imam's Line took control of the American Embassy in Tehran, holding 52 embassy staff hostage for 444 days — an event known as the Iran hostage crisis. In 2005, when Mahmoud Ahmedinejad became president, several of the hostages identified him as one of their captors, although he denied it. In America, the hostage-taking was seen as a flagrant violation of international law and aroused intense anger and anti-Iranian sentiments. In Iran the takeover was immensely popular and earned the support of Khomeini under the slogan "America can't do a damn thing against us." The seizure helped to advance the cause of theocratic government and outflank politicians and groups who emphasized stability and normalized relations with other countries. Khomeini is reported to have told his president: "This action has many benefits ... this has united our people. Our opponents do not dare act against us. We can put the constitution to the people's vote without difficulty, and carry out presidential and parliamentary elections." The new theocratic constitution was successfully passed by referendum a month after the hostage crisis began. The effect was the splitting of the opposition into two groups — radicals supporting the hostage taking, and the moderates who opposed it. On 23 February 1980, Khomeini proclaimed Iran's Majlis would decide the fate of the American embassy hostages, and demanded that the United States hand over the Shah for trial in Iran for crimes against the nation. Although the Shah died a few months later, during the summer, the crisis continued. In Iran, supporters of Khomeini named the embassy a "Den of Espionage", publicizing details regarding armaments, espionage equipment and many volumes of official and classified documents which they found there.
Relationship with Islamic and non-aligned countries
Khomeini believed in Muslim unity and solidarity and the export of Islamic revolution throughout the world. "Establishing the Islamic state world-wide belong to the great goals of the revolution." He declared the birth week of Muhammad (the week between 12th to 17th of Rabi' al-awwal) as the
Unity week. Then he declared the last Friday of Ramadan as International Day of Quds in 1981.
Iran-Iraq War
Shortly after assuming power, Khomeini began calling for Islamic revolutions across the Muslim world, including Iran's Arab neighbor Iraq, the one large state besides Iran with a Shia majority population. At the same time Saddam Hussein, Iraq's secular Arab nationalist Ba'athist leader, was eager to take advantage of Iran's weakened military and (what he assumed was) revolutionary chaos, and in particular to occupy Iran's adjacent oil-rich province of Khuzestan, and, of course, to undermine Iranian Islamic revolutionary attempts to incite the Shi'a majority of his country.
In September 1980 Iraq launched a full scale invasion of Iran, starting what would become the eight-year-long Iran—Iraq War (September 1980 — August 1988). A combination of fierce resistance by Iranians and military incompetence by Iraqi forces soon stalled the Iraqi advance and by early 1982 Iran regained almost all the territory lost to the invasion. The invasion rallied Iranians behind the new regime, enhancing Khomeini's stature and allowed him to consolidate and stabilize his leadership. After this reversal, Khomeini refused an Iraqi offer of a truce, instead demanding reparation and the toppling of Saddam Hussein from power.
Although Iran's population and economy were three times the size of Iraq's, the latter was aided by neighbouring Gulf Arab states, as well as the Soviet Bloc and Western countries. The Gulf Arabs and the West wanted to be sure the Islamic revolution did not spread across the Persian Gulf while the Soviet Union was concerned about the potential threat posed to its rule in central Asia to the north.
The war continued for another six years, its costs mounting. 1988 saw deadly month-long Iraqi missile attacks on Tehran, mounting economic problems, the demoralization of Iranian troops, attacks by the American Navy on Iranian ships and oil rigs in the Persian Gulf, and the recapture by Iraq of the Faw peninsula.In July of that year, Khomeini, in his words, "drank the cup of poison" and accepted a truce mediated by the United Nations. Despite the high cost of the war — 450,000 to 950,000 Iranian casualties and USD $300 billion — Khomeini insisted that extending the war into Iraq in an attempt to overthrow Saddam had not been a mistake. In a 'Letter to Clergy' he wrote: '... we do not repent, nor are we sorry for even a single moment for our performance during the war. Have we forgotten that we fought to fulfill our religious duty and that the result is a marginal issue?'
Rushdie fatwa
In early 1989, Khomeini issued a fatwa calling for the assassination of Salman Rushdie, an India-born British author. Khomeini issued a Religious Verdict (Fatwa) that claimed that Rushdie's assassination was allowed for Muslims to partake because of his alleged blasphemy against Muhammad in his novel,
The Satanic Verses, published in 1988. Rushdie's book contains passages that many Muslims — including Ayatollah Khomeini — considered offensive to Islam and the prophet, but the fatwa has also been attacked for violating the rules of fiqh by not allowing the accused an opportunity to defend himself, and because "even the most rigorous and extreme of the classical jurist only require a Muslim to kill anyone who insults the Prophet in his hearing and in his presence."
Though Rushdie publicly apologised, the fatwa was not revoked. Khomeini explained,
Even if Salman Rushdie repents and becomes the most pious man of all time, it is incumbent on every Muslim to employ everything he has got, his life and wealth, to send him to Hell.
Rushdie himself was not killed but Hitoshi Igarashi, the Japanese translator of the book
The Satanic Verses, was murdered and two other translators of the book survived murder attempts.