Word: shahs
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During the late 1930s, the religious community in Qum came under heavy pressure from the Reza Shah, who had undertaken a campaign to modernize his country, in the manner of Turkey's Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. By 1941, as a result, the number of students at the Faizieh had dropped from several thousand to 500. Khomeini urged the new director of the school, the Ayatullah Boroujerdi, to oppose the Shah more openly. When Boroujerdi refused, Khomeini was bitterly disappointed. Thereafter he called on his superior only once a year, as required. Shortly after Reza Shah was deposed...
When Dr. Mohammad Mossadegh came to power as Iran's Premier in 1951, Khomeini welcomed his anticolonialism and his opposition to the Shah, though he considered Mossadegh too secular. Khomeini had much more sympathy for the Ayatullah Abolqasem Kashani, who was then Mossadegh's partner. Kashani later split with him and may even have cooperated with the CIA-backed coup that toppled Mossadegh's government in August 1953 and enabled the Shah to return to his throne. Khomeini still identifies himself with Kashani, whose memory is reviled by Iranian nationalists because of his alleged betrayal of Mossadegh...
Despite his Credentials as an opponent of the Shah, Khomeini's curious blend of mysticism and activism still made him slightly suspect in the eyes of the Islamic Establishment- as a holy man who tried to run around with the Mob, one might say -but his following was growing steadily. In the late 1950s he became an Ayatullah, a title that is earned, more or less, by developing a following and gradually gaining the recognition of one's superiors. Khomeini's first significant political victory came in November 1962, after the Shah's government decided that...
Khomeini confronted the government again a few months later after it had confiscated the property of a family that contributed much of its income to the religious institutions of Qum. The Shah's police attacked the Madresseh Faizieh, killing as many as 18 young mullahs, and Khomeini fired off angry telegrams of protest to the Shah. At this point, for the first time since the days of Mossadegh, university students in Tehran came to the support of the clergy against the Shah. Khomeini wrote to then Premier Asadollah Alam: "My heart is ready for the bayonet of your troops...
...Shah was greatly annoyed. Khomeini's home was raided, and he was placed under house arrest. After his release a few months later, Khomeini protested even more loudly as the Iranian parliament considered a bill that would allow members of the U.S. armed forces in Iran to be tried in their own military courts. Khomeini was arrested again: this time he was held for a half a year. upon his second release, he was brought before Premier Hassan Mansur, who tried to convince Khomeini that he should apologize and drop his opposition to the government. Khomeini refused. In fury...