Ayatollah Khomeini: Biography, rule, and impact on Iran

Few figures reshaped a nation as completely as Ayatollah Khomeini, the Shia cleric who led Iran’s 1979 revolution promised freedom and equality — then spent the next decade dismantling many of the rights Iranian women had fought for. Here’s what actually changed under his rule, grounded in verifiable dates and laws.

Born: 17 May 1900 · Died: 3 June 1989 · Role: First Supreme Leader of Iran · Regime start: 1979 · Official title: Ayatollah

Here is a snapshot of Khomeini’s key biographical details.

What was Ayatollah Khomeini known for?

Role as a cleric and politician

• Khomeini was a Shia marja’ (grand ayatollah) and the first Supreme Leader of Iran, serving from 1979 until his death in 1989 (Wikipedia).
• He opposed the Shah’s Westernization policies and promoted the concept of velayat-e faqih — rule by Islamic jurist (Britannica).

Leadership of the 1979 Iranian Revolution

• After 15 years of exile in Iraq and France, Khomeini returned to Iran on 1 February 1979 and led the revolution that toppled Mohammad Reza Pahlavi (Wikipedia).
• He publicly stated on 23 January 1979 that women would have equal participation in the new state (The Iran Primer (USIP)).

The pattern: Khomeini’s rhetoric of inclusion masked a swift consolidation of clerical power that would soon curtail the very freedoms he had invoked.

How did Iran change under Ayatollah Khomeini?

Legal and social reforms

• One of the first actions of the new government was to suspend the Family Protection Law of 1967 and dismantle the Family Courts (Wilson Center).
• Khomeini announced that the Family Protection Law was abrogated (FIS Iran).
• By the end of March 1979, key legal gains for women under the Shah had been reversed (Colby Digital Commons thesis).

Women’s rights restrictions

• Women’s divorce rights were drastically reduced; men regained the ability to divorce unilaterally by simple declaration (Wilson Center).
• Women lost the right to child custody (Wilson Center).
• Restrictions on polygamy were removed; men could have up to four permanent wives (Wilson Center).
• The marriage age for girls was reduced to puberty, described as nine under Islamic law (Wilson Center).

Religious governance

• In 1981 parliament approved the Islamic Law of Retribution, introducing flogging, stoning, and blood money for offenses including adultery and dress-code violations (Wilson Center).
• The mandatory dress code requiring all women to wear hijab was imposed in the early 1980s (BBC News).

What this means: The legal architecture built under Khomeini created a system where women’s personal autonomy — in marriage, dress, and custody — became subordinate to religious state authority, a structure that persists in large part today.

When did Iran lose women’s rights?

Before 1979: Secular rights

• Under Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, Iran had a secular legal system. The Family Protection Law of 1967 gave women stronger rights in marriage, divorce, and custody (Middle East Institute).
• Women could wear Western clothing in public, walk alone, and initiate divorce (Wilson Center).
• Although income inequality was severe, GDP growth per capita was high in the 1970s (Wikipedia).

Post-1979: Rollback

• The 1979 revolution reduced women’s rights to initiate and protest divorce (Wilson Center).
• The Family Protection Law was abrogated by March 1979 (FIS Iran).
• Mandatory hijab was enforced in government offices and then in public spaces through the early 1980s (BBC News).
• The marriage age dropped to puberty (usually nine) and polygamy restrictions were removed (Wilson Center).

The implication: The losses were concentrated in the first three years of Khomeini’s rule, making 1979–1983 the decisive window when Iranian women’s rights were systematically dismantled.

How many wives did Ayatollah Khomeini have?

Khomeini’s family details

• Ayatollah Khomeini married Khadijeh Saqafi in 1929 and had no other wives (Wikipedia).
• They had five children: Mostafa, Zahra, Farideh, Ahmad, and Sadeq (Wikipedia).
• Mostafa Khomeini died in 1977; Ahmad Khomeini died in 1995 (Wikipedia).
• Khadijeh Saqafi outlived her husband and died in 2009 (Wikipedia).

Why this matters: Despite the revolutionary state’s embrace of polygyny, its founder remained monogamous — a contrast that highlights how personal practice and state policy often diverged.

Who succeeded Ayatollah Khomeini?

Role of the Supreme Leader

• The Supreme Leader wields ultimate authority over Iran’s military, judiciary, and foreign policy (Wikipedia).

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei

• Ali Khamenei became Supreme Leader on 4 June 1989, one day after Khomeini’s death (Wikipedia).
• At the time, Khamenei was serving as president of Iran (Wikipedia).
• Khamenei held the rank of Hojjatoleslam, not Ayatollah, at the time of succession — a point that was controversial (Wikipedia).

The pattern: The succession was a pragmatic power transfer that bypassed the senior clerical hierarchy, confirming that political loyalty mattered more than religious rank.

Takeaway: These milestones document how Khomeini’s rule pivoted from revolutionary promise to legal enforcement of Islamic norms within a decade.

Bottom line: While many biographical facts are solid, key dates and family details remain disputed in the historical record.

Range of views: From neutral biographer to enemy group tracker, assessments of Khomeini vary widely depending on the source’s political stance.

For Iranian women today, the legal framework forged under Khomeini remains the baseline of daily life. The choice his successors face is whether to uphold the 1980s restrictions — as Khamenei has done — or to allow the gradual reforms that protesters continue to demand. For a nation with one of the youngest populations in the world, the consequence of that choice will shape Iran’s future for decades.

For further context: These answers address common but often misunderstood aspects of Khomeini’s life and leadership.

For more on transformational political figures, see Richard Nixon and Ed Miliband.