The Death of an Ayatollah
September 20, 1978
Najaf, Iraq
Grand Ayatollah Sayyid Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini began his day as always, with a morning prayer at the crack of dawn followed by a brief recitation of passages from the Qur'an most illuminating to him at that moment. His breakfast was as modest as the house he was residing at, half of an onion, five pieces of garlic, a small bowl of yogurt with shredded cucumbers, and a pitcher of water to drown it down. Khomeini's surviving son, Ahmad, was with him in exile, helping him publish his denunciations of the Shah and passed Iraqi agents trying to censor the Ayatollah's speeches. Khomeini's first born son, Mostafa, died a year prior, in what could only be described as the most suspicious of circumstances, while meeting with a group of Iranians in Najaf and later found dead of an apparent heart attack. His death was coupled with the death of noted Iranian dissident and Islamic socialist Ali Shariati, who also died from an apparent heart attack at his exiled estate in Britain. Noted for his ideas of "Red Shi'ism" as a revolutionary and egalitarian alternative to so-called "Black Shi'ism" which he associated with reactionary quietism and acquiescence to Shahist autocracy, Shariati had more than earned the antipathy of the Pahlavi regime, and so his death was equally attributed to the foul play of SAVAK, the Shah's feared repressive security-state apparatus responsible for the torture and disappearance of thousands of Iranian dissidents. If ever there was something to happen to the elder Khomeini, most Iranians could be assured that SAVAK had a hand in it.
Ruhollah and Ahmad were discussing the latest protests in Tehran when they were interrupted by a confidant panting for breath. "The Iraqis are coming for us", he cried. "I have news from an informant in the Iraqi secret service that Saddam talked to the Shah about you Imam. The Shah wants you dead". The elder Khomeini took the information in for a few seconds, and then emitted laughter. "Well alright, he wants me dead, what else is new"? The confidant countered, "but this is different, Saddam offered to have you killed, and the Shah accepted". The mood suddenly turned grim. Ahmad Khomeini entered the conversation, "father, he's right, we have to leave this place. We cannot achieve our vision of a revived Ummah without your leadership". The elder Khomeini nodded in agreement and stood up. "Where are we to go? Perhaps to Syria, where Hafez al-Assad has broken ties his with Saddam"? "I think it's our only option", the confidant replies. "I'll start the car", the confidant says, fearing the possibility of a car bomb having been planted on Khomeini's vehicle. The three men leave Najaf and drive north for roughly forty miles, coming up on the outskirts of Karbala before they find out they are tailed by a black Lincoln Continental. "Shit, it's them" screamed the confidant, but Khomeini remains calm, reminded of the martyrdom of righteous Imam Hussein against the forces of the corrupt Yazid on the same site of Karbala 1300 years ago. If this is how fate has destined his life to end, then so be it he thought. The black Continental catches up and intersects Khomeini's old car, stopping it in the middle of the road.
The events that exactly occurred are disputed among historians, but it's believed that an armed standoff ensued between the outmatched confidant armed only with a pistol and two other men believed to be part of the Republican Guard. What followed was the gunning down of the confidant in the side of the road while Ruhollah and Ahmad were shot sitting inside the car, with the two other men disappearing never to be uncovered. While the scene of the crime was far from cinematic, the symbolism and emotional weight behind it truly was. Even someone with a cursory understanding of Shi'a Islam and its relation to Iranian politics could sense the magnitude behind this event, carried out less than five miles from Karbala. The Iraqi and Iranian government immediately denounced the action and claimed no responsibility whatsoever for the "horrendous and vile crimes against a man of god". The tone towards the late Khomeini was clearly different from the screeds published earlier that year in the Iranian state-owned daily newspaper
Ettela'at, of Khomeini being a British agent, but the damage had already been done. The day following the announcement of the Ayatollah Ruhollah and Ahmad Khomeini's deaths, nearly 800,000 people protested on the streets of Tehran, most chanting things like "Saddam pulled the trigger, but the Shah ordered it!" or "the Shah is the new Yazid". At one point demonstrators stormed the Iraqi consulate, killing some staff, before Iranian soldiers opened fire and shot dead possibly 50 to 500 of the demonstrators.
A few miles away at Sa'dabad Complex, the Shah's palace and seat of government, Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi was looking more despondent than he ever had been. Speaking solemnly with the recently appointed Prime Minister Jafar Sharif-Emami, who advised the Shah for the first time of abdicating the throne to the young crown prince Reza Pahlavi, the Shah quietly asks, "Could it be that for nearly forty years, I've tried to do everything I thought was right for the nation. And for nearly forty years, it has all been a mistake"? Prime Minister Jafar answers, "Yes sir, you've been wrong".