“Khomeyn,” the birthplace of Imam Khomeyni, is one of the ancient cities of Iran. The name of this city is mentioned in some travel accounts of Europeans who travelled to Iran during the Qajar period. Also, the name Khomeyn can be found in the Nasir al-Din Shah’s travelogue recounting his journey to Persian Iraq (Arak). In later times, Khomeyn and its villages formed the county of Kamra.
Sayyed Ahmad, known as Sayyed Hindi (Imam Khomeyni’s grandfather) left his hometown Kashmir in India to Iraq between 1240 and 1250 AH to study religious sciences. His father (the great-grandfather of Imam Khomeyni) DinAli Shah was one of the scholars of Kashmir and eventually, he was martyred there. It has been said that DinAli Shah was originally from Neyshabur and then migrated to Kashmir. In Iraq, Sayyed Ahmad met one of the khans of Kamra named Yusuf Khan who invited him to Khomeyn. Around 1250 AH, he travelled to Khomeyn, along with Yusuf Khan, for preaching.
On the 17th of Ramadan 1257 AH, Sayyed Ahmad married Sakineh Khanom, the sister of Yusuf Khan in Khomeyn, and he married two other women. Sayyed Ahmad and Sakineh Khanom had three daughters (Soltan Khanom, Sahebeh Khanom and Aghabanu Khanom) and one son (Mostafa). Mostafa was born on the 29th of Rajab of1278 AH.
Two years before his marriage, Sayyed Ahmad bought a building – the birthplace of Imam Khomeyni- for one hundred tomans. The building is more than four thousand square meters and consists of the andarouni (inside) and birouni (the public quarters of the house) parts as well as two towers and a garden. From 1264 to 1282 AH, he bought a caravanserai and a garden in Khomeyn along with some properties in the villages around Khomeyn and made a living from their incomes. In late 1285 or early 1286 AH, Sayyed Ahmad died in Khomeyn. His body was taken to Karbala and was buried there. At that time, Mostafa was about seven years old. He spent the initial stages of his education in Khomeyn and then went to Esfahan and Najaf al-Ashraf to continue his education. Before travelling, he married Hajieh Agha Khanom, the daughter of Mirza Ahmad Mojtahed Khomeyni in Khomeyn. His wife was with him on this trip.
At that time, Mirza Hasan Shirazi was the marja’ (source of emulation) whose main activities were based in Samarra city. Less than a year after Sayyed Mostafa’s arrival in Najaf, Mirza’s famous fatwa banning tobacco was issued. For months, this fatwa and its political consequences were the main political issue among various groups of people in Iran and Iraq. Sayyed Mostafa lived in Najaf until 1312 AH, and after obtaining permission for conducting ijtihad, he returned to Khomeyn and began dealing with the people’s religious affairs.
At that time, on the one hand, the city of Khomeyn, like many parts of the country, was the target of occasional attacks of the Lor tribes and on the other hand, it was the scene of quarrels and conflicts taking place because of disagreements of the local khans over properties. These conflicts had put the city in a state of military defence. A military map dating back to eighty-two years ago shows the fortifications and defensive arrangement of the city in one of the latest attacks of the insurgents and rebels (the cavalry of Rajab Ali the famous rebel). In this conflict and insecurity, the presence of Sayyed Mostafa was a source of comfort for the people and a great obstacle to the governmental bullies and khans; Because he stood against them from the beginning and made his house, which had high walls and numerous towers, a stronghold to defend the people of the city. This caused those governmental bullies to express enmity and plan to detail conspiracy against him. Therefore, he was once arrested and imprisoned by the order of the lieutenant governor but then was released through the mediation of one of the respected sadats of the city. However, the oppression of the khans continued. Therefore, in the month of Dhu al-Qa’dah of the year 1320 AH, Sayyed Mostafa along with several armed guards went to Arak to meet the governor of Persian Iraq (Arak) and complain about two of Khomeyn’s famous oppressive khans: Jafar Qoli Khan and Mirza Qoli Soltan, but on their way to Arak, the two disarmed the head of the guards and assassinated Sayyed Mostafa and then ran away. He was martyred when he was not more than forty-two years old. His body was moved to Arak amidst the great grief of the people and it remained in a cemetery called “Sar-e Qabr-e-Agha” and then it was taken to Najaf and buried there. On the day of the incident, Ruhollah, the youngest child of Sayyed Mostafa, was less than five months old. He was born on the 20th of Jamadi al-Thani 1320 AH, the birthday of Lady Fatimah al-Zahra. The birth of a child on such a blessed day in a religious and spiritual family was naturally auspicious and brought him great and holy wishes.
After the death of his father, the attention of his family and relatives turned to Rohullah. Therefore, Sahebeh Khanom, Sayyed Mostafa’s sister, went to her brother’s house and together with his wife, Lady Hajar (the mother of Ruhollah), took the responsibility of raising children. Sahebeh Khanom was a pious and brave woman. Together with her mother’s uncle, a servant, and the children of her brother, she went to Tehran to avenge the murderer and eventually she was able to meet with the then Prime Minister (Ayn al-Dawlah) and persuade him to order the trial for the murderer. It was due to the efforts of this woman that the killer was finally retaliated against two years after committing the murder and was executed in Baharestan Square in Tehran (on the 4th of Rabi’ al-Awwal 1323 AH).
The assassin was executed on the order of Crown Prince Mohammad-Ali Mirza, who was running the country in the absence of his father, Muzaffar al-Din Shah – who had travelled to Europe with Ayn al-Dawlah, the prime minister. This execution, which coincided with the spread of popular opposition and protests against Ayn al-Dawlah, was considered to be an indication of the force power of the government against the opposition groups and hence its news was covered by the press.
Ruhollah’s father, from the first days of his birth, entrusted him to a pious wet nurse named Khavar to breastfeed the baby. Instead, she committed herself to not eating other foods while breastfeeding; Therefore, her food was provided by Ruhollah’s father even after his death until the child became two years old.
The story of the death of the father, for Ruhollah who does not remember the father, was reflecting an epic of the martyrdom and resistance against the tyranny of the khans and rulers of the time, as well as defending the deprived and oppressed people and sacrificing the life in this way. What kept this memory alive for him was the wrong and unjust master-slave relationships that hurt the delicate and sensitive soul of the child. Later, when Ruhollah became acquainted and tested with the jurisprudential rules as a seminarian, his hatred and disgust regarding the oppressive socio-economic relations, which continued for decades after that, found a theoretical basis and turned into the unquestionable principle of defending the oppressed against the arrogant powers.
Ruhollah’s childhood and adolescence were spent in a wave of insecurity and repeated attacks carried out by the Lors and miscreants on Khomeyn and the surrounding villages. In the years 1330 and 1331 AH, the invasion of Zalaki Lors to the villages of Kamra, Soltanabad (Arak) and Golpaygan, severely endangered the security of Persian Iraq (Arak). In that time, the efforts of the government gendarmes, as well as the successive telegrams of the people to Tehran, did not change the situation. With the outbreak of World War I, the region became increasingly insecure. In the year 1336 AH Ali Qoli Khan Zalaki broke out a rebellion looting the Golpaygan area. At the same time, Rajab Ali Khan staged a rebellion around Arak and looted Khansar and Kamra. These invasions continued in the following years.
In such a turbulent situation that governmental forces were not able to prevent the invasion of insurgents and Lors, the people had no choice but to defend themselves. The people of Khomeyn, like the people of other cities and districts, took part in the conflict by building fortifications. Imam Khomeyni, who was a teenager at the time, well remembered the sensitive and risky days of his life and referred to them in some of his speeches:
I have been involved in war since my childhood… We were subject to the assaults of the Zallaqi (Zalaki). We were always at the mercy of the assaults of Rajab-Ali and his like. We used to carry guns. During my adolescence, when I was young, I used to supervise the entrenchments established all around us.”
“When we were living in Khomeyn, we used to build military fortifications. I had a gun, but I was quite a young child, around 16 or 17 years of age, at the time. I used to teach others how to use guns... I used to fight with the rebels. They used to plunder and start turmoil… The central government lacked the necessary power. There was disorder, rebellion and turbulence everywhere. They used to assault our neighbourhood, too. They once captured one district of Khomeyn. People took guns to defend themselves. We were among these people. We fought against the rebels to the last bit of our energy.”
During his childhood, Ruhollah learned how to read and write, the recitation of the Quran and supplications, as well as popular literary texts at the school of Mullah Abu al-Qasim. Then, he began his elementary education with Shaykh Ja’far and Mirza Mahmoud Iftikhar al-Ulama. During that time, he learned the “preliminaries” of religious lessons from Haj Mirza Mahdi Da’i. He started learning logic from Haj Mirza Najafi Khomeyni (his brother in law and his mother’s cousin) and continued his education by studying the books al-Suyuti, Sharḥ al-Bab al-Hadi ‘Ashar and some parts of the book al-Mutawwal under the supervision of his teacher and older brother, Sayyed Mortaza.
During this period, two great calamities befell the adolescent Ruhollah. First, it was the death of his kind aunt who contributed greatly to his upbringing; And second, the death of his mother who had brightened and warmed the life of Ruhollah and his older brothers and sisters. Therefore, the fifteen-year-old Ruhollah, who was on the verge of youth and needed his parents more than ever, was deprived of their existence.
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