Ayatollah Shariatmadari and the Lost Alternative to Khomeini

In the summer of 1963, Iranian dissident and religious scholar Ruhollah Khomeini, later to be known as Ayatollah Khomeini, was arrested and detained for drawing a parallel between Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and Yazid I, a figure reviled in Shia Islam. Many of the Shah’s close advisors favored execution, but Hassan Pakravan, leader of Iran’s secret police, believed executing Khomeini would only further exacerbate tensions, perhaps even leading to a revolution.

In order to save Khomeini, Pakravan convinced Grand Ayatollah Mohammad Kazem Shariatmadari to publicly recognize Khomeini as a Marja’, or source of emulation—the highest rank in Shia clerical hierarchy. While this was not a legal shield per se, the religious and social authority of a Marja’ made execution politically untenable, especially for a regime struggling to maintain its legitimacy. The government instead chose to exile Khomeini.