Khomeini Quotes & Sayings

If the religious leaders have influence, they will not permit girls and boys to wrestle together, as recently happened in Shiraz. — Ruhollah Khomeini

When anyone studies a little or pays a little attention to the rules of Islamic government, Islamic politics, Islamic society and Islamic economy he will realize that Islam is a very political religion. Anyone who will say that religion is separate from politics is a fool; he does not know Islam or politics. — Ruhollah Khomeini

The West found an excuse for every incident and boxed and labeled it under the context of the country in which it took place. They attributed Iran's conflict and the victory of Ayatollah Ruholla Khomeini to an inner conflict within Iran. They considered the Lebanese war a civil war among factions. They considered the overall Arab-Israeli conflict a Palestinian-versus-Israeli conflict over land. Yet in all these conflicts radical Islam was the driving force or lingered just under the surface. — Brigitte Gabriel

Women are free in the Islamic Republic in the selection of their activities and their future and their clothing. — Ruhollah Khomeini

In art class at school we learned how to draw tanks and soldiers opening fire at [Iranian leader Ayatollah] Khomeini and his beard. They didn't teach us the names of the flowers that grew around us in the city - wild flowers of all kinds and all colors. The math teacher used to whip the kids with his trouser belt. My father was constantly violent toward my mother for the most trivial reasons. — Hassan Blasim

Without Khomeini, we would not be where we are. What a pity that, when pregnant with him, his mother did not choose to have an abortion. — Oriana Fallaci

Ironically, even as Khomeini empowered some women, he also found ways of oppressing their entire gender. The regime replaced the shah's secular law with an Islamic law, which allowed men to marry up to four wives, to divorce them whenever the husbands wished, and to retain custody of children. The law put the value of a woman's life at half of that of a man's life, and the value of her testimony at half that of a man's testimony.
Thus women in Iran became watchdogs and scapegoats, both the foot soldiers of the new regime and its victims. Newly empowered, they were also newly oppressed. Theirs was a paradoxical plight - and at the time, no one could have foreseen how it would one day make women a force of enormous change in Iran. — Nazila Fathi

Again Khomeini expresses this divide between the West and traditional Islam: "Don't listen to those who speak of democracy. They all are against Islam. They want to take the nation away from its mission. We will break all the poison pens of those who speak of nationalism, democracy, and such things." The jihadists rampaging in Syria and Iraq agree, which is why their goal is to restore the caliphate under which Islam dominated the region for centuries. — Anonymous

After the Shah's departure from Iran, I will not become a president nor accept any other leadership role. Just like before, I limit my activities only to guiding and directing the people. — Ruhollah Khomeini

What country is stabler than Iran? Where else in the world would an assassinated prime minister be so quickly replaced? — Ruhollah Khomeini

While I would champion any campaign to support Muslim women who do not wish to cover. I would now also protest vigorously for the right of a woman to wear that covering, if it is what she wants and believes in. Ayatollah Khomeini and Jacques Chirac have much more in common than either of them would care to acknowledge. Each tried to solve overarching social problems by imposing his will on the bodies of women. — Geraldine Brooks

One should express his viewpoint regarding what he performed in his country and in a vast part of the world with great respect and deep thought. — Ruhollah Khomeini

The freedom-lovers of the world mourn the sad demise of Imam Khomeini. — Ruhollah Khomeini

A man can have sexual pleasure from a child as young as a baby. However, he should not penetrate; sodomising the child is OK. If the man penetrates and damages the child then he should be responsible for her subsistence all her life. This girl, however, does not count as one of his four permanent wives. The man will not be eligible to marry the girl's sister. — Ruhollah Khomeini

Islamic state means a state based on justice and democracy and structured upon Islamic rules and laws. — Ruhollah Khomeini

In the Islamic Republic the rights of the religious minorities are respectfully regarded. — Ruhollah Khomeini

Personal desire, age, and my health do not allow me to personally have a role in running the country [i.e. Iran] after the fall of the current system [of the Shah]. — Ruhollah Khomeini

Since Khomeini's death, the popular appeal of an Islamic state - and of fundamentalism - has surely dimmed. Thinkers still debate and warriors kill, but no country seems prepared to emulate Iran. Perhaps revolutions happen only under majestic leaders, and no one like Khomeini has since appeared. — Ruhollah Khomeini

You young people yourselves are capable of performing anything. Our inventors can invent in a high level, Our innovators can innovate in a high level, only if they keep self confidence and believe that we can. — Ruhollah Khomeini

Islam says: Kill all the unbelievers just as they would kill you all ... There are hundreds of other [Koranic] psalms and Hadiths [sayings of Mohammed] urging Muslims to value war and to fight. Does all this mean that Islam is a religion that prevents men from waging war? I spit upon those foolish souls who make such a claim! — Ruhollah Khomeini

One thing I congratulate everyone on is the great explosion which has occurred in Washington's Black House and the very important scandal which has gripped leaders of America. — Ruhollah Khomeini

Look at Ayatollah Khomeini's revolution and the slogans that they used: anti-imperialism; anti-colonialism; the struggle of the have-nots against the haves; the state monopoly over economy, which was very much patterned after the Soviet Union. All of these things did not come out of Islam. Islam is not that developed. — Azar Nafisi

Khomeini has offered us the opportunity to regain our frail religion ... faith in the power of words. — Ruhollah Khomeini

Americans are the great Satan, the wounded snake. — Ruhollah Khomeini

It is better for a girl to marry in such a time when she would begin menstruation at her husband's house rather than her father's home. Any father marrying his daughter so young will have a permanent place in heaven. — Ruhollah Khomeini

With people's revolutionary rage, the king will be ousted and a democratic state, Islamic Republic, will be established. — Ruhollah Khomeini

The war against jihadism has been chronically misunderstood because of our failure to acknowledge the religious motives of Muslim jihadists. This failure began in 1979 with the Iranian revolution. Trapped in our Western secularist paradigms, we interpreted the uprising against the Shah as an anti-colonial revolt against a "brutal" autocrat propped up by the West for its own exploitative economic and geostrategic purposes. The aim of the revolution, the argument went, was to create a government more sympathetic to national sovereignty and Western pluralistic government. However, it soon became clear with the political triumph of the Ayatollah Khomeini that the revolution was in the main a religious one, inspired in part by anger at the Shah's secularization, modernization, and liberalization policies. As Khomeini said in 1962, the Shah's regime was "fundamentally opposed to Islam itself and the existence of a religious class. — Anonymous

There is no room for play in Islam ... It is deadly serious about everything. — Ruhollah Khomeini

One foreign correspondent came up to be friendly. He asked this man what he should think about what Khomeini had said. How seriously should he take it? Was it just a rhetorical flourish or something genuinely dangerous? "Oh, don't worry too much," the journalist said. "Khomeini sentences the president of the United States to death every Friday afternoon. — Salman Rushdie

We're not afraid of sanctions. We're not afraid of military invasion. What frightens us is the invasion of western immorality. — Ruhollah Moosavi Khomeini

Don't you get it, Claire? Khomeini's thugs have the entire embassy. They have the vaults. They have the files. They know who I am, and they're going to want information I can give them. Right now they're taking a roll call of every employee. When they find we're missing, they're going to look up our address. If it's been destroyed, they're going to put a gun to the head of Liz Swift. If she doesn't give us up, they're going to kill her in front of everyone else. Then they're going to ask Mike Metrinko. If he doesn't give us up, they're going to kill him. Then they're going to turn to John Limbert. And they're going to keep killing people until someone breaks. I don't know who it will be. But someone's going to give them our address, and then they're coming for us. — Joel C. Rosenberg

In Islam, democracy is included and people are free in Islam, both in expressing their opinions and their actions, until there is no conspiracy and they don't bring up ideas which would deviate Iranian generation. — Ruhollah Khomeini

Those who regarded the revolution, during Imam Khomeini's time, as a deviation, are now [wielding] the tools of terror and oppression — Mohammad Khatami

Either we shake one another's hands in joy at he victory of Islam in the world, or all of us will turn to eternal life, and martyrdom. In both cases, victory and success are hours. — Ruhollah Khomeini

We are not afraid of economic sanctions or military intervention. What we are afraid of is Western universities. — Ruhollah Khomeini

In the world there is no democracy better than our democracy. Such a thing has never before been seen. — Ruhollah Khomeini

I remain faithful to the ideals of Imam Khomeini and the Islamic Revolution of 1357. — Mehdi Karroubi

This mixture of political and geographical considerations compounded Saddam's failure to grasp the operational requirements of such a campaign. Rather than allowing his forces to advance until their momentum was exhausted, he voluntarily halted their advance within a week of the onset of hostilities and then announced his willingness to negotiate a settlement. This decision not to capitalise on Iraq's early military successes by applying increased pressure had a number of dire consequences which, in turn, led to the reversal of the course of the war. It saved the Iranian army from a decisive defeat and gave Tehran precious time to re-organise and regroup; and it had a devastating impact on the morale of the Iraqi army and hence on its combat performance. Above all, the limited Iraqi invasion did nothing to endanger the revolutionary regime, nor to drive Ayatollah Khomeini towards moderation. — Efraim Karsh

It's almost impossible to deal with a crazy man, except that he does have religious beliefs, and the world of Islam will be damaged if a fanatic like him should commit murder in the name of religion against 60 innocent people. — Ruhollah Khomeini

Those who say that we want nationality, they are standing against Islam ... We have no use for the nationalists. Moslems are useful for us. Islam is against nationality ... — Ruhollah Khomeini

Prior to his takeover of Iran, Ayatollah Khomeini was camping near Paris, giving daily news conferences to a fawning international press corps without a murmur of complaint to France from the United States about the disaster it was coddling in the incredibly naive liberal belief that this extremist cleric would be an improvement over the Shah. — Alexander Haig

That was the first time I experienced the desperate orgiastic pleasure of this form of public mourning: it was the one place where people mingled and touched bodies and shared emotions without restraint or guilt. There was a wild, sexually flavored frenzy in the air. Later, when I saw a slogan by Khomeini saying that the Islamic Republic survives through its mourning ceremonies, I could testify to its truth. — Azar Nafisi

Should one permit an infidel to continue in his role as a Corrupter of the Earth, the moral suffering of the infidel will be all the worse. Should one kill the infidel, and this stops him from perpetrating his misdeeds, his death will be a blessing to him. — Ruhollah Khomeini

Islam is politics or it is nothing. — Ruhollah Khomeini

If a fly gets into the throat of one who is fasting, it is not necessary to pull it out. — Ruhollah Khomeini

The leaders of the Pahlavi regime, in an attempt to forestall the rising tide of the Islamic revolutionary movement, were hard at work to cast doubt on the question of the Imam Khomeini's position as a Marja'a (a top religious authority) and in this way, undermine public faith in his academic, political and religious competence. — Yousef Saanei

When the Islamic revolution began in 1979 under the leadership of Ayatollah Khomeini, it aroused considerable admiration in the Arab street. It presented a model of organised popular action that deposed one of the region's most tyrannical regimes. The people of the region discerned in this revolution new hope for freedom and change. — Wadah Khanfar

They have no business administering government policies in a country that favors freedom and equality ... Can you imagine having the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini as defense minister, or Mahatma Gandhi as minister of health, education, and welfare The Hindu and Buddhist idea of karma and the Muslim idea of kismet, or fate condemn the poor and the disabled to their suffering ... It's the will of Allah. These beliefs are nothing but abject fatalism, and they would devastate the social gains this nation has made if they were ever put into practice. — Pat Robertson

If one commits the act of sodomy with a cow, an ewe, or a camel, their urine and their excrements become impure, and even their milk may no longer be consumed. The animal must then be killed and as quickly as possible and burned. — Ruhollah Khomeini

It is difficult for the ordinary voter to come to grips with the notion that a truly evil man, a truthless monster with the brains of a king rat and the soul of a cockroach, is about to be sworn in as the president of the United States for the next four years ... And he will bring his gang in with him, a mean network of lawyers and salesmen and pimps who will loot the national treasury, warp the laws, mock the rules and stay awake 22 hours a day looking for at least one reason to declare war, officially, on some hapless tribe in the Sahara or heathen fanatic like the Ayatollah Khomeini. — Hunter S. Thompson

The Imam throughout his life called America 'the Great Satan'. He believed that all the Muslims' problems were caused by America. — Ruhollah Khomeini

Khomeini was not a puppet like Arafat or Qaddafi or the many other dictators I met in the Islamic world. He was a sort of Pope, a sort of king - a real leader. — Oriana Fallaci

The name of Khomeini will always remain in the new chapter of Iranian history. — Erich Honecker

These issues that exist among people that we are Iranian and what we need to do for Iran are not correct; these issues are not correct. This issue, which is perhaps being discussed everywhere, regarding paying attention to nation and nationality is nonsense in Islam and is against Islam. One of the things that the designers of Imperialism and their agents have promoted is the idea of nation and nationality. — Ruhollah Khomeini

Happy are those who have departed through martyrdom. Unhappy am I that I still survive ... Taking this decision is more deadly than drinking from a poisoned chalice. I submitted myself to Allah's will and took this drink for His satisfaction. — Ruhollah Khomeini

The Islamic Revolution of Iran is honourable for it is the cry which has its origin in Ayatollah Khomeini's conscience. — Ruhollah Khomeini

The only thing worse than a bad review from the Ayatollah Khomeini would be a good review from the Ayatollah Khomeini. — Salman Rushdie

As we grown-ups talked and speculated, my five-year-old daughter looked intently out of the window. Suddenly she turned around and shouted, "Mommy, Mommy, he is not dead! Women are still wearing their scarves." I always associate Khomeini's death with Negar's simple pronouncement - for she was right: the day women did not wear the scarf in public would be the real day of his death and the end of his revolution. Until then, we would continue to live with him. — Azar Nafisi

The people will not rest until the Pahlavi rule has been swept away and all traces of tyranny have disappeared. As long as the Shah's satanic power prevails, not a single true representative of the people can possibly be elected. — Ruhollah Khomeini

I consider Khomeini's position dangerous. He does not have the right to pass judgment-that is not the Islamic way. — Naguib Mahfouz

In Iran's future Islamic system everyone can express their opinion, and the Islamic government will respond to logic with logic. — Ruhollah Khomeini

Before the revolution I thought there are appropriate individuals who would do the job according to Islam, therefore I repeatedly said that clerics would go after their own job. Then I saw that most of them were inappropriate individuals and I found out that what I said was not true, so I came and clearly announced that I was wrong. — Ruhollah Khomeini

In Islam, the legislative power and competence to establish laws belong exclusively to God Almighty. — Ruhollah Khomeini