socialist-oriented. Overall, it joined the many political entities
opposing the Pahlavi regime.
In 1975, Shah Pahlavi established a single, uncontested party
called Rastakhiz. This meant that, legally, no platform for
orderly opposition to his regime was available.
Even so, the driving force behind the discontent was not
political parties but the Shiite clergy. Other ayatollahs besides
Khomeini wanted change and commanded great respect and
sizable followings. Prominent among them was Ayatollah
Muhammad Kazem Shariatmadari, who, like Khomeini, had
taught at Borujerdi’s school in Qom. Shariatmadari, far less
aggressive than Khomeini, did not pursue actual revolution. He
would remain withdrawn from Khomeini’s denouncements and
demands during the coming upheaval. In fact, he would express
reservations about Khomeini’s plan to have clerics control the
government. Still, Khomeini owed him a debt of gratitude.
Shariatmadari had joined other religious leaders in pleading for
Khomeini’s release from jail in the early 1960s.
Another leading cleric during the 1970s was Ayatollah
Mahmoud Taleqani in the capital city. Much more like
Khomeini than Shariatmadari, he actively opposed Pahlavi’s
regime and had been imprisoned for it. Taleqani lacked the
broad base of followers that Khomeini was attracting. However,
he would play a significant role in the shah’s overthrow and
in forging a new government. When he died of an apparent
heart attack in September 1979, shortly after the revolution,
some would suggest he was poisoned by Khomeini henchmen
who feared Taleqani might contend for supreme control of the
new republic.
In October 1977, an event occurred that devastated Khomeini
personally and blew the antigovernment movement into a
revolutionary fire. Khomeini’s oldest son Mustafa died at an
Islamic shrine in Karbala, Iraq. Like his father, grandfather, and
great-grandfather before him, Mustafa was a Shiite cleric.
He was forty-nine at the time. The cause of his death is not clear,
but poisoning was widely rumored. Regardless of the actual46 AYATOLLAH RUHOLLAH KHOMEINI
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