For all the people out there who dont know khomeini but think they are an expert on him, or the islamic republic, or the mideast. His ideas, his words, translated by a great professor who did a superb translation (although things are often lost in translation). You have to read this book if you want to have an informed opinion on modern day Iran.

For all the people out there who dont know khomeini but think they are an expert on him, or the islamic republic, or the mideast. His ideas, his words, translated by a great professor who did a superb translation (although things are often lost in translation). You have to read this book if you want to have an informed opinion on modern day Iran.

It is exactly as advertised - a decent, thorough collection of works by arguably the most important revolutionary thinker of the contemporary era. Could do without the tiresome laudatory epic introduction, but it comes with the territory, evidently.

It is exactly as advertised - a decent, thorough collection of works by arguably the most important revolutionary thinker of the contemporary era. Could do without the tiresome laudatory epic introduction, but it comes with the territory, evidently.

Many in the West fail to see the purity and dedication this man had towards faith and revolution. The Author, a British convert to Islam, who had personally met Khomeini himself, does a spledid job in this book to portray the Ayatollah as a man who suffered for the Iranian people, and who gave the Muslims a sense of Islamic identity.

It was Khomeini who wished to build an Islamic nation based on the true ideals of Islam, and not the materialism and consumerism of the Shah.

It was Khomeini who said:
"We want to make an Islamic and not a Western country." It is unfortunate that many fail to realize the density of this Islamic movement and the spiritual awakening among the people of the world that Khomeini has sparked. If you wish to understand the spiritual crisis that the modern world is under, then reading this book is a good start.

Many in the West fail to see the purity and dedication this man had towards faith and revolution. The Author, a British convert to Islam, who had personally met Khomeini himself, does a spledid job in this book to portray the Ayatollah as a man who suffered for the Iranian people, and who gave the Muslims a sense of Islamic identity.

It was Khomeini who wished to build an Islamic nation based on the true ideals of Islam, and not the materialism and consumerism of the Shah.

It was Khomeini who said:
"We want to make an Islamic and not a Western country." It is unfortunate that many fail to realize the density of this Islamic movement and the spiritual awakening among the people of the world that Khomeini has sparked. If you wish to understand the spiritual crisis that the modern world is under, then reading this book is a good start.

Iran - and Khomeini - are poorly understood by many in the West. _Islam and Revolution_ provides some insight to the man behind the 1979 revolution, and to the broader "Islamicist" movement of the present. The book is really broken into two parts - the first half is a series of essays written by the Ayatollah about politics and Islam, and were (to me) the most interesting section. The last half is a a broad overview of speeches, lectures, open letters and interviews.

With regards to Islam as a political movement, Khomeini makes some interesting points: that politics should be subservient to Islam (no real news here), that it is the duty of religious scholars to make this happen, and that government should be ruled by religious scholars (the "valiati fakhi".) The similarity to Plato's "Republic" ruled by "Philosopher Kings" was striking.

For those interested in a deeper understanding of the theocracy in Iran, or of the broader "Islamicist" movement throughout the Near East, I recommend the first half of this fascinating book.

Actually reading these works of Imam Khomeini will bring you to one rather terrifying realization: it is probable that everything you've ever read about Khomeini and Iran was written by people who didn't bother to read what the Imam himself actually wrote about the revolution he led. The book is essential in this at least; that it will make you realize to what extent you have been hoodwinked and misled by people uninterested in grappling with the actuality of the revolutionaries' ideology.

There are fatal weaknesses here; the Western reader accustomed to political theory that is profoundly concerned with questions of sovereignty, exception, and checks on abuses of power will find Khomeini's Islamic Platonism extremely dangerous. And the egalitarian economics Khomeini preaches is unhappily sketchy -- he is good in his criticism of the rapacious regime of the Shah but not as good when it comes to suggesting real solutions to the problems of the Iranian people. Indeed, it is here -- in checks on clerical power, in economic development -- that Western readers will see the failure of the revolution.

But there is a lot here to be hopeful about. Khomeini is surprisingly inclusive; at every turn he rejects sectarian conflict and tries to include Sunnis (and even Jews and Christians!) in his revolutionary plan. He is surprisingly democratic in his appeals to the people of Iran. (And perhaps it is because the ulama is constituted in so 'populist' a way -- by reputation, prestige, and respect, rather than by an institutional hierarchy -- that he is so unconcerned with checks and balances.) What he writes about the role of the (Islamic) intellectual in opposing and overthrowing tyranny is as stirring as anything ever written on the scholar's role in society. I think you will probably leave this book shocked by how close Khomeini might have come to instituting something we would be happier in calling a 'Republic' -- Islamic or not. And shocked by how much richer Khomeini's ideology is than the intellectual bankruptcy of the Ba'ath or the Wahhabis.

The book also includes a lecture series Khomeini -- who originally gained acclaim for his exposition of gnostic doctrines -- delivered on the first surah of the Qur'an. It is in the sensitivity, subtlety, and insight of these lectures that I gained the most respect for this man; born and best fitted not to lead revolutions and give firebrand speeches but to talk about the mysteries of this world. "Everything," Imam Khomeini writes, "is a name of God. The winds that blow are a name of God."

A complex and ambivalent figure -- but no man who wrote this should ever be slandered by the word "fanatic."