There are many publications dealing with the political career of Ruhollah Khomeini (1902–1989), who transformed the political landscape of Iran and the Middle East after the Islamic Revolution of... Show moreThere are many publications dealing with the political career of Ruhollah Khomeini (1902–1989), who transformed the political landscape of Iran and the Middle East after the Islamic Revolution of 1979. Most of the research conducted in the West is on Khomeini’s political strategies, while the influential role of mysticism in all facets of his life is ignored. This book is the first study examining Khomeini’s poetry, mysticism and the reception of his poetry both in Iran and the West. It investigates how Khomeini integrated various doctrines and ideas of Islamic mysticism and Shiiism such as the Perfect Man into his poetry. Show less
This research has been conducted in response to the mystical poems that Ayatollah Khomeini composed during his life. His poems contain multiple mystical topics such as wine, love, annihilation... Show moreThis research has been conducted in response to the mystical poems that Ayatollah Khomeini composed during his life. His poems contain multiple mystical topics such as wine, love, annihilation and adoration of non-Islamic figures. In various poems Ayatollah Khomeini rejects the Kaʿba, the Holy House of God in Mecca. How to interpret these unorthodox poems by the hand of the founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran? How to explain the paradox of his personality? His poems are also highly interesting because of their biographical and political elements, such as his references to the Iran-Iraq war. The main question of this research is how to interpret Ayatollah Khomeini’s mystical poetry. Are his poems the expressions of a convinced mystic, or did he copy this poetic framework for other purposes? How to interpret his poems in which he rejects Islamic institutions, such as the Kaʿba in Mecca? Is this topic merely a classical metaphor or does it reflect the personal problems he had with Saudi Arabia? And finally, how did his opponents and his followers respond to his poetry? Show less
