Imam Khomeini first became politically active in 1962. When the White Revolution proclaimed by the Shah's government in Iran called for land reform, nationalization of the forests, the sale of state-owned enterprises to private interests, electoral changes to enfranchise women, profit sharing in industry, and an anti-illiteracy campaign in the nation's schools.
Most of these initiatives were regarded as dangerous, Westernizing trends by traditionalists, especially the powerful and privileged religious scholars (Ulama) who felt keenly threatened. The Ulama instigated anti-government riots throughout the country.
Imam Khomeini had to undertake untiring efforts during the beginning and early years of struggle for the Islamic Revolution. Imam himself explained some of those hurdles while issuing a famous declaration 35 years ago. The Islamic Revolution emerged victorious under Imam Khomeini's leadership in 1979.
Victory of the Islamic Revolution Imam Khomeini’s wise leadership on February 11, 1979 is regarded as one of the most significant event of the contemporary history. The message delivered by Imam became universal and eternal.
Imam in his famous declaration which was issued about 35 years ago explained that whenever the Pahlavi regime was termed as a traitor; revolutionaries would immediately have to hear the answer that the king is a Shia!
According to Imam, another group of such rigid figures but known as pious considered everything forbidden and no one had the power to stand up against them. Those figures considered establishment of any system before the emergence of infallible Imam as mistaken
Imam Khomeini issued on January 22, 1963 a strongly worded declaration denouncing the Shah and his plans. Two days later Shah took armored column to Qom, and he delivered a speech harshly attacking the ''ulama'' as a class. Imam Khomeini continued his denunciation of the Shah's programs, issuing a manifesto that also bore the signatures of eight other senior scholars.
Imam Khomeini, listed the various ways in which the Shah allegedly had violated the Constitution, condemned the spread of moral corruption in the country, and accused the Shah of comprehensive submission to America and Israel.
But Reza Shah transformed the Iranian monarchy into a modern dictatorship. The modernizing programs of Pahlavi dynasty restricted and threatened religious life and made clergies be against monarchy and finally Imam Khomeini decide to fight with them and build another state comparable to religious rules.
During November of 1964, Imam Khomeini made a denunciation of both the Shah and the United States, this time in response to the "capitulations" or diplomatic immunity granted to American military personnel in Iran by the Shah. In Nov. 1964 Imam Khomeini was re-arrested and sent into exile.
Imam Khomeini spent over 14 years in exile, mostly in the holy city of Najaf in Iraq.
Imam Khomeini the founder of the Islamic Republic, returned to Iran on February 1, 1979, after 14 years of exile imposed by the then-Iranian monarch (Shah) Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.
Only two weeks after the Shah fled Iran on January 16, 1979, Imam Khomeini returned to Iran triumphantly, on Thursday, February 1, 1979, invited by the anti-Shah revolution which was already in progress.