Khomeini took a different course. All three, at their apogee, were rulers of once great empires that had fallen into political and social disarray. But Ataturk and Nasser were committed to resurrection by beating the West at its own game of building strong secular states. Khomeini's strategy was to reject Western ways, keeping Iran close to its Islamic roots.

Some ask, focusing on this strategy, whether Khomeini was riding a popular wave in global affairs. In the late 20th century, Muslims were not alone in organizing to restore religious belief to government. Christians in America, Jews in Israel, even Hindus in India were promoting the same end. As a revolutionary, Khomeini sought to bring down not just the Shah's Western-oriented state but also the secular Weltanschauung that stood behind it. Did Khomeini's triumph augur an intellectual shift of global magnitude?

While historians ponder this question, it is enough to say that Khomeini presided brilliantly over the overthrow of a wounded regime. He was merciless and cunning. His well-advertised piety complemented a prodigious skill in grasping and shaping Iran's complex politics. Most important, he knew how to exploit the feelings of nationalist resentment that characterized his time.

Ruhollah Khomeini — his given name means "inspired of God" — was born to a family of Shi'ite scholars in a village near Tehran in 1902. Shi'ism, a minority sect in Islam, is Iran's official religion. Like his father, he moved from theological studies to a career as an Islamic jurist. Throughout his life, he was acclaimed for the depth of his religious learning.

As a young seminary teacher, Khomeini was no activist. From the 1920s to the 1940s, he watched passively as Reza Shah, a monarch who took Ataturk as his model, promoted secularization and narrowed clerical powers. Similarly, Khomeini was detached from the great crisis of the 1950s in which Reza Shah's son Mohammed Reza Pahlavi turned to America to save himself from demonstrators on Tehran's streets who were clamoring for democratic reform.

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