Status Updates From Khomeini: Life of the Ayato...

The Shi‘i clergy was for some seven centuries in opposition to the Sunni majority rule; for over four centuries it shared power with a traditional Shi‘i monarchy; for half a century it opposed the secularised monarchy...A decade of clerical rule under Khomeini may prove to have had more impact on the clergy itself than the five centuries or so that followed the creation of a Shi‘i state in Iran by the Safavids.