Thread by @olmo_goelz

27 November 1978:
Khomeini’s face is in the moon!
Earlier, rumors had spread in Iran that the devout believer would see the face of Ayatollah #Khomeini during the next full moon. (1/11)
@HistorianofIran #IranianRevolution
📸en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon#/med…

2/11 At the day of 27 November, millions of people received the moon with cheers, actually recognized the image of Ayatollah Khomeini and shouted allahu akbar from the rooftops of their houses – which became the established sign of political disobedience.

3/11 Tara Bahrampour remembers: “Khomeini’s face is in the moon. Everyone’s talking about it. Taxicabs brake in the middle of traffic so people can jump out and look up at the sky, and neighbors gather in the alleys at sunset to point at the outlines of his eyes. [...] ...

4/11 .. That night, Leila-Khanoum looks up at the moon, sees Khomeini and faints. Naneh still stands in her doorway, wrapped in a black chador [...]. ‘God is great,’ she says, her voice high and creaky and filled with
delight. ‘Agha is in the sky.’” (To see and see again, 101/2)

5/11 On 13 January 1979, just when the first rumours of the Shah’s imminent abscondence and the Ayatollah’s return to Iran were being spread, his face appeared in the moon again. However, Ayatollah Khomeini and his followers disavowed the phenomenon.
In my paper, I discuss why.

6/11 The establishment of a durable Islamic state system demanded the utilitarian use of Ayatollah Khomeini's charismatic appeal with references to messianic sensitivities. However, to fulfil his own concepts of an ideal Islamic state, Khomeini had to remain an ordinary human ...

7/11 .. being and nothing more than the hero of the revolution. In my paper I shall illustrate the complexity of the interrelations and transitions between the macro level of system behaviour and the micro level of individual action by dint of the depiction of the widely known ..

8/11 .. episode of late 1978 in which it is said that the believer would be able to see Khomeini’s face in the moon, and the Ayatollah’s later refusal of this ‘natural phenomenon’. After depicting this episode through references in several autobiographical accounts as well as ...

9/11 .. contemporary newspaper articles, its interpretation has to be read against the background of the meaning of symbols in the Iranian-Shi’ite community. In doing so, the analysis of Ayatollah Khomeini’s deeds and words will show that he deliberately relinquished the claim ..

10/11 .. to be sent by God, as offered to him by the people of Iran. Further, it will be shown that shortly after his return to Iran, he was zealous in building up a legitimation which invoked notions of rational-legal authority in a Weberian sense. In doing so, Khomeini ...

11/11 .. presented himself as acting as the sovereign on the authority of the people, hence, as being the hero of the people’s struggle and the leader of the community – and not being sent from God, or representing an aloof saint reflected in the moon.

academia.edu/34634793/G%C3%…