Source: Reuters
NEAUPHLE-LE-CHATEAU, France (Reuters) – Forty years ago this month, the man who would go on to lead the Islamic revolution in Iran lived in a simple house in a village outside Paris, spending his days cross-legged under an apple tree in the garden, contemplating insurrection
Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini had fled Iran in the mid-1960s, fearing a crackdown on his teachings by the Shah.
After a brief time in Turkey he moved to Iraq, but was later expelled from the holy city of Najaf by Saddam Hussein in 1978.
He would end up in sleepy Neauphle-le-Chateau, west of Paris, where from October that year until his return to Tehran in February 1979, he quietly fomented unrest, nurturing the Islamist revolution that persists to this day.
Categories: Europe, France, Iran, Middle East, The Muslim Times