Editing Ruhollah Khomeini (section)

=== Education and lecturing ===
[[File:خمینی و همدرسان.JPG|thumb|left|Khomeini as a student with his friends (second from right)]]
[[File:Ayatollah Khomeini young.jpg|thumb|left|upright|Khomeini in 1938]]

After [[World War I]], arrangements were made for him to study at the Islamic seminary in [[Isfahan]], but he was attracted instead to the seminary in [[Arak, Iran|Arak]]. He was placed under the leadership of [[Ayatollah]] [[Abdolkarim Haeri Yazdi]].<ref>{{harvnb|Moin|2000|p=22}}</ref> In 1920, Khomeini moved to Arak and commenced his studies.<ref>{{harvnb|Brumberg|2001|p=45}}. "By 1920, the year Khomeini moved to Arak..."</ref> The following year, Ayatollah Haeri Yazdi transferred to the Islamic seminary in the holy city of [[Qom]], southwest of [[Tehran]], and invited his students to follow. Khomeini accepted the invitation, moved,<ref name="mil85" /> and took up residence at the Dar al-Shafa school in Qom.<ref>{{harvnb|Moin|2000|p=28}}. "Khomeini's madraseh in Qom was known as the Dar al-Shafa..."</ref> Khomeini's studies included Islamic law (''[[sharia]]'') and jurisprudence (''[[fiqh]]''),<ref name="rei311" /> but by that time, Khomeini had also acquired an interest in poetry and philosophy (''[[irfan]]''). So, upon arriving in Qom, Khomeini sought the guidance of [[Mirza (noble)|Mirza]] Ali Akbar Yazdi, a scholar of philosophy and mysticism. Yazdi died in 1924, but Khomeini continued to pursue his interest in philosophy with two other teachers, Javad Aqa Maleki Tabrizi and Rafi'i Qazvini.<ref>{{harvnb|Moin|2000|p=42}}</ref><ref name="bru46">{{harvnb|Brumberg|2001|p=46}}</ref> However, perhaps Khomeini's biggest influences were another teacher, [[Mohammad Ali Shah Abadi]],<ref>{{harvnb|Rāhnamā|1994|pp=70–71}}</ref> and a variety of historic [[Sufi]] [[mysticism|mystics]], including [[Mulla Sadra]] and [[Ibn Arabi]].<ref name="bru46" />

Khomeini studied [[ancient Greek philosophy]] and was influenced by both the philosophy of [[Aristotle]], whom he regarded as the founder of logic,<ref name="imamreza">{{cite web |title=Philosophy as Viewed by Ruhollah Khomeini |url=http://www.imamreza.net/eng/imamreza.php?print=4250 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110614032732/http://www.imamreza.net/eng/imamreza.php?print=4250 |archive-date=14 June 2011 |access-date=19 March 2010 |website=imamreza.net}}</ref> and [[Plato]], whose views "in the field of divinity" he regarded as "grave and solid".<ref>Kashful-Asrar, p. 33 by Ruhollah Khomeini</ref> Among Islamic philosophers, Khomeini was mainly influenced by [[Avicenna]] and Mulla Sadra.<ref name="imamreza" /> Apart from philosophy, Khomeini was interested in literature and poetry. His poetry collection was released after his death. Beginning in his adolescent years, Khomeini composed mystic, political and social poetry. His poetry works were published in three collections: ''The Confidant'', ''The Decanter of Love and Turning Point'', and ''Divan''.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.irib.ir/Ouriran/imam/writing/html/en/page9.htm |title=Introduction of Iman's works |access-date=29 June 2007 |website=irib.ir |archive-date=15 October 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071015112221/http://www.irib.ir/Ouriran/imam/writing/html/en/page9.htm}}.</ref> His knowledge of poetry is further attested by the modern poet [[Nader Naderpour]] (1929–2000), who "had spent many hours exchanging poems with Khomeini in the early 1960s". Naderpour remembered: "For four hours we recited poetry. Every single line I recited from any poet, he recited the next."<ref>Farhang Rajaee, ''Islamism and Modernism: The Changing Discourse in Iran'', [[University of Texas Press]], (2010), p. 116.</ref>

Ruhollah Khomeini was a lecturer at [[Najaf]] and Qom seminaries for decades before he was known on the political scene. He soon became a leading scholar of Shia Islam.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/khomeini_ayatollah.shtml |title=BBC – History – Ayatollah Khomeini (1900–1989) |website=bbc.co.uk |publisher=[[BBC]] |date=4 June 1989 |access-date=19 March 2010}}</ref> He taught political philosophy,<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.irib.ir/Occasions/hejrate%20imam-Kuwait/imam.en.HTM |title=Imam Khomeini to Kuwait |access-date=29 June 2007 |website=irib.ir |archive-date=27 March 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080327052418/http://www.irib.ir/Occasions/hejrate%20imam-Kuwait/imam.en.HTM}}.</ref> Islamic history and ethics. Several of his students, for example [[Morteza Motahhari]], later became leading Islamic philosophers and also ''[[marja']]''. As a scholar and teacher, Khomeini produced numerous writings on Islamic philosophy, law, and ethics.<ref name="Britannica01">{{cite encyclopedia |author=Encyclopædia Britannica |url=http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9045329/Ruhollah-Khomeini |title=Ruhollah Khomeini |encyclopedia=[[Encyclopædia Britannica]] |access-date=19 March 2010}}</ref> He showed an exceptional interest in subjects like philosophy and [[mysticism]] that not only were usually absent from the curriculum of seminaries but were often an object of hostility and suspicion.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.irib.ir/Occasions/imam%20khomeini/ImamKhomeini-en.HTM |title=پایگاه اطلاع رسانی روابط عمومی سازمان صدا و سیما |access-date=29 June 2007 |website=irib.ir |archive-date=15 October 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071015112215/http://www.irib.ir/Occasions/imam%20khomeini/ImamKhomeini-en.HTM}}.</ref>

Inaugurating his teaching career at the age of 27 by giving private lessons on irfan and Mulla Sadra to a private circle, around the same time, in 1928, he also released his first publication, ''Sharh Du'a al-Sahar'' (Commentary on the [[Du'a al-Baha]]), "a detailed commentary, in [[Arabic]], on the prayer recited before dawn during Ramadan by Imam [[Ja'far al-Sadiq]]", followed, some years later, by ''Sirr al-Salat'' (Secret of the Prayer), where "the symbolic dimensions and inner meaning of every part of the prayer, from the ablution that precedes it to the salam that concludes it, are expounded in a rich, complex, and eloquent language that owes much to the concepts and terminology of [[Ibn 'Arabi]]. As Sayyid Fihri, the editor and translator of ''Sirr al-Salat'', has remarked, the work is addressed only to the foremost among the spiritual elite (akhass-i khavass) and establishes its author as one of their number."<ref>Ervand Abrahamian, ''Islam, Politics, and Social Movements'', [[University of California Press]], (1988), p. 269.</ref> The second book has been translated by Sayyid Amjad H. Shah Naqavi and released by [[Brill Publishers]] in 2015 under the title ''The Mystery of Prayer: The Ascension of the Wayfarers and the Prayer of the Gnostics''.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Khomeini |first=Ruhollah |url=http://www.brill.com/products/book/mystery-prayer-0 |title=The Mystery of Prayer: The Ascension of the Wayfarers and the Prayer of the Gnostics |publisher=[[Brill Publishers]] |date=2015 |isbn=978-90-04-29831-6 |editor-last=Naqavi |editor-first=Sayyid Amjad Hussain Shah |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170706103106/http://www.brill.com/products/book/mystery-prayer-0 |archive-date=6 July 2017 |url-status=dead}}</ref>