Ayatollah Shariatmadari, Lost Alternative to Khomeini

In the summer of 1963, Iranian dissident and religious scholar Ruhollah Khomeini, later to be known as Ayatollah Khomeini, was arrested and detained for drawing a parallel between Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and Yazid I, a figure reviled in Shia Islam. Many of the Shah’s close advisors favored execution, but Hassan Pakravan, leader of Iran’s secret police, believed executing Khomeini would only further exacerbate tensions, perhaps even leading to a revolution.