Ayatollah Rouhollah Khomeini who came to be known as the Imam or leader, after he brought revolution to the shores of Iran to wash out 2500 years of monarchy and empire. Iranians commemorate the anniversary of their leader's demise on June 3rd 1989.
They loved him because he gave them the courage to stand up against the tyranny of the Pahlavi regime which would hand over the wealth and resources of the country to the west and got nothing in return but humiliation.
It was on 12nd Bahman or 1st February 1979, when Imam Khomeini returned to Iran from Paris with a religious doctrine after 14 years of political exile.
That day is marked as revolution day. The event is celebrated by 10-day festivities each year, called the 10-day dawn. It is noteworthy the Imam's religious doctrine was not anti-Western per se.
He believed in adopting western technology and teachings, to adapt to Islamic Iran's needs and beliefs. Iran's revolution is known to have had two distinctive characteristics: it was cultural with goals made from belief and thought, and it depended on popular movement. 'Goals from belief' are key elements in the natural make-up of the revolution.
It was an ideological revolution and therefore knew no material borders, only spiritual ones. Hence the Imam's call not only for national unity, but for Islamic unity and even world unity against world tyranny. Imam Khomeini, right from the beginning, announced that Israel is the enemy of Islam inside the world of Islam and should be eliminated.
He knows Israel as the main reason behind all the misery that Muslim countries are suffering today.