"Most important in determining the precise ideological direction of the antimonarchal revolution was the fact that the movement’s primary leader was a fundamentalist, Ayatollah Khomeini. Khomeini’s adamant refusal to compromise with the shah, despite the monarch’s massive military and economic power, appealed to the Iranian Shia faithful, schooled in the legendary martyrdom of Imam Hussein. Khomeini rewarded their loyalty by developing a successful “technology of revolution” tailored to the culture and psychology of Shia Iran. The ayatollah instructed the faithful to use the forty-day-interval mourning processions for the martyrs of previous demonstrations and those religious holidays commemorating sacrifice or heroic deeds as opportunities for new and ever larger protests. He called on his followers to offer themselves in martyrdom before the shah’s soldiers, knowing the shared religious significance of resulting deaths would gradually demoralize the armed forces and ultimately destroy the coercive capacity of the monarchal regime. When Khomeini’s tactics worked, many Iranians concluded that to defeat the shah’s worldly might, the ayatollah must indeed be endowed with divine powers. Having witnessed or even participated in this fantastic achievement, many of the faithful were thereafter much inclined to seek out Khomeini’s point of view on important post-revolutionary matters and follow his advice. Consequently, when conflicts developed among former revolutionary allies, Khomeini’s advocacy of a political system in which both parties and candidates had to be approved by clerical leaders and in which final authority rested in the hands of the clergy ensured the defeat of alternative revolutionary elites."