- Kintoor village in Uttar Pradesh is the ancestral home of Ayatollah Khomeini's family
- Syed Ahmed Musavi, Khomeini's grandfather, migrated from India to Iran in the 19th century
- Khomeini led Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution and became its first supreme leader
As widespread destruction across West Asia dominates headlines after Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's assassination in a US and Israeli joint operation, a small Indian village has quietly become part of the global narrative. Located in the Barabanki district of Uttar Pradesh, the village of Kintoor has a deep ancestral connection to Iran's theocratic regime.
The village, known historically as a seat of Shia scholarship, is the ancestral home of Ayatollah Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini -- the architect of the 1979 Islamic Revolution and founding father of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Khomeini's India Connection
Kintoor was the birthplace of Syed Ahmed Musavi, Khomeini's grandfather. Born in the early 19th century, Musavi left India for Najaf in Iraq — a prominent centre of Shia learning — before eventually settling in the Iranian city of Khomein in 1834.
It was there that the family laid down roots that would, a century later, culminate in political and religious power at the highest level.
Musavi retained the title “Hindi” — a marker of his Indian origin — a detail that survives in Iranian records and stands as a quiet testament to the family's ancestry. Scholars often describe him as a formative influence in shaping the spiritual environment that later moulded Khomeini's worldview.
About Ayatollah Khomeini
Ayatollah Khomeini was at the forefront of the Islamic Revolution that toppled the monarchy of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi in 1979 and established the Islamic Republic of Iran. He then became Iran's first supreme leader, reshaping its politics, foreign policy and religious identity for decades to come.
Khomeini was the fiery, charismatic ideologue and installed rule by Shiite Muslim clerics tasked with spreading religious purity. To supporters, he was a spiritual guide who stood up to foreign influence. To critics, he was the architect of a rigid theocracy.
The Question Of Succession
Khamenei, who took the reins of Iran after the death of Khomeini in 1989, ended up ruling far longer than his predecessor. He greatly expanded the Shiite clerical class and built the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard into the most important body underpinning his rule. But his death has raised questions about the future of the Islamic Republic.
The 88-seat Assembly of Experts, a group of mostly hard-line clerics, will choose Khamenei's replacement. But no clear successor is in place.
As he launched the bombing in February, US President Donald Trump called on Iranians to “take over your government. It will be yours to take. This will be probably your only chance for generations.”
What happens next may depend greatly on bodies like the Revolutionary Guard, which has repeatedly shown its willingness to use overwhelming force to keep power even as many of Iran's 90 million people grow disenchanted.
