Abbas Amanat

So in effect, the land distribution that took place in the early 60s removed or weakened greatly that class of land owners from the 19th century.

And Khomeini saw himself as a voice of that old class.

that felt that actually declared that this land redistribution is un-Islamic.

According to the Islamic law, property is honored,

And you cannot just, no matter how much and how large are these estates that the landowning class has, the government has no right to redistribute it, even among the peasants, among the people who are tilling the land.

So that was a major issue.

Shah also gave the right of vote to women.

And that also he objected.

He said women should not have a right.

That's another issue.

Not only the hierarchy was unofficial,

informal, but also Islamic law, particularly Shi'i law, did not have any codified system because these religious authorities always resisted

becoming under a umbrella of a more codified system of Islamic law, because they were outside the state in a sense.

Civil law was in the hand of the religious establishment.

They had their own courts independent of the state.

But other matters of legal matters was in the hand of the government.

There was a kind of a de facto division between these two institutions, state versus the religious establishment.

Therefore, it was not codified.

So he could declare that this is unofficial, or sorry, illegal, according to the Islamic law, that you would distribute land to the peasants.

And another mujtahid, or another religious authority, would say, no, no, it's perfectly fine, because he would have a different reading of the law.