Khomeini’s appeal transcended sectarian boundaries across the Sunni Muslim world

Evidence

It was for a while very strong in much of the Muslim world where Shi’ism was virtually unknown. In these, the sectarian difference was unimportant. Khomeini could be seen, not as a Shi’i or an Iranian, but as an Islamic revolutionary leader. Like the young Western radicals who, in their day, responded with almost Messianic enthusiasm to events in Paris and Petrograd, so did millions of young and not-so-young men and women all over the world of Islam respond to the call of Islamic revolution—with the same upsurge of emotion, the same uplifting of hearts, the same boundless hopes, the same willingness to excuse and condone all kinds of horrors, and the same anxious questions about the future. — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 1127

Categorization

• XREF: Parallels the messianic romanticism of Western leftist movements toward Paris and Petrograd; a comparative revolutionary psychology point.