[5] Fifteen years later, Khomeini led the Iranian Revolution which overthrew the Shah and the Pahlavi dynasty and established the Islamic Republic of Iran.

[9][7] On the afternoon of June 3, 1963, Ashoura, Khomeini delivered a speech at the Feyziyeh School in which he drew parallels between the Umayyad Caliph Yazid I and the Shah.

He denounced the Shah as a "wretched, miserable man", and warned him that if he did not change his ways the day would come when the people would offer up thanks for his departure from the country.

The Shah then ordered a division of the Imperial Guard, under the command of Major General Gholam Ali Oveisi, to move into the city and crush the demonstrations.

The following day, protest groups took to the street in smaller numbers and were confronted by tanks and "soldiers in combat gear with shoot-to-kill orders".

[10] According to journalist Baqer Moin, police files indicate 320 people from a wide variety of backgrounds, including 30 leading clerics, were arrested on June 5.

The files also list 380 people as killed or wounded in the uprising, not including those who did not go to hospital "for fear of arrest", or who were taken to the morgue or buried by security forces.

[12] Hardliners in the regime, such as Prime Minister Asadollah Alam and SAVAK head Nematollah Nassiri, favored execution of Khomeini, as one responsible for the riots, and less-violent strikes and protests continued in bazaars and elsewhere.

Once he had convinced the Shah to allow him to find a way out, he called on Ayatollah Mohammad Kazem Shariatmadari, one of the senior religious leaders of Iran, and asked for his help.

After nineteen days in the Qasr Prison, Khomeini was moved first to the Eshratabad military base and then to a house in the Davoodiyeh section of Tehran where he was kept under surveillance.