Many books and articles have been published in European languages on the political career of Ayatollah Khomeini (1902-1989), and on his Islamic movement, which transformed Iran from a monarchy to an Islamic Republic on April 1st, 1979. There has been much less research, especially in the West, on another essential aspect of Ayatollah Khomeini: the role of mysticism in his life. Even fewer studies have been conducted on his poems, yet these represent unique self-documentation, giving a window into his personal thoughts and mystical aspirations.

To my knowledge, the first Western scholar to draw attention to Ayatollah Khomeini's mysticism was Hamid Algar, in his Islam and Revolution, in 1981. While focusing on his political career through translations of his most important public speeches, Hamid Algar highlights the mystical aspect of Ayatollah Khomeini's character in this book by translating various mystical lectures by Ayatollah Khomeini, such as his TV appearances in 1979 and 1980, in which he interpreted a Koranic verse from a mystical point of view. In 1988, the same author wrote an article entitled “Imam Khomeini, 1902-1962: The Pre-Revolutionary Years” to Ayatollah Khomeini's early mysticism.

In 1992, Alexander Knysh published “Irfan Revisited: Khomeini and the Legacy of Islamic Mystical Philosophy,” an article in which he tried to demonstrate that Ayatollah Khomeini's worldview was intertwined with Islamic mystico-philosophical thinking (ʿerfân). A couple of years later, Yahya Bonaud published a scholarly work focused primarily on Ayatollah Khomeini's mysticism, under the title L’Imam Khomeiny, un Gnostique Méconnu du XXe siècle. In 1999, Johan ter Haar tried to make a connection between Ayatollah Khomeini's mysticism and his interpretation of political leadership in his article “Heiligheid en Politiek Gezag; Het Begrip Wilāyat in de Optiek van Khumayni” (Sanctity and Political Authority: the Concept of Wilâyat in Khomeini's View). In 2000, Vanessa Martin published Creating an Islamic State: Khomeini and the Making of a New Iran. The book offers ample information on Ayatollah Khomeini's political activities and ideology. Also, it provides the reader with abundant information on how his political views were influenced by mystical thoughts. In the context of the relationship between mysticism and a cleric's life, Roy Mottahedeh's The Mantle of the Prophet: Religion and Politics in Iran (2009) is worth reading as the book demonstrates the place of mystical philosophy in the orthodox Shiite milieu of Iran.