Grand Ayatollah Sayyid Ruhollah M?savi Khomeini (known in the Western world as Ayatollah Khomeini), was an Iranian Shia Muslim religious leader, revolutionary, politician, the founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran and the leader of the 1979 Iranian Revolution which saw the overthrow of the Pahlavi monarchy and Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the Shah of Iran. Following the revolution, Khomeini became the country's Supreme Leader, a position created in the constitution of the Islamic Republic as the highest-ranking political and religious authority of the nation, which he held until his death.