Explain the historical circumstances that led to Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's return from exile in 1979

Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini returned from exile in 1979 due to the success of the Iranian Revolution.

Explanation:

Ruhollah Mousavi Khomeini was an Iranian Ayatollah, and Iran's highest political and spiritual leader from the 1979 Islamic Revolution until his death in 1989.

After opposing to Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi's social reforms, he was forced to flee, first in Turkey at the end of 1964, then in Iraq from 1965 to 1978 when he was forced by Saddam Hussein to leave Iraq to live in France. Khomeini turned to the Shah's land reform, secularism and the strengthened position of women in society. After the Shah was deposed and fled from Iran in January 1979, Khomeini returned to the country on February 1 as the leader of the revolution. Under his authoritarian leadership a strict fundamentalist Islamic republic, a theocracy, was introduced.