In his 1970 lectures, Khomeini claimed "Muslim ... have the sacred duty to oppose all monarchies. ... that monarchy was a 'pagan' institution that the 'despotic' Umayyads had adopted from the Roman and Sassanid empires".Abrahamian, Khomeinism, 1993: p.24 Khomeini saw Islam as a political system that during the occultation of the Twelfth Imam, works for the creation of an Islamist state.
