Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini (1902-1989) - often known in the West simply as 'The Ayatollah' - was a Shīʿah Muslim religious authority, the author of over fifty books, and the founder of the modern-day Islamic Republic of Iran.

Sayyid Amjad H. Shah Naqavi holds a PhD from the University of Edinburgh. He is the Dean of the Shīʿah Institute in London where he is working on a number of research projects, including an annotated translation of the Nahj al-Balāghah.