Dr. Ghiyathuddin Siddiqi, a free-thinking British intellectual and a member of the Muslim Parliament of Britain, says:
Imam Khomeini’spersonality, may God have mercy upon him, had a profound impact on the modern world, and particularly on the Muslim Ummah.
For a long time, we had lacked a leader whose words carried such influence. In my opinion, this was the most important characteristic of Imam Khomeini . People felt that everything he did had no purpose other than upholding the dignity of Islam and preserving the Islamic identity.
This was his most important achievement and the defining characteristic of his personality. In Islamic society, it has become quite common that whenever something does not go as it normally should or does not turn out well, people say: ‘We need a Khomeini.’”
(Imam Khomeini in the Words of Others, p. 92)