He was orphaned at 16

Seyed Moustafa Hindi, Khomeini's father, was killed when he was just a little child. Then, Khomeini was raised by his mother, Hajieh Agha Khanum, and his aunt, Sahebeth, when his father passed away when he was less than six months old. The sad truth about Ayatollah Khomeini, he was orphaned at 16. Both his mother and an aunt named Sahebeh passed away from cholera in 1918 in the area where he had grown up. After that, the older brother of Khomeini, Seyed Morteza, assumed leadership of the family that all responsibility for feeding the family fell on him.

The family made a claim that they were related to the Prophet Muhammad. Like their ancestors, both Ayatollah Khomeini and his brother were ardent religious scholars, and both attained Ayatollah status, granted only to the most highly educated Shi'ite professors. With the help of his family, particularly his older brother Morteza Pasandideh and his mother's cousin Ja'far, he maintained his religious education throughout his youth. That is the reason why at the age of six, Ruhollah started learning basic Persian and the Qur'an. The following year, he started going to a nearby school where he studied "Noheh Khani" (lamentation recital), religion, and other conventional topics.