Iranian clerical students preparing their lunch in their bedroom at the Feiziyeh religious school in Iran's clerical capital Qom, 120 kms south of Tehran, 09 May 2005. It was in this desert city where it all began 42 years ago, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini branded the shah of Iran a 'wretched, miserable man', and set in motion a series of events that led to the Islamic revolution. Khomeini's theocracy, where Shiite clerics exercise absolute power, is now 26 years old. The ideological epicenter of the revolution is Qom's Feiziyeh seminary an Islamic architectural splendor featuring lush gardens and walls rich in turquoise mosaics and intricate calligraphy .Iran-Qom Dec 2008