Kintoor (Barabanki): A village in Ghaghara, 70 km from Lucknow, claims a legacy that changed the fate of Iran.Only five Shia families live in Kintur, once a rich center of Shia scholarship under Awadh. Among them, Kazmis talk about a blood that runs from the streets of Barbanki in eastern UP in the heart of Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution. Septuzenian Syed Nihal Kazmi said, “My great-grandfather Mohammad Kuli Musavi and Syed Ahmed Musavi were cousins.”Syed Ahmed Musavi Hindi – Ayatollah Khomeini’s grandfather – was born in Kintur in the early 1800s. In 1830, he left the British India on a pilgrimage in Iraq, where he befriended Yusaf Khan Kamarachi, a zamindar of Iran’s Farhan. By 1839, Ahmed settled in Khomin, bought a big house with a garden, and married Yusaf’s sister Sayneh.
