There is no evidence that Khomeini has created any institution comparable in importance to his own personality, or any that will necessarily survive his passing. Civil war could well be his legacy to Iran.

All this represents the views of specialists outside Iran, based on their analysis of the information that emerges from the relatively closed society the Ayatollah has created. Firsthand observations are hard to obtain. Few Western journalists are permitted to visit the Ayatollah's Iran, and those who do get in are closely watched by security men. An application for this correspondent to visit Iran in connection with this article was considered in Teheran for a month and then rejected without explanation by the Ministry of Islamic Guidance, which handles such requests.

Aside from internal disorder, there is a growing possibility of Iran's incredibly bloody war with Iraq expanding to the Persian Gulf. American and French intelligence experts believe that, as the military stalemate continues, it is increasingly likely that Iraq will strike at Iran's oil export facilities, which are located deep in the Gulf on Kharg Island. It would be a desperate move, but Iraq is in a desperate situation, slowly being ground down in an unending war of attrition with the more populous and powerful Iran. Baghdad has repeatedly warned that it will hit at Iranian oil installations if Teheran launches an expected new offensive. By cutting off Iran's oil exports, all of which are loaded and shipped in the Gulf, Iraq would deprive Teheran of the billions of dollars it has been using to sustain the war effort.

In response, Teheran has warned repeatedly in recent months that if the Gulf is closed to Iran, it will be closed to everyone. The choke point is the narrow Strait of Hormuz, at the entrance to the Gulf, through which passes a major portion of the West's oil supplies. Iran could close the Gulf by sinking one or two freighters as they pass through the Strait. ''Lloyds of London would do the rest,'' one French oil specialist observed; insurance fees for Gulf-bound ships would, he felt sure, skyrocket overnight to prohibitive rates. Given the current oil glut, the West could survive a brief interruption of Arabian oil. But the panic that would follow a closing of the Strait of Hormuz would almost certainly drive up prices. At a minimum, this would create a major financial crisis for countries like Brazil and Argentina, which would look to the United States for relief. ''We would be facing requests for emergency loans in the billions of dollars,'' said a top American official. The possibility of major trouble in the Persian Gulf has been evident since the start of the Iran- Iraq war in September 1980. But until recently, few policy makers in the West have taken the threat seriously. They have assumed that practical self-interest would inhibit Iran, which survives on the oil it exports through the Gulf and the food and raw materials it imports through the the same waterway. Closing the Gulf would seem to be a suicidal act for Iran.

UT AS THE WAR DRAGS ON, THERE IS EVIdence that some nations are beginning to think the unthinkable. With the delivery of five Super Etendard fighter-bombers armed with Exocet missiles from France last October, and with the reported delivery of long-range, Soviet-made SS- 12 missiles last month, the Iraqis now have the weapons to at least interrupt shipping to and from Iran. Tension in the area is already high: On Jan. 31, Iraq announced that its forces had sunk five Iranian vessels and shot down an Iranian Phantom jet fighter in an air and naval battle at the northern end of the Gulf.

Alarmed by the threatening situation, other nations have taken precautionary steps. Saudi Arabia, which ships most of its oil via the Gulf, has begun loading and shipping out an emergency stockpile of some 50 million barrels of oil, according to reports from Riyadh. The oil, according to oil-industry sources, is being kept aboard a fleet of chartered supertankers that lie outside the entrance to the Gulf or are en route to storage facilities elsewhere. Saudi Arabia has no interest in selling the oil now at depressed prices, so its floating stockpile appears to be an insurance policy against trouble in the Gulf.

In addition, the Saudis are spending billions on pipelines, refineries and harbor facilities on their Red Sea coast, duplicating their Gulfside installations. ''With the kind of money they are spending on the Red Sea coast, it's obvious that they take the threat to the Gulf seriously,'' notes Fred Dutton, a Washington lawyer who represents Saudi interests in this country.