Ali Khamenei

Ayatollah Seyed Ali Hoseyni Khāmene’i is the Supreme Leader of Iran, succeeding Ayatollah Khomeini, and the figurative head of the Muslim conservative establishment in Iran and Twelver Shi’a marja. He had also served as the President of the Islamic Republic of Iran from 1981 to 1989. In 2010, Forbes selected him 26th in the list of ‘World’s Most Powerful People’.

He has been described as one of only three people having “important influence” on the Islamic Republic of Iran (the other two being the founder of the republic, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, and the president of Iran for much of the 1990s, Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani). So far, the biggest challenge to his leadership has been the mass protests following the June 2009 presidential elections. Khamenei, however, continued to strongly support Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s policies and re-election. Khamenei was the victim of an attack aimed to assassinate him in June 1981 that paralyzed his right arm.

The origin of Ali Khamenei family is from Tafresh in today’s Markazi province. The ancestors of Ali Khamenei had migrated from their original home in Tafresh to Tabriz.Born in Mashhad, He is second eldest of eight children, and two of his brothers are also clerics. His younger brother, Hadi Khamenei, is a renowned newspaper editor and cleric. Ali Khamenei is half Iranian Azeri and his mother is a Yazd-native Persian.

He attended religious studies classes at the rudimentary and advanced levels in the hawza of Mashhad, under his mentors such as Haj Sheikh Hashem Qazvini, and Ayatollah Milani, and then went to Najaf in 1957. After a short stay he left Najaf to Mashhad, and in 1958 he settled in Qom. Khamenei attended the classes of Ayatollahs Husain Borujerdi and Ruhollah Khomeini. Later, he was involved in the Islamic activities of 1963 which led to his arrest in the city of Birjand, in Southern Khorasan Province. Shortly thereafter, he was released and resumed teaching in Mashhad’s religious schools and mosques, teaching the Nahj al-Balagheh.

Other Information

• Born : 17 July 1939, Mashhad, Iran
• Political party : Combatant Clergy Association (1977–present)
• Other political affiliations : Islamic Republican Party (1979–1987)
• Spouses :
• Khojaste Khamenei (1964–present)
• Children:
• Mojtaba
• Mostafa
• Masoud
• Meysam
• Hoda
• Boshra
• Religion : Twelver Shia Islam

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