Khaberni - Iranian politician and religious scholar, participated in the revolution against Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and contributed to the rise of Imam Khomeini to power. He believed in the Guardianship of the Islamic Jurist but did not reach the position of Guide until a constitutional amendment allowed a qualified jurist to assume leadership, which was previously restricted to jurists.
Khamenei is considered a disciple of the Iranian Revolution leader Ruhollah Khomeini, and played a critical role so much so that it is said that while Khomeini ignited the revolution, Khamenei managed its continuation and exportation. From his youth, he was one of the pillars and icons of the revolution and influenced its course.
U.S. President Donald Trump announced his death in an Israeli airstrike that targeted his underground location with 30 bombs on February 28, 2026, as part of the American-Israeli operation on Iran, before Iranian TV declared his "martyrdom" after repeated denials from Iranian officials.
Birth and early life
Ali Jawad Hosseini Khamenei was born in the city of Mashhad, Khorasan Province, northeastern Iran, on September 8, 1939, in a poor family known for its scholarship and literary status.
The origins of his ancestors trace back to the city of Tafresh in central Iran, but they migrated to the Iranian Azerbaijan region and then to Najaf.
His father, an Azerbaijani Turk, moved from Tabriz to Mashhad, hence Ali Khamenei speaks Turkish well, and his grandfather was among the Azerbaijani Shia scholars in Najaf.
His father returned to study at the seminary in the city of Najaf once again, before moving to the city of Mashhad to settle there and become Imam of the Kohrshad mosque.
His mother, Khadijah Mirdamadi, had roots from the city of Isfahan and was a memorizer of the Holy Quran; she was a descendant of Mir Baha’uddin Muhammad Baqir Estrabadi known as "Mirdamad," one of the most famous scholars and calligraphers during the Safavid dynasty.
Khamenei was the second of 8 siblings, three of whom—including him—specialized scholars in Islamic Sharia according to the Shia doctrine. He married in 1964 and had six children: Mostafa, Mojtaba, Masoud, Meysam, Bushra, and Hoda.
He mentions in his memoirs that he experienced a difficult childhood, with nights where they found nothing to eat, and adds that his mother would sew clothes for him and his brothers from their father’s worn clothes.
He and his siblings grew up in a poor neighborhood in Mashhad in a house no larger than 70 square meters, consisting of a single room and a dark, narrow basement, until some of his father's students bought an adjacent plot of land and expanded it to include 3 rooms.
Education and formation
Khamenei started his education at the age of four in the religious school, where he learned reading and began memorizing the Holy Quran. His mother taught him Persian poetry, literature, and Iranian Islamic arts from a young age.
He attended primary school in the city of Mashhad until the fifth grade, then began studying religious lessons with his father and the scholar Jalil Hosseini Sistani.
After completing primary education at a religious school, he attended evening classes at a state school and obtained a middle school diploma, eventually completing his high school education afterward.
In 1958, he moved to Najaf with his father, where he was tutored by several scholarly authorities, including Mohsen al-Hakim and Abu al-Qasim al-Khoei, Mahmoud Shahroudi, then returned to Mashhad and continued his studies under the supervision of scholar Mohammad Hadi Milani.
In 1959, he traveled to the city of Qom to study religious sciences, where he learned from various scholars, notably Khomeini, Mohammad Hussein Tabatabai, Hussein Bujnourdi, Morteza Haeri Yazdi, and Muhammad Muhaqqiq Mirdamadi.
He returned to Mashhad in 1964 after his father lost his vision, and began teaching jurisprudence and interpretation to young students, under his old teacher Milani.
During this period, he began indoctrinating his students with ideas about overthrowing the Shah’s regime and was able to recruit many who later participated in the revolution that overthrew this regime in 1979.
Khamenei is multilingual, has a broad knowledge of poetry and literature, and individuals close to him noted that in the early 1960s, an Armenian leftist communist activist taught him English in Qezel Hesar prison in Tehran.
He is known for his passion for reading novels and stories, in Persian, Arabic, and global languages, and it is said he had a talent in critiquing literary works and poetry. He had relationships with many poets, writers, and intellectuals of his time, including the Iraqi poet Muhammad Mahdi Al-Jawahiri.
During his youth and educational journey, he was influenced by the views and positions of the late thinker Ali Shariati, founder of the "Islam without Clergy" intellectual school, but his greatest influence was Khomeini, with whom he was imbued with ideas and visions, becoming one of the symbols of Shia jurists who believe in and defend the Guardianship of the Juristic system.
Political experience
Khamenei was born into a political family, and his aunt's husband was executed during the Shah’s rule. He was one of the leaders of the revolution that overthrew his regime in 1979, and a primary negotiator in the American embassy hostage crisis in Tehran, where Iranian students supporting the revolution stormed in and held 52 American hostages for 444 days (from November 4, 1979, to January 20, 1981).
He joined the ranks of the opposition to the Shah's rule since the early 1960s, was arrested six times, and in 1965 under the Shah (Savak intelligence agency), he was banned from leaving the country for 10 years. In 1977, he was exiled to the city of Iranshahr in Sistan and Baluchestan Province.
In 1952, he met Mojtaba Navvab Safavi, leader of the secret "Movement of Islam's Fedayeen" in Mashhad, and was first arrested in 1962 for participating in a protest meeting by organization members to support the Palestinian cause in the same city.
His political activities opposing the Shah were shared by Morteza Motahhari, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, Mahmoud Taleghani, Abu al-Fazl Zanjani, Mehdi Bazargan, Yadollah Sahabi, Abbas Sheybani, Kazem Sami, and other Iranian leaders.
Khamenei first met the revolution leader Khomeini in 1957, where he was tutored by him and influenced by his ideas. He met his companion, as described by Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, in the same year in the city of Karbala in central Iraq.
Two years later, they met again in the city of Qom, where they were studying religious sciences, rented a house, and lived together for several years, and this relationship continued between their families until Rafsanjani’s death in 2017.
In 1977, he was selected as a member of a committee of 11 people formed by Khomeini to reform the Qom seminary and politically prepare it for a coup against the Shah, which led to the founding of the Association of Combatant Clerics, which later transformed into the Islamic Republican Party.
This association worked on recruiting religious scholars and politically educating them to form the core of a future movement to overthrow the Shah's regime. In 1964, the Savak agency detected it and arrested some of its members, but Khamenei managed to escape, though he was captured in Mashhad in 1965 and sentenced to 6 months in prison.
Khamenei resumed his political movements upon release from prison, and was imprisoned again due to his speeches and lectures opposing the Shah. He returned to Mashhad in 1978 to lead the revolutionary movement against the Shah's regime in Khorasan Province.
Khamenei, along with others including Mohammad Beheshti and Rafsanjani, founded the Islamic Republican Party, which later dominated the political decision-making in the country for several years, until it was dissolved in 1987 by decree from Khomeini.
On June 26, 1981, he survived an assassination attempt by members of the Mujahideen-e Khalq organization, who planted a bomb in a tape recorder placed in front of him while he was giving a speech at the Abu Dhar Mosque in Tehran. He survived, but sustained severe injuries; nerves in his right arm were ruptured, resulting in paralysis, forcing him to leave the pulpit for a long time.
Khamenei also volunteered on the front lines in the Ahvaz region during the Iran-Iraq War, which lasted from 1980 to 1988. He was among those who convinced Khomeini of the need to form the "Expediency Discernment Council" to resolve disagreements between state institutions.
After the revolution, Khomeini appointed him to the Revolution Committee he announced to form a new system for the "Islamic Republic of Iran" which included in addition to him:
Morteza Motahhari
Mohammad Beheshti
Mehdoui Kani
Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani
Mohammad Javad Bahonar
Abdolkarim Mousavi Ardebili
And this committee managed the country during the revolution and led negotiations with the Shah's government and Western countries, including the United States, during the transition period.
Among the most important decisions of the Revolution Committee was forming military forces to protect the revolution, named the Revolutionary Guards, the Revolutionary Committees, and the Mobilization of the Oppressed (Basij), and Khamenei supervised these forces until late 1979 when he resigned to run for elections to the Assembly of Experts (Parliament).
Roles and Responsibilities
In his political and scholarly career, Khamenei held various responsibilities at different levels, both within the ranks of the revolution and in the state apparatus after the overthrow of the Shah's regime. Among his most prominent responsibilities:
Responsible for media in Khomeini's office.
The third Secretary-General of the Islamic Republican Party after Mohammad Beheshti and Mohammad Javad Bahonar.
Khomeini appointed him as the Friday Prayer Leader in Tehran on January 14, 1980.
Elected to the Assembly of Experts in February 1980 (in the first elections after the revolution) and continued until October 13, 1981, after he was elected President.
Chosen in October 1981 as the third President of the Republic, serving in this role for 8 years.
Head of the Defense Committee in the Assembly of Experts.
The first President of the Expediency Discernment Council on February 6, 1988.
After Khomeini's death on June 3, 1989, Khamenei was elected as the Supreme Guide of the Republic.
In 1980, appointed as a member of the Defense Council representing the Revolutionary Command Council.
Appointed in the same year as Deputy Minister of Defense.
On February 1, 1979, became the commander of the Revolutionary Guards.
On August 30, 1983, he took over the presidency of the Supreme Council of the Cultural Revolution.
The first Deputy Head of the Assembly of Experts and the Assembly for Constitution Review.
In 2012, he was selected by Forbes magazine in the list of 19 influential figures in the world.
Works and Publications
Khamenei authored and translated numerous books, particularly in the field of religious sciences and political theorizing, including translating several works by the Egyptian thinker Sayyid Qutb into Persian, among them In the Shade of the Quran and "This Religion's Future".
Among his other notable works:
4 original books on the science of men.
Dissecting Islam's Vision in the Quran.
The Honest Model.
A report on the history of the Qom seminary and its current state.
The Imamate.
Guardianship.
Research in Islamic Thought.
Lessons in Understanding Islam.
The General Project of Islamic Thought in the Quran.. The Government in Islam.
The Role of Muslims in the Indian Revolution.
Sheikh Mufid and the Identity of Shi'ism.
Assassination
On Saturday, February 28, 2026, Israel and the United States launched military strikes on Tehran, Qom, Isfahan, Tabriz, and other Iranian cities, in an operation they called "Lion's Roar" and "Epic Anger", claiming to target Iranian officials and high-profile figures.
The Israeli Channel 12 reported that the Israeli Air Force bombed Khamenei's underground location with thirty bombs, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated that "there is increasing evidence that Khamenei is no longer alive", before U.S. President Donald Trump announced that "Khamenei is dead".
Trump stated that Khamenei "could not escape our highly advanced intelligence and tracking systems", affirming that "neither he nor the leaders killed with him could do anything".
Tehran repeatedly denied Khamenei's death through its officials, before Iranian TV announced his "martyrdom", shortly after Trump's announcement.
The Fars News Agency reported that the Iranian leader was assassinated in his office while at work on the morning of Saturday, February 28, 2026.
The Iranian government declared national mourning for 40 days, with official agencies ceasing operations for 7 days, and the Supreme National Security Council stated that "the martyrdom of Guide Ali Khamenei will be the catalyst for a great uprising against the tyrants of the world", while the Revolutionary Guard vowed revenge.
