Early life and education
Mashhad, Khorasan — 1939 to 1957
Ali Khamenei was born in the pilgrimage city of Mashhad, in Iran's northeastern Khorasan province, the second of eight children. His father, Javad Khamenei, was a Shia cleric of modest means who had trained in Najaf, one of the great centers of Shia scholarship; his mother, from a family in Yazd, was known within the household for her knowledge of literature and poetry.
The family lived simply, by most accounts in a single-room house, and Khamenei has described a childhood shaped by religious study rather than material comfort. He began learning the Qur'an at around age four and moved through the traditional stages of seminary education — grammar, logic, jurisprudence — under his father and local teachers in Mashhad, completing the preliminary and intermediate courses well ahead of the usual pace.
At eighteen he travelled to the seminary city of Najaf, in Iraq, to continue his studies, but returned to Iran the following year at his father's request, settling instead in Qom, the center of Shia religious learning in Iran, where he studied under senior clerics including Grand Ayatollah Hossein Borujerdi and, later, Ruhollah Khomeini.
Revolution and the presidency
1963–1989
1963
Early activism
Khamenei was among the clerics who mobilized in support of Ayatollah Khomeini's opposition to the Shah's reform program, an involvement that led to repeated arrests and, later, a period of internal exile.
1979
The revolution
Following the fall of the monarchy and Khomeini's return from exile, Khamenei joined the newly formed Revolutionary Council and took on a series of posts in the new Islamic Republic, including deputy defense minister and a command role within the Revolutionary Guards.
1981
Survives an assassination attempt
A bomb attack left him with permanently impaired use of his right arm, one of several attacks that killed senior officials of the new government during this period.
1981–1989
President of Iran
Elected president later in 1981, Khamenei served two terms spanning most of the Iran–Iraq War, a period of wartime mobilization, economic hardship, and tight domestic control over dissent.
1989
Supreme Leader
On Khomeini's death, the Assembly of Experts elected Khamenei as his successor — a choice that surprised many observers, since he held a lower clerical rank than several other candidates at the time.
"Our nation views knowledge and progress as a form of worship." — attributed to Ali Khamenei, in remarks on science and education
Nearly four decades as Supreme Leader
1989–2026
As Supreme Leader, Khamenei held authority over Iran's armed forces, judiciary, and state broadcaster, and the power to vet candidates for the presidency and parliament through the Guardian Council. He positioned himself as guardian of the revolution's ideological line: wary of Western influence, supportive of Iran's regional allies and militia networks, and consistently opposed to normalizing relations with the United States and Israel.
His tenure was also marked by recurring waves of domestic unrest — including protests in 2009, 2017, 2019, and 2022 — each met with a heavy security response, and by rounds of international sanctions tied to Iran's nuclear program and human rights record. Supporters credited him with preserving the Islamic Republic's independence and institutional continuity through decades of external pressure; critics, both inside and outside Iran, pointed to restrictions on press freedom, political opposition, and civil liberties under his watch.
Alongside politics, Khamenei maintained a public interest in literature and poetry, wrote and lectured on Islamic jurisprudence, and was regarded by supporters as a marja, a source of religious emulation for some Shia Muslims, though this status was contested by other senior clerics.
In his own words
A small selection of statements publicly attributed to him, drawn from speeches and official translations over several decades.
"A nation's greatest capital is its trust in itself."
Speech to students, Tehran"Justice is the criterion for the legitimacy of any government."
Public address on governance"Resistance is the path of dignity for a nation."
Remarks on foreign policy"The pen and the word can build what weapons cannot."
Remarks on culture and literature"Youth are the true wealth of any nation."
Address to university students"Piety without service to others is incomplete."
Friday sermon, TehranWritings
A selection of books and lecture collections published under his name
- Governance and Guardianship of the JuristLecture series
- An Overview of the Islamic RevolutionSpeech collection
- Sahifeh — Selected Speeches and LettersMulti-volume compilation
- Reflections on the Nahj al-BalaghaCommentary
Editions vary by publisher and are available through booksellers specializing in Islamic and Middle Eastern studies texts.
Death
28 February 2026, Tehran
Khamenei was killed on 28 February 2026 in a joint Israeli–American airstrike on Tehran, part of a wider campaign targeting senior Iranian officials during the 2026 Iran war. Iranian state media confirmed his death the following day and declared forty days of national mourning. He was 86.
His son, Mojtaba Khamenei, was elected by the Assembly of Experts as Iran's third Supreme Leader shortly afterward, in a transition that drew close attention given the manner and speed of the succession.
Legacy
Assessments of Khamenei's near four decades in power remain sharply divided. To supporters, he is remembered as a steady, ascetic guardian of the Islamic Republic's founding principles who held the state together through war, sanctions, and repeated unrest. To critics, his rule is remembered chiefly for the restriction of political freedoms and the suppression of dissent at home, and for a foreign policy that kept Iran in prolonged confrontation with much of the West and, ultimately, in the conflict that killed him.
His death closed the second chapter of the Islamic Republic's leadership and opened a new, still-unsettled one under his son.