Ali Khamenei

The Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Hossaini Khamenei (1939, Mashhad -) is the current Supreme guide of the Islamic revolution ( Rahbar in Persan) what corresponds to the dignity of Head of the State in the Islamic Republic of Iran. Its black turban indicates that it is a Seyyed, one of the many descendants of the prophet Mahomet.

Biography

The ayatollah Ali Khamenei studied Islamic philosophy and became professor about it. According to its adversaries, it would have rather limited religious knowledge and it admitted itself not having followed very long theological studies.

It is one of the principal figures of the Islamic revolution against the Chah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and one of the principal confidants of the ayatollah Khomeini.

Khamenei is named Imam great prayer of Friday of Teheran by the ayatollah Khomeini in autumn 1979, after the resignation of the ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri of this station.

In June 1981, the ayatollah Khamenei escapes an attack. A bomb hidden in a tape recorder at the time of a press conference bursts close to him. Seriously wounded, it loses its right hand and the use of an arm. It does not move any more that with a cane, but it gains a reputation of " miraculé" among its faithful and officially the title of “ alive martyr carries”, estimating “ God saved to me for heavier responsibilities ”.

President of the Republic

In 1981, after the assassination of the Iranian president, Mohammed Ali Rajai, Khamenei is elected president of the Islamic Republic of Iran, the first monk at this station.

Khomeini wanted to keep the ecclesiastics with the variation of the presidency but it failed from this point of view. The presidency of Khamenei was analyzed as that where Iran gave up all the hopes of secularism, and became much more monk.

He is re-elected for a second mandate in 1985. Khamenei as combined and friend of Khomeini, did not have a political line in contradiction with that of Khomeini, it was seldom opposed to the supreme guide, unlike the first president of Iran, Abolhassan Banisadr.

At the time of the war against Iraq (1981-1988), he obstinately refused a whole series of cease-fire.

In 1989, he declares “ unconditional and permanent ” the Fatwa against Salman Rushdie. In fact, the February 17th 1989, three days after the Fatwa of the Ayatollah Khomeini, the Iranian president, Ali Khamenei had indicated that “ the Islamic people would grant his forgiveness if the author of the satanic Versets reconsidered his errors”. Salman Rushdie answered “ that he regretted the moral shock which he had subjected the sincere followers of Islam ”. However, under the pressure, on February 19th, it made a recall of the law: “ Even if Salman Rushdie are repent at the point to become the most pious man of our time, the obligation remains, for each Moslem, to send it in hell, at any price, and even by making the sacrifice of its life. ”

He also congratulated GIA Algérie N for his terrorist activism.

Supreme guide of the Islamic revolution

With died of Khomeini, Khamenei is elected supreme guide by the Parliament of the experts the June 4th 1989. At its station some regard it as a " dur" mode, guard of the values of the Islamic revolution of 1979. Indicated by a college of 80 monks, it directly controls the foreign relations, defense, the security services, justice and the media. As of the end 1989, it is him which chooses the future general secretary of the Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, to represent it with Beirut.

During the presidency of the reformer Mohammad Khatami (1997-2005), Khamenei often slows down the policy of opening of the company and the institutions wanted by the president. And even with the president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, he does not hesitate to use of his veto against the decrees displeasing to him. In spring 2006, it blocked a decree authorizing the entry of the women in the stages.

At the time of the international crisis related to the caricatures of Mahomet, the ayatollah Ali Khamenei denounced the February 7th 2006, in Teheran, the caricature publication of the Mahomet prophet in the European press as being a “ conspiracy Zionist ”.

See too

List of the current leaders

Source

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