Who is Ayatolá Ali Jamenei and how much power has Iran as a supreme leader

Who is Iran's supreme leader, what power he exercises in the country and what role his family plays in Iranian politics?

Ayatollah Ali Jamenei is just the second supreme leader of the country since the Islamic Revolution of 1979. He has been holding the position since 1989. Iranian young people have never experienced life without him in power.

Jamenei, who is in the middle of a complex network of rival powers, is able to veto any public policy issue and choose candidates for public office.

As Head of State and Commander in Chief of the Army, which includes the body of the Iran's Revolutionary Guard (CGRI), his position makes him a figure with all kinds of powers.

Born in Mashhad, the second largest city in Iran, in 1939, Jamenei is the second of eight children in a religious family. His father was a medium -ranking cleric of the Chiita del Islam branch, the dominant religious group in Iran.

His education focused mainly on the study of the Qur'an and obtained the title of cleric at age 11. But, like many religious leaders of the time, his role has always been both political and spiritual.

Jamenei, a skillful speaker, joined SHA critics Reza Pahlavi, the monarch who was overthrown by the Islamic Revolution of 1979.

For years, he lived in hiding and was arrested. He was arrested six times by the SHA secret police, suffering torture and internal exile.

A year after the revolution, Ayatolá Jomeiní appointed him leader of the Friday prayer in the capital, Tehran.

Jamenei was elected president in 1981, before being appointed in 1989 by the religious elders as the successor of the omeinií, who had died at age 86.

Ali Jamenei, who rarely travels abroad, lives with his wife with austerity in a residential complex in the center of Tehran.

Jamenei knows that he enjoys gardening and poetry, which smoked in his youth – an unusual something for a religious figure in Iran – and that he lost the mobility of his right arm in an attempt to murder in the 1980s.

Together with his wife, Mansoureh Khojesh Baqerzadeh, they have six children: four men and two women.

The Jamenei family does not usually appear in public or in the media, so the official and verified information about the private life of their children has been limited.

Of his four children, the second, Mojtaba, is the best known for his influence and the important role he plays in his father's intimate circle.

Mojtaba studied at the Alavi High School in Tehran, a school whose students are traditionally children of senior officials of the Islamic Republic, and married the daughter of an outstanding conservative figure in the country, Gholam-Ali Haddad-Adel, at a time when he had not yet become cleric.

He began his formal religious studies at the QOM Seminar, the most important Shiite Center in Iran, at age 30.

In the mid -2000s, the influence of Mojtaba in the country's policy became more evident, although this has rarely been recognized by the local media.

Mojtaba jumped to the scene after the controversial presidential elections of 2004, when candidate Mehdi Karrubi accused him in an open letter addressed to Ayatolá Jamenei of having interfered covertly in favor of Mahmud Ahmadineyad.

Since the 2010, Mojtaba has been considered one of the most powerful people in the Islamic Republic. Anecdotal stories suggest that he is Jameneí's favorite candidate to replace him. However, some official sources have denied these statements.

Although Ali Jamenei is not king nor can the throne yield to his son, Mojtaba has a significant power within his father's hard line circles, including the powerful office of the Supreme leader, which eclipses the constitutional organs.

The eldest son of the family is Mustafa Jamenei, who is married to the daughter of Azizollah Khoshvaght, a traditionally conservative traditional cleric.

Both Mustafa and Mojtaba served in the front during the war between Iran and Iraq of the 1980s.

Ali Jamenei's third son is Masoud. Born in 1972, he is married to Susan Kharazi, daughter of Mohsen Kharazi, a well -known cleric affiliated with the conservative Association of Masters of the Qom Seminary and is sister of Mohammad Sadegh Kharazi, former Diplomatic with reformist inclinations.

Masoud Jamenei has remained away from political circles and little is known about his life.

Before, he had directed the office that supervises his father's works, an institution that functions as a key propaganda arm for Ayatolá Jamenei. He had also been responsible for the collection of his father's biography and memoirs.

The youngest son, Meysam, was born in 1977 and, like his three older brothers, is also a cleric.

His wife, whose name has not been mentioned in the media, is the daughter of Mahmoud Lochian, a merchant with a lot of money and influential, known for financially supporting revolutionary clergy before the 1979 revolution.

Meysam has worked with his brother Masoud in the office for the preservation and publication of his father's works.

Little is known about Jamenei's daughters.

Bushra and Hoda are the children of the family and both were born after the 1979 revolution.

Bushra was born in 1980 and is married to Mohammad-Javad Mohammadi Copayegani, son of Gholamhossein (Mohammad) Mohammadi throats, head of Jamenei Cabinet.

Hoda, the youngest of the daughters of the leader, was born in 1981. She is married to Mesbah Al-Hoda Bagheri Kani, who studied marketing and taught at the Imam Sadiq University.

Subscribe here To our new newsletter to receive every Friday a selection of our best content of the week.

And remember that you can receive notifications in our app. Download the latest version and act.