Israel claims that in Saturday’s attack on Iran, they also killed the supreme spiritual leader, Ali Khamenei. According to Israeli media, his body has already been found. It is not yet known who will replace him.
Khamenei was the virtually unlimited ruler of Iran and had more important powers than the Iranian president himself.
Sayyid Ali Khamenei was an Iranian Shia cleric and politician. Since 1989, he held the post of supreme leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran. He was one of the longest-reigning leaders in the world.
He was born in 1939 in the city of Mashhad in northeastern Iran. He grew up in a religious family, his father Javad was a mullah, a Muslim cleric.
In addition to basic education, Ali Khamenei memorized the Koran and studied Islam. At an early age, he showed an interest in becoming a preacher.
At the age of eleven, he put on clerical clothing and entered the seminary in Mashhad. Although his peers laughed at him, he gradually became a young clergyman. At that time, Iran was not a theocracy but a monarchy led by Muhammad Reza Shah Pahlavi.
Khomeini’s apprentice
After years in Mashhad, he continued his studies in the most important Shia centers – in Najaf, Iraq, and in Qom, Iran, where Ruhollah Khomeini, the future leader of the Islamic Revolution, was among his teachers. This shaped his politically engaged interpretation of Shia Islam.
More than half a century ago, Ali Khamenei joined the resistance movement against the Shah’s regime. He organized religious lectures and sermons in which he defined himself against the monarchy. He helped spread audio recordings of Khomeini’s sermons among the people. Although many welcomed Muhammad Reza Shah Pahlavi’s criticism, many wanted only the end of his rule, not the establishment of a theocracy.
The Shah’s secret police, known by the acronym SAVAK, repeatedly arrested Khamenei for religious and political activities. He spent part of his life in exile, from where he never stopped inciting people against the monarchy.
He introduced the Revolutionary Guards
When the Islamic Revolution was at its height in 1978-1979, he was among the famous preachers and mobilized the masses for a religious coup.
After the overthrow of the Shah, he was a close associate of Khomeini. He participated in the establishment of the Revolutionary Guards, which the European Union classified as a terrorist organization in February 2026.
Although he was a supporter of a hard theocratic line in Iran at the beginning of his political career, he was willing to make tactical compromises if the purpose was to maintain the regime.
Since the assassination, he has been shaking hands with his left hand
In June 1981, Khamenei was seriously injured in an assassination attempt in a Tehran mosque. A bomb hidden in a tape recorder exploded during his speech. The explosion caused partial paralysis of the right hand, so the Ayatollah shakes his hand with his left hand.
Even before he became the supreme leader, he was president for two terms. In Iran, however, this function meant only limited powers. Khomeini had the decisive word in the Islamic Republic.
After his death, they chose Ayatollah Khamenei as the supreme leader. In the following decades, he centralized power in the country. He rested his power on the Revolutionary Guards, a network of religious foundations and other influential elements.
Tightening mode screws
Currents of Islam that wanted to reform the religion or were left-wing were pushed to the margins of society. He held a grudge against the moderate clergy.
He had his own opponents arrested, punished them with house arrest or otherwise made it impossible for them to participate in political life in the republic. What he did not decide on himself, he left loyal clerics to him.
Khamenei liked to present himself as the supreme authority of Islamic ideology and the defender of “true Islam” against Western influence, secularism and liberalism.
“Satanic” USA
His government was characterized by anti-Americanism. He portrayed the United States as an arrogant power responsible for the oppression of Muslims in the world.
Khamenei’s regime has been supported by Hezbollah in Lebanon, Shiite militias in Iraq, Syrian President Assad and other allied groups such as rebels in Yemen. Through these allies, he had political influence beyond Iran’s borders.
The Ayatollah’s regime supported Russian President Vladimir Putin’s military aggression against Ukraine with Shahid-type drones. He called Israel hostile and rejected the legitimacy of the Jewish state. Khamenei supported Palestinian resistance movements.
The image of a modest clergyman thanks to state propaganda
In the context of economic crises and regional conflicts, he appealed to Iranian nationalism and the historical greatness of Iran. He repeatedly suppressed protests against the regime. He legitimized arrests, harsh interventions by the security forces, restrictions on the Internet and trials of activists with statements about the defense of the republic and Islam.
Several Western countries have imposed sanctions on the Iranian regime for suppressing human rights. Khomeini’s rule was associated with high inflation, corruption and unemployment. Many Iranians left to live abroad. Their community is also in Slovakia.
Iranian state media tried to present Khomeini as a humble cleric, the “father of the nation,” and his numerous portraits around the country were hard to miss.
