HE Grand Ayatollah Hajj Sayyid Ali Khamenei was the second Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, serving his country from 1989 until his assassination by Israeli/American airstrikes in 2026.
As the nation’s top political and spiritual authority for nearly 37 years, Khamenei wielded absolute power over Iran’s state apparatus, foreign policy, and military forces. His death marked the end of the longest-serving leadership tenure in the modern Middle East and plunged the region into a state of heightened geopolitical volatility.
Born in July 1939 in the holy city of Mashhad, Khamenei pursued his theological studies in Mashhad and Najaf before settling in Qom, where he became a dedicated disciple of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. During the 1960s and 1970s, he emerged as an outspoken opponent of the US-backed Pahlavi monarchy, enduring multiple arrests and internal exile for his revolutionary activities. Following the success of the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Khamenei quickly rose through the ranks of the new theocratic government, surviving a 1981 assassination attempt that permanently paralysed his right arm, and subsequently serving as Iran’s president from 1981 to 1989 during the Iran–Iraq War.
Upon the death of Iran’s first supreme leader, Ayatollah Khomeini in 1989, the Assembly of Experts selected Khamenei as Supreme Leader, a choice that surprised many due to his relatively low clerical standing at the time. Over the next three decades, he faced domestic challenges such as civil uprisings—including the 2009 Green Movement, the late 2022 Mahsa Amini protests, and the economic demonstrations of January 2026.
On the global stage, Khamenei formulated Iran’s Axis of Resistance, expanding the country’s asymmetric military footprint across Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Yemen. He steered Iran through a protracted, high-stakes standoff with international powers over its nuclear enrichment programme, using regional proxy forces to challenge American influence and wage war with Israel. His foreign policy consistently prioritised defiance over integration, aligning Iran closer to strategic partners such as Russia and China while weathering severe, long-term international economic sanctions.
Following his assassination in the opening strikes of the 2026 conflict, Iran observed 40 days of official mourning. After a series of sweeping funeral processions that travelled through major cities in both Iran and Iraq and attended by millions, his remains were laid to rest at the holiest Shi‘a Muslim site in Iran, the Imam Reza shrine in his hometown of Mashhad. Khamenei is survived by several children, including his second son, Mojtaba Khamenei, who was subsequently appointed by the Assembly of Experts to succeed him as Supreme Leader.
Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was not just a political leader, but a spiritual authority—his spiritual guidance holding absolute moral authority for millions of Shi‘a Muslims across the globe—and a symbol of national resilience, this reverence on great display by millions who filled the streets in immense collective grief and national solidarity.