Ali Khamenei
Supreme Leader of Iran from 1989 to 2026
Ali Hosseini Khamenei (19 April 1939 – 28 February 2026) was an Iranian politician and Shia cleric who served as the supreme leader of Iran from 1989 until his assassination in 2026. A member of the Khamenei family who held the title Grand Ayatollah, he previously served as the third president of Iran from 1981 to 1989. His 36-year tenure makes him Iran's longest-serving supreme leader.
Born in Mashhad to the Khamenei family, he studied at a hawza there before settling in Qom in 1958, where he attended the classes of Ruhollah Khomeini. Khamenei became involved in opposition to Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, and was arrested six times before being exiled for three years by the Pahlavi government. Khamenei was a mainstream figure in the Iranian Revolution, and upon its success, held many posts in the newly established Islamic republic. In the aftermath of the revolution, he was the target of an attempted assassination that paralysed his right arm. Khamenei served as the third president of Iran from 1981 to 1989 during the Iran–Iraq War, when he also developed close ties to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). After the death of Ruhollah Khomeini in 1989, Khamenei was elected supreme leader by the Assembly of Experts. During the deliberations, Khamenei expressed reservations about his own religious qualifications and suitability for the position, as he was a mid-ranking cleric and did not meet the constitutional requirement of marja'.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 21, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q57336. VIAF identifies the subject as 79181869. The Library of Congress control number is n87935094. 1 of 8 selected statements include explicit references; 2 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1939, 2026, 1989 and 1981.
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This entry incorporates text from “Ali Khamenei” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.