Hojjat al-Islam, Seyyed Mojtaba Khamenei
Mojtaba Khamenei is an influential figure in Iran, known primarily for being the son of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader of Iran. He holds significant sway within Iran's political and religious establishments, although much about his role remains shrouded in secrecy and speculation. Seyyed Mojtaba Khamenei is one of the possible main options to succeed his father as the future leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran. [68] The death of Seyyed Ebrahim Raisi , another front-runner for leadership, in an air crash in 1403, focused more attention on Seyyed Mojtaba Khamenei.
"Hojjat al-Islam" (also spelled "Hujjat al-Islam" or "Hojjatoleslam") is an honorific title in Shia Islam, particularly among the Twelver Shia clerics. The term translates to "Proof of Islam" and is used to denote a high-ranking and respected Islamic scholar. Hojjat al-Islam is a significant clerical rank in Shia Islam, situated below Ayatollah but above lower-ranking titles such as Sheikh or Mullah. Individuals with this title typically have extensive knowledge of Islamic law (Sharia), theology (Kalam), philosophy (Hikmah), and other religious sciences. They often teach in seminaries (Hawzas) and write scholarly works. In contemporary Iran and other Shia-majority regions, Hojjat al-Islam clerics often participate in politics, hold governmental positions, and influence public policy.
Apart from Seyyed Mojtaba Khamenei, the Leader of the Revolution has other children, including Seyed Mustafa Khamenei, Seyed Massoud Khamenei, Seyed Meisham Khamenei, Seyed Bushra Khamenei and Seyed Hoda Khamenei. Born in 1969, Mojtaba Khamenei is the second son of Ali Khamenei. He has received extensive religious education, studying under prominent scholars in Qom, Iran. Mojtaba is often regarded as a key player behind the scenes in Iranian politics. He is believed to have substantial influence over the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and other security apparatus in Iran. His involvement in politics is often seen as part of a broader network supporting the current leadership.
Though not holding a formal public office, Mojtaba's influence is noted in various political and military circles. Reports suggest he plays a significant advisory role to his father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. His name has surfaced in various controversies, particularly regarding the suppression of dissent and the handling of political protests.
There have been allegations of his involvement in the rigging of the 2009 presidential election in favor of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Speculation about Mojtaba potentially succeeding his father as Supreme Leader has been a topic of discussion among analysts and within Iranian political circles. This potential succession is contentious and would mark a significant departure from traditional clerical routes to power in Iran. Mojtaba Khamenei's exact role and influence remain subjects of considerable speculation due to the opaque nature of Iran's political system and the secretive operations of its elite.
Mojtaba Khamenei is considered the most influential son of the leader of the Islamic Republic and has very close relations with the IRGC and security forces. He is mentioned as one of the possible options to succeed his father. Mojtaba Khamenei is a mysterious political figure in the Islamic Republic. Born on 17 September 1348 in Mashhad, is the second son of Ali Hosseini Khamenei; He is known as the most mysterious and of course the most influential figure in the Bayt, IRGC and security institutions. According to the narrative of the state media in Iran, Mojtaba Khamenei, after finishing his high school education in the Alavi school, entered the seminary of Qom and sat at the pulpit of people such as Mohammad Taghi Misbah Yazdi and Lotfollah Safi Golpayegani.
News sources close to IRGC and security institutions have published reports and memories of Mojtaba Khamenei's presence in the Iran and Iraq war fronts. According to these reports, Mojtabi is about 17 years old when he leaves for the front and is a member of a battalion named "Habib bin Mazaher" from the division known as "Mohammed Rasoolullah". A number of members of this battalion later became the most important intelligence and security figures of the Islamic Republic and often gathered around Agha Mojtabi. Among them, we can mention Alireza Panahian, Mehdi Taib, Ali Fazli and Hassan Mohaghegh.
According to the memoirs of a number of IRGC commanders, Mojtaba participated in a number of operations such as "Beitul-Maqdis 2, 3 and 4" as well as "Mursad" and "Walfajr 10" and he also asks the commanders to call him "Hosseini". In the "Morsad" operation, he mainly helps the commanders in the task of learning information. These commanders, including Noor Ali Shushtri, try to portray "Aghasid Demjatbi" as a brave and fearless fighter: "The Jerusalem operation was 3... When I was busy talking on the wireless and doing other things, they walked towards the line with Mr. Hashemi's son. No matter what I did, I couldn't keep them and they left. Then I called their division commander and said: They are coming, be careful that they don't break the line."
At that time, Ali Khamenei had not reached the leadership, and no one thought that Mojtaba would one day be called one of the most serious options for the leadership of the regime; Therefore, IRGC commanders such as Ali Fazli are even investigating the possibility of his death in the war: "Their martyrdom is not a problem, if they are captured, it will be very expensive for us in terms of publicity."
A search in the memoirs of the officials in the Islamic Republic sometimes reveals Mojtaba's unfamiliarity with the principles of warfare and war; For example, at the end of March 1363, IRGC commanders such as Mohsen Rafiqdoost reported that Mojtaba was "lost" for a week somewhere between Iran and Iraq: "They informed that they were stuck somewhere between Iran and Iraq; I went to Mr. He said: Let us pray that if this happens to them, they will be martyred: God willing, they will not be captured.
The mysterious face of the recent years of politics in the Islamic Republic was also mysterious during the days of being on the front; so much so that he performs his prayers in dark and secluded places and often in far away tents; somewhere away from the eyes of others; Like his current position in poetry and politics.
Mojtaba Khamenei is the son-in-law of Gholam Ali Haddad Adel; In 1377, Zahra Haddad Adel was in her fourth year of high school when Mansoure Khojaste Bagherzadeh, Ali Khamenei's wife, called the bride's house to propose. "Our lady asked them to introduce themselves; They also said: I am the lady of the Supreme Leader. According to Gholam Ali Haddad Adel, talk about the wedding will be postponed until the end of Zahra High School; "At that time, our daughter had received a diploma and participated in the entrance examination. After the preparations, one day the son and his mother came with a cloth as a gift for the bride and we talked, and after Mr. Mojtabi left, I asked my daughter's opinion; He agreed."
After the agreement of the bride and groom, Haddad Adel goes to visit Ali Khamenei; A meeting that speaks of Khamenei's satisfaction with this relationship; "They said that Mr. Doctor, we are becoming ourselves and our people; I said how? They said that the family came and liked it, and they reached a complete conclusion in the conversation." Haddad Adel and Sidmjatbi go to the intersection of Karim Khan and Aban streets to buy wedding favors, including watches and shoes; where according to Haddad, Mojtaba chose the cheapest watch; According to Haddad Adel, the cost of the wedding ring was about 600 thousand tomans.
Mojtaba Khamenei did not wear clerical clothes during the wedding; A subject that is of interest to his father; "Mujtabi is not a mystery; He wants to go to Qom and study and become a priest. Tell her [your daughter] all this so she knows." The wedding ceremony of Mojtaba and Zahra was held in Beit Dari; It is during the presidency of Mohammad Khatami; Most of the guests are from the bride's family; Among the officials, Mohammad Khatami, Ali Akbar Natiq Nouri and Hadi Khamenei are present; Hashemi Rafsanjani also shortens the meeting with Abdullah Nouri and goes to Beit from his office on Koushak street.
The result of this marriage is three children. Two boys and one girl. Many rumors have been published about the birth of the couple's first child; For example, due to some kind of infertility problem, Mojtaba and Zahra, along with a whole team of guards and security forces, including Saeed Emami, one of the main accused in the case of serial murders, went to a hospital in London, and the baby was delivered at a cost of over one million pounds. was born Haddad Adel, however, strongly rejects such a rumor: "This child was born with 500 thousand tomans in a normal hospital in Tehran; His doctor was the former Minister of Health, Marzieh Vahid Dastjardi.
Studying the memoirs and narratives of the security officials and the IRGC indicates that Mojtaba has become an unofficial and versatile assistant almost since these years (1376/1377); A process that has continued until now. In closed political systems, it is this circle of trusted people who reach the nest of power; The closer, the more reliable. Mojtabi Khamenei saw the fate of Ahmad Khomeini, although Mojtabi's role for Ali is more than Ahmad's role for Ruhollah. This is the case that if Masoud Khamenei spends most of his time with his mother, Mojtaba sits at his father's right hand; A sit-up that is now considered by many to be "leadership training."
Since the middle of the 1370s, the people of Bayt and many regime officials are well aware of Mojtaba Khamenei's increasing position and influence in the regime's political and security arena; Next to him are sitting most of the soldiers and commanders who have returned from the war; It includes the same "Habib bin Mazaher" battalion from the "Mohammed Rasulullah" division, which now works mostly in the fields of security and election engineering; The group that, in their first project, engineered the 2004 elections under the mantle of Agha and, of course, his great-grandson Siddimjatbi, so that an almost unknown figure named Mahmoud Ahmadinejad came to power from the body of the Revolutionary Guards.
The election in which Hashemi Rafsanjani received a political wound but remained silent; Mehdi Karroubi could not bear it, and after that his famous snooze, which led to a huge change in the results of the elections, in an open letter, for the first time, he revealed Mojtaba Khamenei's interference in the elections and Ahmadinejad's rise to power; But the answer of "Maqam Azma" was clear: "He is not Aghazadeh; He is a gentleman"; The answer that maybe "now" has taken on a different meaning: Ali Khamenei has been opening another account on this son for years; Perhaps in the dimensions of the next leader of the system.
Four years after Karroubi's revelation, Mojtabi's name reached the streets through the open letters of senior regime officials and the slogans of protesters announcing the victory of Ahmadinejad in the controversial presidential election of 2008; "If you die, don't see the leadership". In the eventful months, numerous reports of Mojtaba's increasing role in suppressing the Green Movement were published; Among them, the reports that informed about Mojtaba's private meetings with the leaders of the Green Movement.
A look at the memoirs of a number of officials in the Islamic Republic shows that Mojtaba actually entered politics and security affairs years ago; Requests reports from authorities and institutions and interferes in decisions; For example, on February 1, 1376, Akbar Nabavi, a member of the editorial board of Resalat newspaper, told Hashemi Rafsanjani in a private meeting: "Mr. Mojtabi asked us to present an analysis about the state of universities."
Among other things, he has considerable influence in the Islamic Republic of Iran's radio and television; The managers of this organization, who are appointed by Khamenei, are well aware that in many cases, the party to their account is the child of the person who issued their order. For example, Mohammad Sarfazr, the former head of the Broadcasting Organization, wrote in his book that Mojtaba gathered a group of intelligence and security managers in Bayt since 1376; A group that is practically considered a "government within a government" and their first exercise was "a crisis every 9 days" for Seyyed Mohammad Khatami's government.
Abdul Ali Ali Asgari has also repeatedly reported Mojtaba's direct and immediate phone call; "I was called before dawn and told that it was Haj Agha Mojtaba; I was surprised; When I picked up the phone, he said very calmly and simply that Haj Qasim was martyred at the Baghdad airport. Senior IRGC officials have also spoken about Mojtaba's special support in military and security affairs many times. For example, in a leaked document from the meeting of some IRGC commanders with Ali Khamenei, Amir Ali Hajizadeh, IRGC Aerospace Commander, appreciates Mojtaba Khamenei's special assistance in financing the IRGC's drone and missile programs.
Of course, Mojtaba's rise in the power ladder does not only require a security system; That's why he has been spending a lot of time in the seminaries of Qom since 2008 to please the clergy of Qom. The government media in Iran have been using the title "Ayatollah" for Mojtaba for years and publishing the link to register to attend his extra jurisprudence classes. Despite all these efforts, no report on the number of his imitators has been published so far. Sometimes whispers are also heard about Ali Khamenei's consultation with the people of Qom about his son's ijtihad and authority. For example, in October of 2009, a number of teachers and students of Qom and Najaf announced in an open letter that the reason for Khamenei's trip to Qom was to seek permission for ijtihad from authorities for Mojtabi.
Among a considerable part of the clerics and the security apparatus of the Islamic Republic, there is the view that the system should be maintained in its current condition by avoiding any changes; From this point of view, emphasizing Mojtaba's strong resemblance to his father is on the agenda; In recent years, numerous memoirs and narratives have been published by the officials of the regime, the key to which is one word: "Mujtabi is exactly like a gentleman". Among them are the words of Fariduddin Haddad Adel, Mojtaba's brother-in-law: "His view and vision are completely in line with the leadership and we feel relieved and confident in this respect."
To all this, of course, Mojtaba's direct supervision of Ali Khamenei's financial empire should also be added; Where, according to "insiders" in the government, at least 60% of Iran's economy is in the holdings controlled by Ali Khamenei; From Mustafafan Foundation to Relief Committee and from Khatam-ul-Anbia camp to Astan Quds. To understand the magnitude of the figures and just as an example, in the financial report of Mustafafan Foundation in 2015, the total assets of this foundation were announced as "56 thousand billion Tomans" [about a billino US dollars].
On 04 November 2019, in an action time to coincide with 40th anniversary of the Iran hostage crisis, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) took action against Iran’s Armed Forces General Staff and nine individuals who are appointees of, or have acted for or on behalf of, Ali Khamenei, the Iranian regime’s unelected Supreme Leader whose office is responsible for advancing Iran’s radical agenda.
Mojtaba Khamenei, the second son of the Supreme Leader, was designated for representing the Supreme Leader in an official capacity despite never being elected or appointed to a government position aside from work in the office of his father. The Supreme Leader has delegated a part of his leadership responsibilities to Mojataba Khamenei, who worked closely with the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Qods Force (IRGC-QF) and also the Basij Resistance Force (Basij) to advance his father’s destabilizing regional ambitions and oppressive domestic objectives. The IRGC-QF is designated pursuant to Treasury’s counterterrorism authority (E.O. 13224) and as a Foreign Terrorist Organization, while the Basij is designated pursuant to both E.O. 13224 and Treasury’s human rights designation authority (E.O. 13553).
For a long time now, Mojtaba Khamenei has been mentioned as one of the most serious options to replace Ali Khamenei; The clerics of Qom also confirm the seriousness of this option for the third leadership; The person whom the government media tries to paint a simple face of; A picture with a mandarin shoe and a rotten car carpet on the floor of his room; On the other hand, according to those who have seen him closely, he often has an expensive "Diopand" pen in his hand.
All possibilities about Mojtaba's political future are conditional on the Islamic Republic remaining; A government drowned in the blood of its citizens; with the least amount of legitimacy; deep in sanctions and growing economic problems; A government that is not clear how long and how long it can overcome the storm of popular protests with the tools of suppression and arrest; A clear picture of Mojtaba's gambling.
Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran and its first Supreme Leader, held clear and strong views on the subject of political power and its inheritance. Despite Khomeini's ideological stance, the reality of political power dynamics in Iran has shown elements of familial influence, particularly within the ruling elite.
The speculation around Mojtaba Khamenei's potential succession highlights the tension between Khomeini's ideals and the practicalities of power in Iran. His views are reflected in various speeches, writings, and actions throughout his leadership. Khomeini emphasized that political power in an Islamic state should be based on religious qualifications and adherence to Islamic principles, rather than hereditary succession. He promoted the concept of "Wilayat al-Faqih" (Guardianship of the Islamic Jurist), where a qualified religious scholar governs based on Islamic law and principles.
Khomeini was a staunch critic of the Pahlavi monarchy and the idea of dynastic rule, which was one of the main reasons for the 1979 revolution. He opposed the Shah's regime for its autocratic rule and the idea of power being passed down through inheritance within a royal family. Khomeini's vision for the Islamic Republic included a meritocratic system where leaders are chosen based on their religious knowledge, piety, and ability to govern according to Islamic law. This system is institutionalized in Iran through bodies like the Assembly of Experts, which selects the Supreme Leader.
Khomeini did not explicitly endorse hereditary succession for political power. Instead, he emphasized the selection of leaders through Islamic and revolutionary principles. There are recorded statements where Khomeini criticized the concept of dynastic succession and underscored the importance of the people's role in determining their leaders.
"Islam is against hereditary rule and considers the qualifications of individuals as the basis for leadership."
"The position of leadership is not something to be inherited. It is something that is given by the people to someone who meets the Islamic criteria."
These views underline Khomeini's commitment to a form of governance that contrasts sharply with monarchic or hereditary systems, emphasizing religious meritocracy and theocratic principles. However, the ongoing speculation about political succession within the Khamenei family suggests that the practical application of these ideals can be complex and contentious.
The 10th official meeting of the Assembly of Leadership Experts in the 5th term, which was held on the 15th and 16th of Shahrivar [07-08 September 2022], ended its work with the reading of a statement. In the final statement of this two-day meeting, which was held in the old building of the Islamic Council, points were mentioned which seem to be in response to the recent statements of Mirhossein Mousavi, and especially regarding his warning about the inheritance of leadership in the Islamic Republic of Iran. have became.
The statement of the Assembly of Leadership Experts referred to what was called "doubts about the future of the system's leadership" and stated: "Leadership experts, as trustees of the nation, in accordance with their inherent, legal and religious duty, consider the spreading of doubts meaningless and declare that the history of this assembly is heavy." It has indicated attention to merit selection and correct selection.
In this statement, it is stated that the Assembly of Experts, "the sinister plans of global arrogance and their people will be overturned, and this strong pillar will not be weakened by raising biased suspicions and fueling some baseless rumors". It seems that the reference to words such as "biased suspicions" and the use of keywords such as "the future of the regime's leadership" in this statement are directly aimed at Mir Hossein Mousavi's recent statements and statements, which the website published parts of on Tuesday, 18 August had published on his Telegram channel.
This suspicion is strengthened because the text of the statement directly mentions Hossein Hamdani, one of the senior commanders of the IRGC. Mr. Mousavi, one of the two candidates protesting the results of the 2008 election, who is still under house arrest, in his August statement, referring to Hossein Hamdani, who played an important role in suppressing the 2008 protest movement, said: "The punishment for that dishonorable general who He confessed to this crime and boasted about it, what was the point, except that his life would be wasted in exile as a victim of another tyrant." Hossein Hamdani, who was the commander of the IRGC at the time, called him the "collector of Fitna 88", during the bloody repressions of 1988, he was in charge of the Mohammad Rasulullah IRGC in Tehran, and was later killed in the month of October 1994 in the city of Aleppo, Syria.
Referring to the long history of rumors about the succession of Mojtaba Khamenei as leader instead of his father, Mirhossein Mousavi wrote in his note: "The news of this conspiracy has been heard for thirteen years. If they are not really looking for it, why don't they deny such an intention once?" Now, it seems that the statement of the Assembly of Leadership Experts, which explicitly mentions the "meaninglessness of doubts" and "merit selection and choosing the right one", is a direct reaction to Mir Hossein Mousavi's statement regarding the inheritance of the future leadership of the regime.
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