Mojtaba Khamenei, a son of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was named his father’s successor to become Iran’s third supreme leader.
The younger Mr. Khamenei, 56, is the second son of the ayatollah, the supreme leader who was killed at the start of the war in a strike on his compound in Tehran. Mojtaba Khamenei, a cleric, was born in 1969 in Mashhad, an important religious center in Iran, about a decade before the Islamic republic was established in 1979.
He grew up during a period of major political change as his father emerged as a prominent cleric opposing Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, the shah. He attended the Alavi high school in Tehran, which educates the children of many officials in the Islamic republic.
The younger Mr. Khamenei first joined the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps around 1987 after finishing high school. He served during the latter period of Iran’s war with Iraq that lasted from 1980 to 1988, and he is still known for having ties to the Revolutionary Guards.
The next year, his father was named supreme leader, replacing the deceased Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
Mojtaba Khamenei went on to study with the country’s most esteemed clerics in Qom and to teach in a religious seminary there himself, forging connections with the religious leadership and gaining esteem in their eyes, in part thanks to his father’s position.
He married Zahra Haddad Adel, the daughter of a conservative Iranian politician, Gholam-Ali Haddad Adel. The marriage strengthened his ties within the country’s conservative political establishment.
Despite his influence, Mr. Khamenei operated mostly in the shadows, running the office of the supreme leader from behind the scenes. He has made headlines only occasionally in recent decades.
In 2005, after the conservative candidate Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was elected president, reformers accused Mr. Khamenei of working with religious leaders and the Revolutionary Guards to ensure the victory of Mr. Ahmadinejad, a relatively unknown candidate.
Mehdi Karroubi, a reformer and one of Mr. Ahmadinejad’s competitors, criticized Mr. Khamenei in 2005, accusing “a leader’s son” of interfering with the elections. The supreme leader at the time defended his son, saying he “is a leader, not a leader’s son.”
Similar allegations were raised during the disputed 2009 presidential election, which led to mass protests.
In 2024, Iran’s Assembly of Experts met to plan the supreme leader’s succession. Ayatollah Khamenei said at that time that his son should be excluded from consideration.
His selection could ruffle feathers in Iran because it seems familiar. The Islamic Revolution in 1979 ousted the shah and, with him, it seemed, the dynastic passage of power, replacing it with the rule of clerics.
Installing the younger Mr. Khamenei in what was once his father’s role could anger Iranians who took to the streets in recent nationwide protests that started with frustration over bad economic conditions and turned into calls for regime change.
But selecting Mr. Khamenei would send a message, according to some analysts, that hard-liners tied to the Revolutionary Guards remain in charge, suggesting little would soon change.
Along with his father, Mojtaba Khamenei’s wife and a son were killed in strikes on Saturday, as was his mother, Mansoureh Khojasteh Bagherzadeh, the Iranian government said.
Farnaz Fassihi contributed reporting.
Ephrat Livni is a Times reporter covering breaking news around the world. She is based in Washington.
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