Ayatollah Sayyid Ali Khamenei (born 1939) followed Ayatollah Rohollah Khomeini as supreme spiritual and political leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran. A favored Khomeini disciple, key revolutionary strategist, and innovative president, Khamenei was elected supreme leader by a Council of Islamic Experts on June 5, 1989.

Born in 1939, Sayyid Ali Khamenei was raised in a family of Islamic scholars in Meshed, a key city in northeast Iran. At 18 he began advanced religious training at Najaf, Iraq. Some sources claim that Khamenei also undertook limited paramilitary training in Palestinian camps in Lebanon and Libya. He moved to Qom, Iran, in 1958, where he became a close student of Ayatollah Khomeini. In 1963 Khamenei was involved in the massive student protests against the shah's Western-oriented reforms. The protests were brutally crushed, and Khomeini was exiled. Khamenei continued his studies in Meshed, eventually achieving recognition as hojatolislam ("authority on Islam"), a rank only one step...